Looking at the sequence of events is this:
On October 20th his $900 rent check bounced becuase he had only $675 in the bank - and they held it open for a few days but ultimately rejected it. During that time he got 2 overdraft fees for other items.

Once the check bounced he had approx $600 in the bank, which he slowly used for groceries and renting Redbox/etc. (No big purchases like X-boxes or $300 bar bills.)

He SHOULD have know n that he didn't have that money just by using maths but he didn't.

I've been broke before I too used to use the "Try the debit card and if it works then you have the money" strategy. This was thwarted because some some reason he had overdraft protection on (more on this later.)

I can't recall the details of his records but at some before his SSI check was deposited he hit a BUNCH of fees - something like 27 in 2 weeks. So for $1000 in charges he made he got hit with $900 in overdraft fees. He's in the hole $191 dollars with them now.

He has not done anything else yet - but ...
1)I gave him $100 to open a new checking account TODAY.
2)Once the account is open he has to call SSI and get it routed to the new account.
3)I am asking him to pull complete banking records electronically for as long as possible - at least until when these fees started, but hopefully months before that.
4)We will (he and I) go in to the branch with his records and ..
a)Challenge them to prove he opted in to overdraft. He claims to have no memory of ever opting into it (and hopefully his bank records from previous months will show this to be the case.)
b)If they do prove it or we can't fight it, then ask very nicely for all (or some) of the fees to be waived.

In any case we will never contest the amount he actually spent - he made the purchase so he owes for it - but man, if the ATM card would have stopped working he'd have been in a much better situation now. (Meaning I'd just loan/gift him a few hundred dollars.)

Absolute best case scenario is he comes out with a few hundred in his pocket, medium case is that the fees vs. the amount he is in arrears evens out, worst case - he's where he is at today.

He's still 2 months of bounced rent checks behind.

But I see $2.97 Redbox rentals that incur a $27.00 fee - and soda purchases for $1.25 that also incur a $27.00 fee.


Also: No email/phone or mail notification was ever sent to him, until yesterday when a notice that he is $191 in the negative came in - we're going to ask why he was not notified - isn't that standard procedure?

He's been with this credit union for 20 years, maybe they'll cut him some slack.

And the new bank we'll get him 2 checking accounts - on for SSI that he will write rent checks from ONLY - and the other for living expenses/ATM/etc.