Reply #43: You would. And that makes sense... but

[FBaggins]

What if you had $850 dollars in your account and checks cleared for $800, $75, $55, $45, $35 and $10?

Pay the little checks first and the mortgage check bounces (one fee).

Pay the largest checks first and the mortgage check gets paid and five checks bounce (five fees).

In reality it appears worse (IS worse depending on your perspective) because the bank likely pays all of the checks in either case... so it's just a question of how many fees they charge.

It gets even worse when the following days see lots of small checks that might have been fine if it weren't for $150+ in overdraft fees. The snowball just keeps rolling down the hill.

The bank, of course, is correct. It's your responsibility to not spend money you don't have. It wasn't so many years ago that they would have bounced the checks (getting you charges on both ends) and you would eventually have legal problems for writing bad checks.

Of course that doesn't make it suck any less. :-)