BBVA Compass Sued Over Fees

BBVA Compass, the U.S. arm of the Spanish Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentina, faces a lawsuit from irate customers and their attorneys over its overdraft policies. In the lawsuit filed earlier this week, Houston restaurant Fat Butter has accused BBVA of deceptive practices, including posting debits out of order to increase overdraft fees.
 
A specific excerpt from the lawsuit claims that BBVA posted a large debit first so that it could claim overdraft fees and then posted several smaller debits, even though these transactions were not made in this chronological order. The attorney for Fat Butter has stated that these practices are blatantly undertaken to benefit the bank to the detriment of the consumer. 
 
Fat Butter is seeking class action status for its lawsuit, a move that implies that other accountholders will follow suit in seeking restitution for the bank’s practices. BBVA, however, maintains that all of its processes comply with the laws and that the bank does not have the technology to keep transactions in chronological order.

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