Wachovia Bank is apparently engaging in a new means to maximize NSFs: they're combining debits into a single transaction and running that against the account balance, and if it bounces, they then charge a separate NSF fee for every single debit in the collective transaction. Apparently this allows for getting NSFs even if the funds were present to cover at least part of the pending debits.
As an example I have attached a sanitized screen capture from our company's online statement, and we have verified that no unlisted transactions exist. This image can also be viewed at its mirror location: http://www.e-f-w.com/images/wachovia_acct.gif
In the capture shown, the EoD balance from the previous business day is enough to cover at least some of the debits. (The deposit was processed before the debits, but true to their history Wachovia runs debits before deposits even though the deposit in question was also an automated back-channel deposit that should have cleared first.)
What Wachovia did was add the entire set of debits together, run them as one single transaction, and then expand the set back out and NSF each individual item. I cannot imagine it's legal to combine multiple transactions into one and then break them back apart just because it's convenient - I was under the impression that it was a requirement for bank-account transactions to be itemized.
Based on their processing, the running balance shown on their online banking info differs significantly from what's actually in the account. If the online info were accurate the day would have ended with a positive balance and no NSFs would have occurred.
We have also seen entries on our statements where they are double-dipping, charging both overdraft fee and NSF on the same item. We have not signed up for any form of overdraft protection of which I am aware.
We would love to discuss this situation with a lawyer.
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