• TWeaK@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Someone might live in a country where such fees are illegal.

    • jarfil@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      SWIM lives in such a country, and recently got hit by a “virtual fee” for account inactivity. Since it isn’t a “real fee”, it doesn’t increase debt, which would be illegal, but the bank will still happily apply it the moment SWIM were to ever put any money in the account.

      SWIM looked around the web, and there are more people who got hit with that out of the blue… after they apparently introduced the “functionality” in 2018, but decided to “delay it” until 2023 because of COVID and stuff.

      Calling it a “virtual fee” and just letting them sit there without doing anything, allows the entity to claim having more clients than they actually have, and look like it’s being owed more that it will ever get paid.