Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., has been fighting for more than a decade to ban bank practices such as the overdraft fees that spurred a Wachovia customer's class action lawsuit in 2008.
Melanie Garcia's complaint in federal court in Miami accused the Charlotte, N.C.-based lender, which was taken over by Wells Fargo later the same year, of re-ordering her checking account transactions so that the largest were processed first, a maneuver that maximized the number that would exceed her available balance and generate overdraft fees of $35 each.
It's a tactic that Maloney and others view as exploitative, but her bills addressing the matter have never garnered enough support to pass. Now, with Democrats back in the control of the House of Representatives after eight years in the minority and the 2020 presidential campaign heating up, Maloney's odds may have improved.