Wells Fargo made a lot of money on ‘Sort Order Optimization’

Say you have $100 in your bank account. You buy a candy bar for $2 from a vending machine, a coke for another $2, fill up $20 worth of gas, and then spend $100 on groceries. You’d think one overdraft charge, for the groceries, right?

Nope. The groceries will be taken out first, then the gas, then the candy bar and coke. Three overdraft charges.

It’s expensive being poor - and they knew that:

“Given our dependence on a small set of OD consumers (4% generate 40% of total OD/NSF revenue),” Zimmerman wrote, “a small change in behavior within this group can cause a large change in revenue.”