The abusive bank overdraft is one of those hot-button items that people will bring up with friends and co-workers during casual conversation. You may frequently hear statements like, “I couldn’t believe it – I checked my checking balance online on yesterday and it showed three overdrafts – even though I was only overdrawn by $8.”

Other people are afraid to bring up the issue for fear of coming across like an irresponsible consumer. After all, overdrafts only happen when the account owner is careless with his or her spending, right? Well, not necessarily.

It is true on the one hand that big banks do not have the power to force someone to overdraw their checking account. But, at the same time, banks engage in practices that increase the likelihood of an overdraft – on purpose.

For example, many big banks have admitted to practicing something called transaction stacking, which works by their processing first the larger outstanding transactions from a given day’s spending. This increases the likelihood of the need to pay overdraft fees since any subsequent charges processed in the same day will result in one or more overdraft charges (provided that the account’s balance has gone into the red). Transaction stacking is a sneaky way to squeeze more money out of bank customers by processing transactions in a way that favors the bank.

And, banks do indeed profit nicely from overdraft fees – to the tune of $30 billion per year. You see, all of this came about when banks came up with something called “overdraft protection.” This ingenious money-making scheme poses as a consumer protection measure, when in fact it is a profit-making measure for banks.

Overdraft protection sounds like a real benefit, doesn’t it? After all, the word “protection” implies that it will help consumers by protecting their money. Sounds good, right? Wrong. In most cases, people pay more in overall bank fees each year than they did before overdraft protection came along.

In the old days, before overdraft protection, if you were to write a check for an amount that your bank balance could not cover, the check would bounce. While that did result in the payment of costly fees, it deterred most people from writing bad checks. The result: the occasional overdraft fee. But, in the course of a year it didn’t amount to much for most people.

Enter overdraft protection plans, combined with the advent of the debit card. These are the deadly combination that makes overdraft protection so costly. You see, unlike with the writing of a bad check, charging your debit card for an amount that exceeds your balance will still be honored by your bank. The result: overdraft fees, one after another. Many people end up paying $50/month on average in overdraft fees.

The alternative to all of this is finding a bank that offers free overdraft checking. This simply means that the bank will not charge you an overdraft fee, even if you overdraw your account multiple times in the same day, week or month.

If you are looking for a free overdraft checking account, be sure that it:

a. is FDIC-insured

b. offers online access to bank statements

c. gives you access to a nationwide network of ATMs so that you can access your cash quickly, when needed

For a complete list of banks that will never charge you overdraft fees – even if you overdraw your account – check out: http://www.squidoo.com/banks-without-overdraft-fees/.