what is a Overdraft Protection Transfer Fee?

It means that you overdrew your checking account. The bank moved money from your savings account to checking to cover the overdraft. And they charged you $10 (the 'Overdraft Protection Transfer Fee') for having to do that.

Highway robbery, but it's less than the $15-$25 they would have charged you for bouncing the check.

Short answer: It s a fee for transferring money to prevent you from incurring an overdraft fee (usually more substantial).

Long answer: It s a way for the financial institutions to keep collecting overdraft fees from unwitting people after a regulation change in 2010 required that customers must opt-in for overdraft fees. The debit card product was initially marketed as a way to help you not overdraw your account. Unlike a check, the transactions are approved in real-time, so rather than the headache of a check bouncing, the transaction is just declined. However, financial institutions found they could make money by allowing these transactions and charging a fee. This was supposedly a service to customers, but before long financial institutions began increasing these fees and reordering transactions to maximize the fees incurred. In 2010, regulation E was introduced and required that financial institutions must have their customers opt-in to allow the institution to overdraw their account and thus charge an overdraft fee (with the exception of certain automatic recurring payments). I can t think of anyone in their right mind who would opt-in to this, so I m sure this cut into the overdraft fee revenue stream. So, financial institutions began pushing overdraft protection. They don t mention the fee, but it s there. Basically it s a fee they charge you to transfer your money from one account to another to cover an overdraft, but seeing as how the initial overdraft fee is an arbitrary amount, the idea that they are saving you from fees is ridiculous. They re charging you an arbitrary fee to prevent them from charging you a larger arbitrary fee. Or as I like to think of it, it s a fee for the institution to protect you from them. Only, now that they ve transferred the money from your other account to cover the overage, they are no longer assuming the financial risk that justified the original overdraft fee.

You spent more money then was in your checking account so your bank automatically took money to cover the cost from your savings account and then charged you $10 for the service. Otherwise, the bank would have charged you whatever the fee is for being overdrawn (sometimes that's a daily fee which adds up fast) which you would have had to pay for and then you'd also have had to put more money into your checking account to cover whatever was due. Whichever person you wrote the check to for more money then was in you account might have demanded that you pay their bank fees too since your check in payment didn't go through and their bank charged them for a bounced check. These days, $10 is a pretty low fee for saving you a lot of trouble and money.

Are you even 18? If not, this is exactly WHY Ebay and PayPal do NOT want minors signing up to their sites to sell things or accept money! LOL Go talk to your parents. If you let your account remain in the negative, it will get closed, and your name will be forwarded to ChexSystems which will bar you from getting a bank account for 5 years! If that doesn't happen and since your account is linked to your parents, more than likely they will go into your parents account and take $30 or $60. Talk to your parents and tell them your error so they can help you FIX it.