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Getting on the Caisse's case The average person with a bank account pays well over $100 a year in service charges and there isn't a lot he or she can do about it. But now a Quebec citizens' group is seeking to fight one banking conglomerate's service charges in the courts: the Regroupement des victimes des caisses populaires Desjardins is preparing a class action suit against the Mouvement Desjardins, claiming the federation has applied usurious interest rates to its overdraft charges. >> Under Article 347(2) of the Criminal Code regarding criminal interest rates, when bank clients are overdrawn on their accounts banks can apply an overdraft charge of up to $5, plus interest--but the interest rate cannot exceed 21 per cent. According to the Regroupement, many Caisses populaires are now charging up to 900 per cent interest on their overdraft charges. Regroupement president Jean-Yves Desrosiers says banking experts have told him his suit against Desjardins is "foolproof." >> Unfortunately, NSF cheque charges do not come under the purvey of the Criminal Code. They're decided by individual Caisse populaires and can go as high as $29 depending on the administration. Desrosiers says there's no information available on how much it actually costs a bank or Caisse to process an NSF cheque, but adds "probably many people would like to know." >> André Cajolais, a spokesperson for the Mouvement Desjardins, says that individual Caisses in the federation are advised to charge a standard amount for overdraft charges--$5, plus 21-per-cent interest--but that some of the 1,262 Caisses across Canada may well be charging their own potentially illegal charges. Still, he says Desrosier's group has got its figures largely wrong and has led people to believe overdraft charges and NSF charges are the same. --Jacquie Charlton
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