Banks make billions of dollars from overdraft fees. They maintain that the overdraft service allows customers to make vital purchases even when their account is empty.

On the other side, many customers are furious at how the current system allows them to rack up hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees without knowing they are doing so. Many of them claim they did not know they had overdraft service until they saw the fees. They want to be alerted when a purchase will result in an overdraft.

They also object to the bank practice of processing a large purchase before several small ones that occurred at almost the same time, so that each small purchase gets an overdraft fee that it would not have gotten if the large purchase had been processed last.

In small groups, discuss how much overdraft information should be shared. Here are some questions to get you started:

■ For what groups are overdraft services a benefit?

■ Which groups do such services hurt most?

■ Should people be automatically enrolled in such services, as is now the case for most customers?

■ Should banks notify customers that they are about to incur an overdraft fee? How would third-party processors affect such notifications?

Write an e-mail to your instructor summarizing your group’s discussion