I would appreciate some insight from bankers that operate an overdraft service that either requires an opt-in or allows an opt-out.

A check is presented against insufficient funds. (Assume the account history satisfies you that the customer would repay the amount involved.) However, the customer has:

* opted out of your overdraft service or
* failed to opt-in to your overdraft service.

What would you do?

P.S. I'm not really expecting anyone to say they would return the item, but waive the fee. If you do, please explain why.

Thank you for your help.

'All of the Above'

If a customer has opted-out of (or exceeds) the O/D coverage, then the items are processed ad-hoc. A loan officer can decision the O/D up to the officer's unsecured lending limit. Given the specifics of your question ("Assume the account history satisfies you that the customer would repay the amount involved."), the most likely result would be to Pay and Charge. However, varying situations can (and often does) lead to any of the options listed above. I have seen them all used before.
For example, if there is a small dollar item (<$10), the fee is usually waived for that item, regardless of whether or not it is returned. It helps to reduce the time we spend fielding requests from customers to refund fees for the proverbial $5 cup of coffee.

Like tdogz, an opt-out customer would be treated ad hoc and situtation-specific information would play the deciding factor in the pay/return and waive/charge decisions.

In our environment, business customers, for whom we offer no automated ODP service, are subject to an ad-hoc relationship based decision process.

Consumer accounts that are not in ODP are not there because they either opted out/declined to opt in, or were removed for abuse. In either scenario, these accounts have their nsf items returned and charged.

We would return and charge a fee unless the customer has made a deposit to cover the item before our return deadline. We'd then pay and charge the item.

If it was an opt-out customer, we would probably return the item and charge the fee. If the customer did not opt-in, we would probably look at it as an ad-hoc item, pay and charge.

Same as Dani. We may also try to contact the customer to try to deposit/transfer before return deadline.