I'm not going to call the banks "bad," but they are definitely in the business of trying to trigger fees. Once your checking account is flagged as a potential fee generator, they will begin messing with the timing of deposits and debits in order to try to trigger overdrafts. It's not realistic to tell a person living paycheck-to-paycheck to deposit their check but not spend a cent of it for a week while they wait to see if the bank has decided to credit it or not.
If you are in a situation where you can't stop overdrafting, a checking account probably isn't for you. I'd recommend keeping a savings account for check-cashing, but I'd rather pay $3 to Wal-Mart for a prepaid debit card and $5 in money orders each month than risk multiple $45 overdraft fees.
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