Fee Increase Attempt Inspires 'Dump Your Bank Day'

suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from CNN Money: "Customers are dumping their banks in droves ahead of the nationwide 'Move Your Money' and 'Bank Transfer Day' movements this Saturday. Given the recent spotlight on attempts — and ultimate failures — by some of the nation's biggest banks to tack on new debit card fees, thousands of disgruntled consumers have already either left or pledged to leave their current bank for a community bank or credit union, which are known for having fewer and/or lower bank account fees. ... At least 650,000 consumers have already joined credit unions since Sept. 29, the day Bank of America announced plans to impose its controversial $5 debit card fee, according to a nationwide survey of credit unions by the Credit Union National Association."

Comments

Are the sheep finally waking?

[KaLeVR1]

I last had a B of A account when I was 19. They had the highest credit card rates of any major bank in the country. I shopped around for a day and found a bank with an interest rate 7 points lower than theirs. I moved accounts and a few years later found a credit union with a rate 3 pts lower than the new bank. So I cut my rate from 19.8 to 9.9 just by not being too lazy to shop around. For some reason however, 19 out of 20 people I tell this story to have ump-teen superficial reasons why switching banks would be too much trouble. The truth of it is, they are complacent and lazy.

There shouldn't be even a single person complaining about the bank bailouts or Wall Street who still has an account with these money pimps. If you do business with them, you are an enabler and partially responsible for the bank meltdown of '08.

Re:Are the sheep finally waking?

[Arlet]

I pay 0% on my credit cards. The credit card bills are automatically taken out of my checking account at the end of the month.

I'm probably not the only one

[denshao2]

I had heard of credit unions before, but I didn't know what they were and I didn't have sufficient interest to find out. I only researched it after this Bank of America incident. Now that I know, it's obvious to me that a credit union is better.

Re:I'm probably not the only one

[Phoobarnvaz]

I had heard of credit unions before, but I didn't know what they were and I didn't have sufficient interest to find out. I only researched it after this Bank of America incident. Now that I know, it's obvious to me that a credit union is better.

Love credit unions...but beware of any financial institution. The reason is that I had my account at a small county credit union in NW Arizona which had worse fees and customer service than any of the big banks. Found out after I relocated to another state and another credit union that their balance sheets looked like something out of a slasher movie with so much red ink with about 40%+ default rate on their loans/mortgages. With my current statewide credit union...they had around a three per-cent default rate on their loans/mortgages with more than triple the amount of branches all over the state.. Seeing this...I understand why they charged arbitrary fees and were more than willing to make sure they would do a B of A any chance they could get.

Understand that any financial institution can screw you royally...but at least most credit unions will treat you better than most banks. Just do your research beforehand. If you can't get the answers you want...there are plenty of other credit unions who will be more than happy to help you.

Re:I did

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I don't think that anybody has ever actually "joined" Bank of America, it's just that the probability that you become a customer by acquisition of your prior bank approaches 1 at around a decade or so...

Missing Information

[RobNich]

1. Federal government passes law that banks with over $10b in assets may not charge merchants as much as all banks have been charging for debit transactions.
2. Larger banks (the only ones affected by said law) impose a monthly, instead of per-transaction, fee to make up the difference, while smaller banks continue to charge merchants the same amount they were before.
3. Outrage is expressed by the uninformed and pundits who have an axe to grind, such as Consumers Union.
4. Larger banks lose customers to smaller banks, who will continue to charge merchants the same amount for debit transactions.
5. Larger banks reverse position on monthly fee but increase other fees in order to indirectly make up the difference.

Who exactly won? Thanks Dick Durban!