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

I did

[riverat1]

I moved to a credit union 15 years ago and never looked back. Good service and no ridiculous fees.

Re:I did

[justin12345]

What the hell is a check?

Re:I did

[Drollia]

Many are part of the same Co-op so you can go in and Cash a Check or get money at no fee

Re:I did

[blair1q]

Oh, same deal if you want to deposit your check. If you can't find your own bank branch, you're going to be learning their bank-by-mail process.

Fortunately, these days, there are national banks that brag about charging no fees and, while they have zero bricks and mortar, they allow you to deposit a check by sending them a picture of it: Ally Bank is that. It's also formerly GMAC, so it might raise your Too Big To Whatever hackles a bit. They also, by the way, pay more interest than any other bank I can find.

Re:I did

[icebike]

Even small credit unions have credit cards and you can get cash at hundreds of thousands of Co-Op networked ATMs.
Most of the time the Credit unions even pay the ATM fees.

Checks you say.... I haven't written one of those in months.

Re:I did

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not as if you can't cash that check at a branch of the bank it was written on. OK, you'll pay a fee if you are not a current customer of that bank. You'll have to give them a thumb print, also. Maybe a cheek swab... full-body x-ray, etc.

You make it sound like it's impossible to do, but it's not.

But, be honest. How often have you actually *needed* to do this?

Re:I did

[blair1q]

It's this piece of paper with money on it that you get for the first couple of weeks after you get a job. You'll see someday.

It's kind of like bitcoin, but without the constant anger over being sniped.

Re:I did

[schnikies79]

I have a small bank, only two branches, because the closest credit union is 35mi from here. During college and for several years after, I lived hundreds of miles from my bank and it wasn't a problem. If I needed an ATM, I could usually find one in-network (star) and if I needed to deposit a check, I would drop in in the mail and it was available a few days later.

It wasn't that big of a deal.

Re:I did

[Mean Variance]

Oh, same deal if you want to deposit your check. If you can't find your own bank branch, you're going to be learning their bank-by-mail process.

You need to do some research. First, how many people have checks to cash while on travel? I would take care of that while home. But even if I did, I can go to any 7-Eleven in the U.S. and most credit unions in the co-op network and deposit a check. Getting access to money is easy.

My local credit union in Fresno has served me well even when I lived in the Bay Area for 12 years. It's amazing what can be accomplished with great customer service, even before ubiquitous online banking.

Re:I did

[Hardhead_7]

If I were a jet-setter that wrote checks, that might be important to me. But (A) I'm not. My work, like 99% of other people, doesn't include much travel and (B) I can't remember the last time I wrote a check.

Re:I did

[Bucky24]

I've been approached by credit unions recently that claim to have more ATMs nationwide than BoA has. I'm guessing that the bank itself doesn't own the ATM but I can get no-fee withdrawal from them.

You're right about the check thing, but not a lot of people use checks anymore.

Re:I did

[blair1q]

Often enough that I've held accounts at every major bank you can name, because there are no truly "national" banks, they're all regional in scope. This even though I've never had my direct-deposit sent to one of them. Actually there's one megabank I've never bothered with: Bank of America.

Re:I did

[Arlet]

So, it's like a direct deposit, but printed out on a piece of paper ? Sounds very cumbersome and archaic.

Re:I did

[whoever57]

Oh, same deal if you want to deposit your check. If you can't find your own bank branch, you're going to be learning their bank-by-mail process.

Credit unions have networks of ATMs these days. You can just deposit your checks/cheques in a nearby ATM that is in your credit union's network. I expect that they will have apps that allow you to deposit via your smartphone soon.

Re:I did

[blair1q]

N.B.: I also discovered that many American Express offices have actual banking facilities in them, and provide all these services as well. That cut down on my bank-hopping some, but not a lot, since AmEx offices are not as common as you'd think.

Re:I did

[bored_engineer]

My credit union has cooperative agreements with other credit unions. I'll grant that this doesn't come with the ubiquity of Wells Fargo, but I really don't have any complaints or any problems when I travel.

Re:I did

[Lumpio-]

Actually I've never seen one. The information age has made checks obsolete and extinct in all civilized countries.

Re:I did

[Anonymous Coward]

One of my credit unions allows depositing checks with a smartphone. Two of them allow depositing checks using a scanner. All four of the credit unions I have accounts with are part of the Service Center network, which allows me to access all of my accounts from any Service Center credit union in the nation. I have used this many times while traveling. It allows me to talk to walk into a credit union and talk to a teller like it's my own branch.

Re:I did

[riverat1]

I have no problem using the ATM's at other credit unions nationally that are part of the network.

Re:I did

[Enry]

My nearest branch for the past 15 years has been 3 hours and one state away. In that entire time, I've had to make only a handful of visits to an actual branch, mostly to pick up a check to give to a car dealer. My mortgage is through a local credit union, but my paycheck is direct deposit, I have checks and debit cards to pay bills, and online and telephone service for when I need to talk to someone.

Re:I did

[tepples]

Some employers still offer only the "cumbersome and archaic" method, as do friends and family who pay 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...

Re:I did

[tepples]

my paycheck is direct deposit

Do you celebrate birthdays or Christmas? If so, how do friends and relatives send you money through the mail?

Re:I did

[Anonymous Coward]

Find a Credit Union that is in the "Shared Branching" network, and you can go to any other CU in the network in the US and deposit/withdrawl your money, just as if you were at your own credit union. P.S. I work for a credit union and have set up the SB connections. Follw this link to find the CUs that participate.
http://www.cuswirl.com/

Re:I did

[Grishnakh]

I haven't seen an employer that didn't use direct deposit since the tiny company I left way back in 1999. With the small company I work for now, I've never seen a paycheck; it's always been direct-deposited.

When friends and family pay you, you're probably at home, in which case you go to your local credit union and deposit the check. And how often do you exchange money with your friends and family anyway? If you ever make loans to family members, you can count on never seeing that money again and having a soured relationship forevermore. Never make a loan to a family member; give it away for free if you can afford it, or just don't give it out to begin with.

Finally, there's always Paypal. For personal money transfers, there's no fee IIRC (you have to specially select that when you "send money", and you can't do it too often or else they'll lock you out of that option).

Honestly, this idea that you need an interstate bank so you can cash checks is about the most archaic and ridiculous thing I've ever read on Slashdot. This isn't 1980 any more. About the only time I deal with checks is when I pay the rent (using a cashier's check), and since that's outgoing rather than incoming, it's not really relevant. Why on earth would I ever need to cash a check when I'm traveling out of state?

Re:I did

[Enry]

I...mail..checks to the credit union to be deposited? This isn't difficult - there's mailers I can get. Never had a lost deposit. Get extra cash out when getting groceries for day-to-day money.

Also, most of my immediate family has accounts at the same credit union, so sending/receiving money from relatives is quite easy.

Re:I did

[billius]

Many credit unions support shared branching which lets allows you to cash checks, make deposits, etc at other credit union in the same network. I've lived in a city that has no branches of my actual credit union for 5 years now and honestly it doesn't bother me that much (although I will probably get a new account at one of the local credit unions soon).

Re:I did

[Grishnakh]

Even here in the not-as-civilized USA, checks are dying out, at least for those of us who don't work under the table and have real social security numbers (those who don't keep a very large check-cashing industry in business--these are stores where you can go to cash a check, for a ~5% fee or so. People who don't have bank accounts frequent these places, and if you drive through a part of your city that has several of these stores nearby, you know you're in a crappy part of town).

Re:I did

[Grishnakh]

It's an interesting bit of history, along with items such as vacuum tubes, buggy whips, and steam engines.

Re:I did

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you celebrate birthdays or Christmas? If so, how do friends and relatives send you money through the mail?

My friends and relatives are thoughtful enough to actually buy me gifts, rather than cash. Those that can't think of gifts send gift cards.

Re:I did

[unencode200x]

Many credit unions belong to co-op networks where you can do much of your business at a different credit union all together. The one I'm with (one of the largest in the country) allows you to deposit checks online and (if you have good credit) gives you immediate access to the money. Account is totally free. You can also push/pull money from other bank accounts and they pay one of the highest rates in the country, they have awesome customer service, lower lending rates, good rewards programs, and just treat you nicely!

Re:I did

[ohnocitizen]

So switch to an online bank. Or switch banks. Not all of them suck as horribly. I'm checking sites like this (http://www.mybanktracker.com/bank-reviews). Switch from one of the big banks, and let them know you are leaving because of their fees.

Re:I did

[shutdown -p now]

I suspect GP is not from U.S. I've been in a few countries, and U.S. is the only one where I have to deal with cheques with any regularity. In any other country, all cases you've listed are handled by direct deposits or wire transfers.

Re:I did

[Frosty Piss]

Four different credit unions, eh? Don't want the various wives and GF's finding out about each other?

Re:I did

[similar_name]

Checks you say.... I haven't written one of those in months.

I write void on them when I setup an ACH account. I guess I could just keep a copy/scan of one but then I would never use them.

I remember when I got my first check book. It was the key to my first bank account. I could write an amount on a piece of paper, sign my name and people would give me stuff. Then electronic payments via credit cards/ACH/etc. came. Bill payments seemed like the last to give in. The check book started as something wonderful to me and then ended with the memory of paying bills.

Re:I did

[Raenex]

It's what ordinary folks use to pay their rent. Maybe if you move out of Mom's basement you'll see.

Re:I did

[malilo]

I love people like you trashing credit unions when you clearly have done no research. I switch from Bank of America (goodbye, losers) to Alliant Credit union recently. Here's a summary of what I now enjoy:

- nationwide ATM networks. Basically there's one a mile from you anywhere you are

- no ridiculous fees, or re-ordering your mortgage payment to somehow find a way to overdraw the account

- I actually get a return on my checking account! Ok it's 2%, but still pretty nice

- I actually can write checks (I don't bother, I just send them from the bank online, it saves postage)

- VISA debit card

- most awesome: I scan checks and deposit them at HOME. I can also go to any networked credit union and use their ATM to do this. AWESOME.

Re:I did

[similar_name]

If I were a jet-setter that wrote checks

You'd be Leonardo DiCaprio.

Re:I did

[vbraga]

Can't your friends or your family just transfer some money from their account to yours? You know, using the bank website.

Re:I did

[similar_name]

people buying extended warranties on sub $1000 purchases.

Wal-Mart asked me if I wanted a warranty on a $50 microwave. I think it was $5 for 12 months. I cringed thinking that some people would say yes.

Re:I did

[zeroduck]

Don't even need a check for that in some places. My apartment complex can automatically withdraw rent from your bank account or charge it to a credit card.

Re:I did

[flimflammer]

I have never once paid my rent with a check.

Re:I did

[DogDude]

In business, they're used every day.

Re:I did

[justin12345]

Actually no, I pay my rent electronically.

But you're right in the sense that rent is pretty much the last hold out. Mortgages are generally all electronic now. I don't think I've paid anything else with a check since the 90s. All my bills are auto-billed. It was actually a problem when I moved to a different state, because they wanted a utility bill in addition to a lease to establish residency and I didn't have any.

Re:I did

[PopeRatzo]

And zero national presence. Credit unions are fine if you never have to cash a live check in another state,

That's baloney. I moved my family's accounts, my business accounts and the account for a micro non-profit I run out of Chase and into a credit union back in 2008 after the banks got bailed out. I travel all the time and there are tens of thousands of "cross-branched" institutions where you can cash a "check" (do people still use those things?). My business takes in a lot of wire transfers from Europe and Asia and my credit union not only does a great job, but they charge me less than Chase did.

Plus, I have a personal relationship with the local officers of my credit union and they're great. They've put me in touch with other customers of theirs that they thought would be interested in the work I do and they were a huge help when I made some significant changes to the non-profit. I doubt I'll be looking for a new mortgage any time soon, since I own my house and it's very unlikely I'll need anything bigger or more expensive once my daughter moves out, but if I needed to borrow money, they're ready to lend and I wouldn't have to jump through the hoops or kiss ass the way I would at Chase.

I so wish there would have been a referendum on the TARP bailouts in '08. We might have lost a bank or two, but the pain would have been long over by now and we'd be in a lot better shape without the $16trillion that the Fed has had to give the banks at 0% to keep up this charade.

I'm hoping there's some pain felt at Wells Fargo and Chase and BOA this coming week.

This campaign to move money out of the big banks is just the first of the real-world situations where the Occupy Wall Street movement and people like Elizabeth Warren are leading the way to forcing the economic elite to maybe think about learning to behave. Oh, and I figure I saved at least a few hundred bucks last year by moving out of Chase, so I'm sending it all to Warren's campaign and maybe $100 or so to the people from the occupy movement down the street in Grant Park.

Re:I did

[timeOday]

If I need to pay somebody who isn't on paypal etc., I can go onto my credit union website and have them cut a check and send it to the payee. No charge.

Re:I did

[A. Bosch]

A friend (we're in the US) dumped BofA for USAA and is very happy. And on the rare occasion he gets a paper check, he can deposit it via a UPS store

Re:I did

[Raenex]

The people I pay my rent to aren't a big complex, just private owners. I also use checks to pay small-time contractors like plumbers or the guy that mows my lawn.

Re:I did

[Lifyre]

I can do that from my phone any where in the world that has WiFi. My credit union also pays me ATM fees back up to $5 per transaction. What does your bank do besides suck and be expensive?

Re:I did

[KingAlanI]

yeah, the apartment complex I stayed in this summer had a website where you could set up recurring billing or make one-time-payments.
Granted, this was a big real estate company. Not sure if small-time landlords would have this set up.

Re:I did

[MagusSlurpy]

Many of the companies for which I have worked have required that the DD be set up in the system for the entirety of the payroll period, or else they would just give you a check. Seeing as how most companies have you do that kind of paperwork on your first day, you're looking at your first (and sometimes second or third if the HR department is slow) check coming to you on a dead tree, even if you set up the DD on your first day.

Re:I did

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Do you open your gifts at night, or in the morning when your mom comes downstairs with cake?

Re:I did

[MagusSlurpy]

The company that owned my last apartment* does that, but it also charges a $10 "convenience fee" each month - fuck that. What's especially interesting is that it's more of a convenience for them, since they don't have to go the bank to deposit and they don't have to worry about a bounced check.

*Empirian Properties - avoid them at all cost. Shady business practices, dick spent on maintenance, and you have to threaten them with legal action to get your deposit back - both I and a friend two states away went through that, so it wasn't just a fluke

Re:I did

[mark-t]

Spelling issues aside, it's what you pay your rent with when your landlord won't accept payments in cash (presumably because if they did, lots of tenants might prefer to just pay in cash, and they would be setting themselves up to be a target for a possible robbery on the day that rent happens to be due). One could also use a money-order to accomplish the same effect, but those cost substantially more than cheques, and much more difficult to cancel.

It's also what your employer gives you every payday when you don't work for a company with enough employees to justify the expense of them moving to a direct deposit system.

Re:I did

[Mister Transistor]

I was amazed to find that they have no branches at all anywhere in the entire state of Wisconsin! You'd think to qualify for "Bank of Fucking America" they would, you know, have to be everywhere in Fucking America?? I worked for the last 3 years in WI but lived in IL and was a bit of a pain in the ass not having any bank branches near where I worked.

Re:I did

[couchslug]

Thirty years ago for me. Safe Federal Credit Union has been excellent.

Re:I did

[Mister Transistor]

Probably a few did when it was originally a local bank in NY or wherever it started out. But you're right, the bank I signed up with 25 years ago has been absorbed Borg-style 3 times over, and now it's owned by the mega-corp BOA.

Re:I did

[desertrat_it]

my credit union has zero branches.

It does, however, have an app for Android and iPhone to deal with those odd occasions when those archaic pieces of dead tree called "che(ck)(que)s" are sent to you via an obsolete delivery mechanism called "snail mail". It also refunds all ATM charges.

Re:I did

[jellomizer]

I just wish the media will cover this more like Netflix. It isn't a political statement, it is just moving to a better service. The fact BoA was stupid to add a new charge in a mist of a recession just trigger a big switch.

Re:I did

[justin12345]

The spelling is correct in the US. From the New Oxford American Dictionary:

cheque |tek|
noun
British spelling of check 3.

check 2 |CHek|(Brit. cheque )
noun
a written order to a bank to pay a stated sum from the drawer's account: he was awarded a check for $1,000.

ORIGIN early 18th cent. (originally denoting a check stub): variant of check1, in the sense ‘device for checking the amount of an item.’

Re:I did

[NoisySplatter]

I have USAA. They also allow us to deposit checks with a phone or scanner as well. The best part is that the funds are available immediately.

Re:I did

[gumbi west]

They say the'll cash a check, but a friend wrote one out to me for $1,000,000 and the wouldn't give me cash. He was right there, no question the sig. was legit. I offered 25% cashing fee and they still wouldn't do it.

Re:I did

[gumbi west]

I think there is a check involved somehow, but I pay online and the landlord gets (I guess) a bank check that does not have my account info on it. BTW, this is from my local, small (6 branch) bank.

Re:I did

[Joe Tie.]

Similar situation here, except it's $15. Too much for me to justify being lazy about it. Though it's more annoying for the fact that it's the only thing I use checks for at this point. I could just be done with them otherwise.

Re:I did

[SuperCharlie]

Most banks have apps or methods to take pics of checks and deposit them. Maybe its a little technical, but people got used to texting and Facebook.. We use it all the time.. and since our move from Texas to Missouri, and our CU still in Texas, we use it pretty frequently since we run a web biz and a few of our clients use the auto-check thing. There is NO good reason to hang on to these bastards. NONE.

Re:I did

[SuperCharlie]

Ours lets you scan/take a pic/however you can get them an image, upload it and deposit it. We use it all the time..

Re:I did

[frosty_tsm]

Actually no, I pay my rent electronically. But you're right in the sense that rent is pretty much the last hold out. Mortgages are generally all electronic now. I don't think I've paid anything else with a check since the 90s. All my bills are auto-billed. It was actually a problem when I moved to a different state, because they wanted a utility bill in addition to a lease to establish residency and I didn't have any.

My last place wanted to charge me a 2.9% convenience fee for auto payments from my checking account (not credit card). I chose to pay 42 cents instead.

Re:I did

[justin12345]

Wow, that's a ripoff all right. The last two places I've lived took bank transfers, no fee. The current place knows they can't get away with a fee like that as the alternative is to drop off the check on my way in at the front dest. I imagine they prefer the transfer as it eliminates the possibility of bouncing checks.

Re:I did

[devman]

Generally if the bank can't do an electronic transfer with bill pay they will print up and mail a check. This is how I used to pay my rent to a landlord who didn't accept electronic payment. I personally have not drafted a check in years, but my bank had done so on my behalf once a month for the last 2 years (before I moved that is) and mailed it to the landlord for me. I do this for anyone who doesn't take an electronic payment. For the record my sample size of "bank" is only 3, but all 3 had this service.

Re:I did

[smoot123]

Wells-Fargo free for 20 years and have never looked back. Second best move I ever made.

Re:I did

[MagusSlurpy]

Yeah, that and the DMV are about it.

Re:I did

[mariasama16]

Checks you say.... I haven't written one of those in months.

I write void on them when I setup an ACH account. I guess I could just keep a copy/scan of one but then I would never use them. I remember when I got my first check book. It was the key to my first bank account. I could write an amount on a piece of paper, sign my name and people would give me stuff. Then electronic payments via credit cards/ACH/etc. came. Bill payments seemed like the last to give in. The check book started as something wonderful to me and then ended with the memory of paying bills.

My CU has all the necessary information for ACH accounts online, no checkbook needed. I still write checks though, once a year for the DMV.

Re:I did

[tqk]

So, it's like a direct deposit, but printed out on a piece of paper? Sounds very cumbersome and archaic.

No, it's more like that "Monopoly" money your gov't prints, but even less "official."

Re:I did

[Khyber]

"And zero national presence."

Bullshit, that's why there's a Credit Union Network that covers the entire goddamned nation, with over 22,000 locations, right?

Re:I did

[dryeo]

I'm in Canada and self-employed. Most weeks I deposit some cheques into my credit union.
Also all the credit unions, at least in BC, have banded together for purposes like sharing ATM machines which means I can deposit cheques in any credit union ATM or withdraw money without fees.

Re:I did

[ThurstonMoore]

Go to Walmart and cash the fucking thing.

Re:I did

[Jane Q. Public]

"Spelling issues aside, it's what you pay your rent with when your landlord won't accept payments in cash (presumably because if they did, lots of tenants might prefer to just pay in cash, and they would be setting themselves up to be a target for a possible robbery on the day that rent happens to be due)."

Technically, the Constitution says that nothing but gold and silver can be required as "money". Nevertheless, the Federal government, in its infinite wisdom (sarcasm) has instituted this system of paper money that we now have.

In the process, they passed a law that says U.S. paper money is "legal tender for all debts, public and private". [emphasis mine] That means it's against Federal law to refuse cash for payment of a debt.

I know why they do it, but that doesn't make it any more legal.

Re:I did

[faedle]

You obviously have never heard of the CU Service Center network.

Re:I did

[quenda]

He was right there, no question the sig. was legit. I offered 25% cashing fee and they still wouldn't do it.

I'll bet they were kicking themselves later when they recognised your friend Bill on the TV news.

Re:I did

[aevan]

What is the point at all behind giving cash? If they are on your xmas list, you'd be on theirs one would imagine. So you send them 20$, and they send you 20$..and the only people that are actually getting anything is the bank and postal service. Unless you're just doing charity gifts, upon which case...only at xmas?

I'd actually sooner see the giving of cash as a gift for *children*, as you likely might not be aware that 'little Jessie doesn't like Bieber anymore', and so safer to proxy it through the parents. Else wise, a well thought out gift or don't bother-just send a card.

Re:I did

[jjohnson]

Credit Unions typically join networks of other credit unions just to establish presence and services outside of their area. It's something to check on if you're considering joining one, but the issue you identify isn't likely to be one if you're just a bit careful looking at what's actually offered.

And frankly, choosing monthly rape by a nationwide bank like BoA, vs. occasional inconvenience because someone hands you a check... doesn't seem that difficult a choice to me.

Re:I did

[JWSmythe]

Ya. Don't hold onto that dream too tight. I have a little story to tell you...

I was a Wells Fargo customer. I was moderately satisfied with them, except when they screwed with me..

I had to take a trip up to Boston.. Fly up, rent a car, drive an hour, and spend a week working. No problem. When I got there, I caught the shuttle bus to the rental car parking lot. When I got there, they said "Sure, we'd rent you a car, but your card has been declined." I had plenty of money *in* the account, so I figured a quick call to the bank would fix it... Business account, business traveler, they'll get it fixed right up, right?

I spent the following hour on the phone, where they explained to me that there was possible fraudulent activity relating to my card. They couldn't tell me *what* the activity was, just that they had cancelled my card.

They did kindly tell me that I could go to any Wells Fargo branch, and get a temporary credit card. I asked which one was walking distance from Boston's Logan airport, as I had $20 in my pocket, and no car to drive anywhere, because I *couldn't* rent a car, because they cancelled my card. They didn't answer.

A few more phone calls, and becoming gradually pissed off, I managed to arrange for a ride. A coworker drove the hour *to* the airport, so we could drive the hour *back* to work. (Sorry B'). He also spotted me some cash, so I'd have more than $20 to my name for the week while I was there.

I am one of the many who had financial problems for an extended period. As it turns out, credit card companies really don't like it if you don't pay them for over a year. That bank card, and the cash in my pocket, was all I had.

I finally did find out where the closest branch is. 106 miles, or 2 hours, each way.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the concept of flying across the country to work on site for a week, they kind of appreciate it if you are there to work. Telling them, "Sorry, I need to spend about 5 hours of the 8 hour work day, driving to a bank in *the next state*, to fix some mental deficiency they're having, just won't go over very well..

I managed on the borrowed cash, and finally made it home, late Friday night.

So, I had the opportunity to get more pissed off until bright and sunshiny Monday morning. I went straight down to the closest branch, and asked for details on the fraud. They told me, "Oh, there was no fraud. We mailed you a new bank card. Since you never activated the new one, we cancelled the old one."

I tried to explain the absolute failure of logic in that one. Did they not see airplane reservations, rental car reservations, hotel reservations? They finally told me where they mailed the card to. Not my residence, where I get my statements, and the only address they claim to have on file for me. Not my previous residence. They mailed it to a place I hadn't lived for years.

It then took them about an hour to figure out how to issue the temporary card. They issued it, but it didn't work. So they tried again. and again. They told me I would have my new card, with my name on it and all, in 7 to 14 days.

14 days later.

I opened a new account at a local credit union.

21 days later....

I got the bank card and checks for the credit union.

24 days later...

I got my new card from Wells Fargo. I couldn't activate it.

Re:I did

[ad0gg]

Form of payment that didn't incur charges for both seller and buyer even though it is less efficient. Funny how that worked out.

Re:I did

[Aryden]

All banks will cash a check that is drawn on one of their accounts. You go in, tell them to cash it, show some ID and you're done. So chances are, if someone locally writes you a check, it's probably drawn on a bank that is near them.

Re:I did

[Aryden]

I used to pay electronically, till my apt complex charged me 3 times for 1 month. Now I pay with a prepaid debit that I post money to and use for online transactions. That cut all of the multiple charges per month shit out. Tmobile was doing it to me as well.

Re:I did

[mark-t]

Which is why such rent is always *advance* payment... and not actual debt.

Re:I did

[fferreres]

One now

Re:I did

[Arlet]

That sounds silly. My friends just log in to their bank's web site, type in my name, my account number, and the amount they wish to deposit, plus a short personal message. They then confirm the transaction with a security token, and 1 second later, the money pops up into my account. I can log into my bank's web site, and see the transfer, including their name, account number, and the short message they sent me.

Now, if for some reason, somebody wants to send me money but don't have internet access, they can go to their bank, and have them transfer the money into my account.

Re:I did

[saleenS281]

Uhhh, no. All of the major banks will cash checks from other banks. At WORST they will want to call the other bank to verify the check is legit before cashing it, but I've never once had an issue cashing a check at *insert major corporate bank* from my CU.

Re:I did

[adolf]

Wal-Mart cashes checks for $3, and is generally open 24/7.

I use them a lot for this service, which generally costs me far less than ~5% for the checks I cash there.

(Are Wal-Marts therefore always located in a crappy part of town?)

Re:I did

[sydbarrett74]

OK, so you keep a token amount of money in a national bank so that you can deal with emergencies, and do your 'real' banking at a locally-based institution. Problem solved.

In the absence of Glass-Steagall, it's all about giving the Wall St gamblers as little of our money to play with as possible.

Re:I did

[Some Bitch]

I'm in Canada and self-employed. Most weeks I deposit some cheques into my credit union.
Also all the credit unions, at least in BC, have banded together for purposes like sharing ATM machines which means I can deposit cheques in any credit union ATM or withdraw money without fees.

In the UK cheques for non-business use are almost extinct, the cheque guarantee scheme ended earlier this year pretty much killing off any remaining private cheque usage and many places won't even accept business cheques.

Re:I did

[Some Bitch]

If I need to pay somebody who isn't on paypal etc., I can go onto my credit union website and have them cut a check and send it to the payee. No charge.

I log into my online banking website and send them the money straight from my bank account to theirs, with the Faster Payments service the UK uses it's more or less instant even between competing banks.

Re:I did

[Sique]

In which business?

The last time I ever saw a check was in the mid-1990ies, when I won 100 bucks in a game. Cheques are dead here around since about 20 years. Everyone and his dog has a giro account, and money gets transfered from account to account directly.

Re:I did

[purpledinoz]

I don't understand why everyone hasn't moved their accounts to credit unions already. B of A is essentially bankrupt (propped up by cheap money from the Fed), so it's riskier to leave your money in B of A, plus all their fees and BS you have to put up with. It's a no brainer.

Re:I did

[osu-neko]

There are still landlords that want checks? I pay mine electronically, at her request. Used to write her a check every month, but one day she suggested it would be more convenient for both of us if I just used the bank's "Bill Pay" feature on their website. She was right...

Re:I did

[tepples]

Please see what I wrote about using the bank's web site in my reply to vbraga.

Now, if for some reason, somebody wants to send me money but don't have internet access, they can go to their bank, and have them transfer the money into my account.

What's the fee for that?

Re:I did

[Arlet]

What's the fee for that?

No idea. Virtually nobody does that anymore. Before internet banking was popular, the banks would issue books of transfer slips. You'd fill one in with amount, account number and name of beneficiary, sign it, and send it to your own bank. The bank would then transfer the money directly in the other account. This used to be free, and you could pick up free envelopes at the bank office that didn't require postage. I think they still have those for people without internet/internet skills, but I'm not sure.

The last time I used one of those was 20 years ago. After that, they introduced banking by dial up modem (directly to the bank), and then internet banking.

Re:I did

[Dr_Barnowl]

I'm sure Wal-Mart are happy to cash checks because it means they have less cash to bank.

The UK pioneered this approach when Tesco invented debit card cashback ; because debit card transactions are a fixed fee, it doesn't cost the retailer any more to process a larger transaction, but it does mean that they don't have to bank the cash, which costs them 56 pence per £100.

Wal-Mart probably pay less to bank cheques than they pay to bank cash. With cash banking fees at about 0.5% and cheque processing rates fixed per-cheque at about £0.65 , it's more economical for a business in the UK to bank cheques larger than £130 than it is to bank cash. If you're charging for the service, that's probably all gravy.

Re:I did

[bogjobber]

I was a Wells Fargo customer for about five years starting when I got my first job in high school. I applied for a $500 credit card my last year in college and they denied me. Granted, I didn't have much credit history, but what I did have was good. No outstanding or revolving debt. I had a stable but modest income. And they couldn't give me a $500 credit card? OK, see you later Wells Fargo.

I ended up getting a Capital One card right after that. They gave me a $500 credit limit with a crappy rate, but at least it gave me the chance to build some credit. Two years later, they upped my rate 7% and dropped my credit limit $200 for absolutely no reason. OK, see you later CapitalOne.

Since I've been with my credit union I've never had a problem with anything I needed. I have a credit card with them and they've never jerked me around on my rate or limit. I bought a used car with no collateral and no money down, and they gave me an extremely good rate. I wanted a $500 personal loan to buy a new computer after my motherboard died and all I did was walk into the bank and ask for it. No games, about an hour later I had a check in my hand.

There's no reason to put up with a crappy bank.

Re:I did

[Compholio]

But even if I did, I can go to any 7-Eleven in the U.S. and most credit unions in the co-op network [co-opfs.org] and deposit a check.

FYI, The CO-OP Network is for ATMs (triangle-ish symbol), the CU Service Centers are for performing financial services at a "partner" Credit Union (starfish-ish symbol).

Re:I did

[Wdomburg]

You realize that to some people $1000 is an awful lot of money. Or $500. Or even $100. You may have the money to replace a TV or vacuum cleaner or clothes dryer at a whim, but plenty of people still consider those major purchases.

Re:I did

[Sique]

Technically, the Constitution says something very else:

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

It just means that the States are not allowed to introduce their own money by a legal act, except for gold and silver coins. Monetary policy is thus a federal priviledge.

Re:I did

[Lehk228]

That's how I ended up a BOA customer, they bought fleet bank

Re:I did

[Alex Zepeda]

With the CU I use, a domestic, outgoing wire transfer is free (if you qualify) or $20 otherwise. Chances are the recipient will have to fork over some cash too.

Re:I did

[Alex Zepeda]

Wrong. Most credit unions in the United States belong to the CO-OP Network. This means you can use pretty much any other credit union ATM as if it were one of yours. You can also walk into many credit union branches and make nearly full use of their banking services. Hell, even 7-11 is a member of the Co-Op network, and many of their ATMs allow you to make deposits... gratis.

When I left Bank of America years ago over their ridiculous fees, the manager told me to come back the next time I wanted the benefits of a larger bank. Well, she's still waiting.

Re:I did

[TheCouchPotatoFamine]

and you can always send the check to your bank - and nowadays even fax it! What's the big malfun()?

Re:I did

[Semyazza]

It's called shared branching. You can use them. How about depositing the check and then making a withdrawal(http://www.cuswirl.com/). Additionally, you can always go to the bank that contains the account at any of their branches and cash the check. This also applies to credit unions if you are not covered by a shared branching agreement(highly unlikely).

Re:I did

[Toonol]

Jealous that he has friends and relatives that actually give some thought about him? Getting cash or checks for a gift is as much an insult as anything else.

Re:I did

[Rockoon]

Some employees only accept the "cumbersome and archaic" method.

Payday comes, but the money doesnt arrive in your account. You contact your employers payroll department and they say that the money was transfered and that you should contact the bank. You contact the bank and they say that the money was never transfered and that you should contact the employer.

Now tell me.. where do you light that fire?

When you get a check from your employer, this scenario simply cannot happen. If you deposit the check but the money never materializes, then you know that its the bank at fault. If the check bounces, is canceled, or you never receive it then you know that its the employer at fault. You know exactly where to light the fire in all cases. Even if you personally lose the check, then you still know exactly who to talk to about it to get a new one cut.

Re:I did

[cusco]

We sent a cash card to my brother-in-law in Peru, and he has no problem using it at teller machines there. $3/transaction fee, $400 daily limit, it's a frack of a lot cheaper than trying to wire money ($30+), in addition to being faster (one wire took four weeks when Bank of America sent it to the wrong country and then twice to the wrong city) and more convenient (almost any teller machine in any little town in the country).

Re:I did

[WorBlux]

Go to wal-mart, three dollar fee for less than a thousand dollars, six dollars for more, but less than five thousand.

Re:I did

[JWSmythe]

    Ya, but well over a year of no work, no cooperation from the larger debt holders (I couldn't sell my house, I couldn't get them to renegotiate for anything). I sincerely looked for work. I contacted thousands of places. I receive dozens of responses, most of which were insulting. No, I won't move to a higher cost of living area, for 30/hrs week, minimum wage, to be your senior level programmer.

    I did finally get good work, and I have paid back everyone that hasn't been satisfied with other arrangements. Yup, foreclosing on my house, because they wouldn't even begin negotiating with me, means that reclaiming the property satisfies the debt.

    The awful part now is, there are several companies who are trying to collect on debts that have been satisfied. As it turns out, there are quite a few companies who have acquired information (i.e., using compromised data), to make fraudulent claims on "outstanding" debts. Being that they acquired your credit reports through whatever means, they know your name, address, SSN, DOB, debts, owed amounts, etc..

    I got a call from one of them just a few days ago. It was from a blocked number. The first thing I said was that they've broken the law by blocking their identity. They asked me to confirm that my SSN ends in 1234 (not really, but they had the right one). I wouldn't, but I continued to ask what it was regarding. They gave up on getting me to confirm it, and continued on with the rest of the con. They gave me the last few digits of an account number, and told me I owed an incorrect amount that they were willing to reduce to another incorrect amount, as long as I provided payment information immediately.

    What kind of idiot would give checking information, or credit card, to anyone from an unknown company (but clearly a call center in India), who says you owe them something.

    I'm really loving the Mr Number app for Android now. I have a log of their repeated calls, and I never have to hear the phone ring, or listen to their voicemails. Calls twice a day, every day...

    Really, if scams like that work, I'm in the wrong line of business. If I can just call random people, tell them they owe something, and get their bank info, I could make a freakin' fortune. I won't those. I'm allergic to prison. :)

Re:I did

[timothyf]

I've lived in 3 different states and had no issues keeping my credit union account from my first state.

Make sure the credit union is part of an ATM network like the Co-Op Network, and you'll be able to use plenty of ATMs all over the place, free of charge. I usually deposit my checks this way. Most CU's make around $200 of the deposit available immediately, with the rest coming as the check clears, which is usually enough cash to last 'til it clears in a day or two. Or, alternately, sign up for a credit union that has online e-deposit; you can deposit funds by taking a picture of your check; no need to even visit a bank.

Re:I did

[Jane Q. Public]

"It just means that the States are not allowed to introduce their own money by a legal act, except for gold and silver coins. Monetary policy is thus a federal priviledge."

That does not follow at all. This clause explicitly says that states cannot accept anything but gold or silver in payment of debts, OR allow anything else to be legal tender for payment of debts (it says "debts", not just "state debts"). Debts include taxes. If a State cannot accept anything but gold and silver as payment of a debt, or allow anything else to be used as payment for a debt, then it cannot accept paper dollars or allow them to be used. The de facto currency of the United States therefore becomes gold and silver, and nothing else. Q.E.D.

You can't have that both ways. What that says is that even if the Federal government created some other form of money (whether paper dollars or plastic poker chips), States could not use it, or allow it to be used, for monetary transactions. So it would be completely worthless. There is NOTHING, anywhere, in the Constitution that makes an exception to that rule. Article I says the Federal government may coin money, but nowhere does it contradict what you quoted: that the money must consist of gold or silver.

Any other interpretation assumes they weren't using plain English.

Re:I did

[pnutjam]

probably went in the wrong account, basic troubleshooting 101

Re:I did

[EastCoastSurfer]

Mail?

I lived in a different state from my credit union for a few years. I mail deposited any checks I received and it only take a couple of days.

Re:I did

[Sique]

Wrong. It says not "allow", it says "make". Thus the States are allowed to accept legal tender as defined by the Federation, but are not allowed to make their own legal tender except for gold and silver coins.

Re:I did

[deepthoughtless]

LOL That happened to my mortgage within two months of closing. It was amazing.

Re:I did

[JWSmythe]

    Well, we do what we have to do..

    Honestly, I do have 2 other cards. The limits are too low to do much of anything with. Like I said, I was out of work for a long time, so my credit went down the shitter, and my cards went with it. These two are the cards for low/no credit people who are trying to rebuild their credit, but are typically used by someone with low income to get a few hundred bucks and let it go to collections.

    I couldn't use the other cards together to rent the car, pay for the hotel, or .. well .. much of anything else. I could buy food and gas on them. At least the one fill-up it takes for the typical week long trip.

    Since I'm still recovering, I'm not a horribly cash positive person. I plan for every expense, and taking $100 out to leave sitting in my pocket just isn't feasible these days.

    In the past, I didn't leave town with anything less than $500 on me. That didn't make a significant impact on my bank accounts, and it didn't matter if I kept it in my pocket til it was gone, or redeposited it when I got home. Those days are gone, and will be for quite a while.

Re:I did

[Pope]

Collecting rent in cash is illegal in a number of places as well.

Bank fees?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's incredibly rare to pay bank fees in the UK, so you can imagine my surprise when I find out Americans (and Canadians) pay bank fees at all. As for price hikes like these - what do the banks expect except people leaving in droves. First the banks get a bail out, then they get their bonus' and now they screw their customers just a little bit more with rate hikes. Wow - you guys really need better regulations!

Re:Bank fees?

[Grishnakh]

Our politicians have successfully convinced the voters that regulation of any kind is bad.

Re:Bank fees?

[Tastecicles]

not that rare. When I opened my account back in '95, Barclay's (lovely bunch of people they are) took my paycheque for £1400 and disappeared with it for six weeks. During which time I had to eat. Barclays had my money, they didn't want me to have any. I said to them, "Look. I need to eat, you have my money. I opened an account with £1400 and you're telling me it won't clear in until the account is approved?? What do you need, my first born? Just let me have some money so I can pay my rent and eat!"

So they "loan" me £100. See, told you they were lovely people. At an interest rate roughly equivalent to 16800%APR. That £1400? I saw precisely £100 of it. STILL arguing with them about it.

From that point until 2006 I have worked and had my money paid into a Barclay's cash account. In that time Barclay's have "charged" me something like £9,000 in "administration fees", "overdraft charges", and *letters to tell me I'm overdrawn and they're charging me a £25 "unauthorised overdraft fee" at £17.50 a time*.

Since 2006 I get paid in coin gold. I accept no other form of remittance for my time and skill. In order to interact with the fiat market... well, I'm forced to redeem the gold for fiat currency. I feel dirty.

Re:Bank fees?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Our politicians have successfully convinced the voters that regulation of any kind is bad.

Regulation is never bad when the regulators have more information than the market participants they're trying to regulate.

Re:Bank fees?

[Attila Dimedici]

Then how come every time things go wrong because of regulations that those politicians implemented, people call for those politicians to pass more regulations?

Re:Bank fees?

[tomhudson]

you can imagine my surprise when I find out Americans (and Canadians) pay bank fees at all

That *IS* surprising, because all Canadian banks have to offer at least one no-fees type account by law. Go to TD Canada Trust - branches open 7 days a week,checking account with 10 free cheques/debit transactions per month if you maintain a minimum balance, pay online, no holds on direct deposit of pay, etc.

And if you're 60 or over, no monthly fee, no minimum balance, unlimited transactions/checks, free personalized cheques, free bank drafts/travelers checks ($USD or $CAN), free bank-by-mail.

Of course, the deal for people living in most states isn't quite so good (TD Bank instead of TD Canada Trust), but it still beats out most US-based banks.

Re:Bank fees?

[optimism]

Regulation is never bad when the regulators have more information than the market participants they're trying to regulate.

Except when the regulators are the market participants, just swapping roles through the revolving door between Wall St and SEC, FINRA, Fed, etc.

This is exactly the situation with the US "financial system".

The SEC is similar to the FDIC in broad stroke: A sham, a "government" front, that provides the masses with the illusion of policing and protection, when in fact they are aiding and abetting the financial rapists.

I can understand if you didn't see this 10 years ago, or maybe even 5 years ago, but it has been clearly proven in the last 3 years.

Re:Bank fees?

[fafaforza]

But doesn't the fact that most banks aren't following BoA with fee increases indicate that the customers can still vote with their wallets and regulation isn't necessary? And it was regulation that pushed these banks to try to nickel and dime its customers in the first place. I don't think the government is smart enough to stay ahead of banks, even if they wanted to. What lawyer will work for the government when they could be making ten fold in the public sector.

Re:Bank fees?

[19thNervousBreakdown]

So, a bank straight-up stole £1300 from you, and you staid with them? And then they continued to be terrible to you, so ... you decided you had to be paid in gold

Totally serious, are you insane? Like, are these the things that legitimately crazy people do? Or is there no choice in banks in England? And getting paid in gold somehow makes life less hassle, or you get ... like ... more money? From being paid in ... gold coins? Are you Mario, or perhaps Harry Potter?

Re:Bank fees?

[TheEyes]

No, it just means that the giant commercial banks are going to get sneaky with hidden fees, rather than up-front screwing you.

The problem isn't regulation, or lack thereof, it's that banks have become "too big to fail." The solution to that isn't some Tea Party craziness of cutting spending in a recession, it's to take the money away from the banks that have gotten too big and give them to a bunch of smaller banks, because banking actually is a free market, unlike say internet service or government contractors. If banks have to work more competing for your dollar, then they won't have as much time and money to spend bribing politicians and playing silly games with the stock market.

Re:Bank fees?

[Tastecicles]

doesn't help when regular paid employment only pays direct into BANK ACCOUNTS these days and Barclays were the ONLY BANK THAT WOULD CONSIDER ME FOR A PERSONAL ACCOUNT and that I DIDN'T KNOW OF ANY ALTERNATIVES until I was made aware in 2006 that gold is not subject to tax of any description SO I SWITCHED THEN. So now I take short contract work and take payment in gold. And no, I'm not either of those fictional characters. And yes, it does mean more fiat currency since the value of gold against the Almighty Greenback is increasing ALL THE DAMN TIME.

Re:Bank fees?

[Tastecicles]

read the above. Given the lack of options, it was either be legally arsefucked or don't get paid, period.

Re:Bank fees?

[Aardpig]

Ah, I understand now. You're a nutjob.

Re:Bank fees?

[sqrt(2)]

The narrative of the last 30 years has been: deregulation, things get much worse fo the lower and middle class, bankers convince people that the problem is still too much regulation, more deregulation, things get even worse, bankers blame the remaining regulation, more deregulation still, things get even worse, and on and on.

Now that doesn't mean that all regulation is good, but the only thing worse than bad regulation on the finance sector is no regulation at all.

Re:Bank fees?

[Patch86]

That's pretty universal, not just Nationwide. If you get a chequebook with your bank account, that's a book of uncleared cheques- when you hand it over to someone, there's no guarantee on the part of the issuing bank (your bank) that any money will actually be paid (for example, if you've written a cheque that you can't afford, or you unexpectedly close your account). When you get a cheque over the counter, it's a completely different thing- it's a cleared cheque, your account is debited immediately and the money is moved into escrow, and the recipient is 100% guaranteed payment. Almost all banks and building societies charge for this service, in comparison to the usually free conventional cheques. Even if you had opted to have a chequebook, they would still have charged you for a banker's draft cheque.

The morale of the story is to pick a bank account with all the features you actually need. If you need cheques, you should pick an account that offers cheques.

(Incidentally, I'm surprised you did need a cheque to pay a mortgage. Most institutions will accept payment by debit card these days, and if not there's always electronic transfers (which aren't ideal for personal transactions, but are absolutely designed for paying money from one bank account to another)).

Re:Bank fees?

[Attila Dimedici]

Yes, that has been the narrative. But the actual fact is that banks are under more regulations today than they were 30 years ago. What happens is that there is "deregulation" where they replace not very onerous, but useful regulations with regulations that are more expensive to demonstrate compliance with. The result of this is that smaller banks cannot afford to demonstrate that they are in compliance with the regulations and merge with larger banks until now we have several banks which are "too large to fail".
Barney Frank and Chris Dodd were two of the loudest voices resisting reformation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac when it became obvious to those with a bit of foresight that the housing market was a bubble that was going to pop. Then when it did and brought down the whole financial sector, they were the two chosen to draft the "reforms" to "keep it from happening again."

Re:Bank fees?

[mikael]

Another thing was "double-dipping" in the USA.

In the UK, if you use an ATM that isn't part of your bank, the other bank sometimes charges a handling fee (sometimes 1.5% of the transaction or a fixed £1.50 amount). That's called "dipping".

In the USA, both your bank and the other bank would charge you for making a transaction. That's called "double-dipping". California moved to make that illegal.

Re:Bank fees?

[i_ate_god]

I'm canadian. My tax money did not go to bail out a single bank. I think our regulation is pretty good.

Re:Bank fees?

[fafaforza]

But many of these "hidden" fees aren't all that hidden. If you pay attention, you will see them. And if they are egregious, then you can move your money and let the bank know why. The too-big-to-fail term really refers to their significance in running the economy as far as the flow of money, the number of deposits they control. As far as a depositor is concerned, it might only affect them in that these banks are omnipresent. But as can be seen here, there are options, and you *can* vote with your wallet. Nothing is forcing you to be with these banks. But of course, having a BoA or HSBC ATM around every other corner *is* convenient. But then again, someone has to pay for that convenience.

Re:Bank fees?

[TheRaven64]

Barclays were the ONLY BANK THAT WOULD CONSIDER ME FOR A PERSONAL ACCOUNT

Your story is full of WTFs, but this one seems like one of the most strange. Are you certified mentally ill or a discharged bankrupt? These are the only two reasons I've heard of any of the high-street banks refusing someone a current account, and neither of them makes you the kind of person I'd listen to for financial advice.

Re:Bank fees?

[j-beda]

Both PC Financial and INGDirect offer "no fee" accounts that actually pay some interest and actually have no fees. We have been using PCF for more than 12 years now as our primary bank with quite high satisfaction - there are kiosks in most grocers across the country since all of them are pretty much owned by the one evil corporation Lowblaws, and CIBC ATMs are also available for all services with no fees.

http://www.pcfinancial.ca/
http://www.ingdirect.ca/

Our local credit union choices are not as good as out in BC, where VanCity has gotten as large and ubiquitous as any of the major banks. Our US Credit Union account is still being used, but since our mortgage and investment company got purchased by Bank of America a while back, we now have a BoA chequing account.

Thinking about "switching"

[Daetrin]

I've been thinking about switching my money from my primary checking account over to a credit union, though if i do i may very well keep my BoA account with a minimal amount of money in it and just not use it. It's the same account my parents helped me set up as a teen at what was then our local Seafirst bank. Despite having been bought out by BoA decades ago (or maybe because i felt like it was killed rather than having the chance to become disenamored of it like BoA later) i still feel rather attached to the account. But i'm strangely sentimental like that.

Re:Thinking about "switching"

[Cephas Aurelius]

This is an important sentimentality to reflect on. Banks and other businesses count on emotion and habit to keep our business even when their quality suffers. Does the BofA you see today reflect the values of Seafirst? Would your parents still recommend that you do business there? If you are feeling sentimental, frame your debit card after you close the account.

Re:Thinking about "switching"

[kimvette]

I've been with credit unions for several years now; I keep around $5K in BoA for convenience sake, but keep most of my liquid cash in credit unions. My credit unions don't insist on treating me like a criminal by fingerprinting me if I dare cash a check, they don't dehumanize services by refusing to let me talk to decision makers, don't nickel-and-dime me for services like BoA does. The down side to a credit union is there are fewer branches and fewer ATMs, so if I am out of town and need cash to dine or shop somewhere that doesn't accept AmEx, I have my BoA account for convenience. However, I'm seriously considering punting BoA altogether and just carry more cash instead.

One huge, huge benefit of credit unions is the ability to talk to decision makers, and have them check business and personal references if you have limited credit history. About ten years ago when I started my business, I made a huge, huge mistake: I closed my personal credit accounts, and built up corporate credit. I did not have a single credit line for personal use, and I needed a loan. So, I went to the banks and was turned down for a loan by several banks (citing the lack of credit history - if you go without using credit for 7 years, your credit record is "scolled out"), and couldn't talk to a decision maker. So, I went to a credit union and they turned me down at first, so I worked my way up the food chain and talked to decision makers. They checked my personal and business references, and I was able to get financing. I ended up moving a decent chunk of funds to that credit union.

Now, interesting thing: one of the banks I went to has financed several cars for one of my friends. He has horrible, horrible credit; he has had a home forclosed on, three vehicles repossessed, and they granted him another car loan shortly before I went to speak with that same rep. His interest rate sucked, but he was able to get financing. I asked about it, mentioning my friend by name and asking why with his irresponsible history he was granted financing, but with my responsible history I couldn't. His response? "He has credit. You don't." So I asked "So, you are telling me a bad credit history is better than no credit history?" His response was yes. That just pissed me off - and that kind of thinking is exactly why so many banks have needed bailout courtesy of us taxpayers.

Fuck banks. We never should have bailed them out.

Re:Thinking about "switching"

[Anonymous Coward]

There's credit unions in pretty much all cities of any decent size and the vast majority don't charge other credit union members fees. Just an FYI in case you missed that in your literature.

Re:Thinking about "switching"

[Filip22012005]

I don't live in the US, and because of that I don't understand everything in your post.

I understand "credit history" is checked to see if you are a reliable loaner. Why would they turn you down if you don't have a credit history? I'd think that someone without a history of loaning is very eager to pay back. Or am I misunderstanding what credit history is? Can you have a loan somewhere without it turning up in your history?

Re:Thinking about "switching"

[soundguy]

I've been thinking about switching my money from my primary checking account over to a credit union, though if i do i may very well keep my BoA account with a minimal amount of money in it and just not use it. It's the same account my parents helped me set up as a teen at what was then our local Seafirst bank. Despite having been bought out by BoA decades ago (or maybe because i felt like it was killed rather than having the chance to become disenamored of it like BoA later) i still feel rather attached to the account. But i'm strangely sentimental like that.

You're probably being sentimental about BOA then. Unless you are fairly old, you never really had a Seattle First Bank account. BOA bought them in 1985. They just didn't bother to change the signs out front until 2000. It has taken them another decade to actually bring them into the fold completely. Did you notice that online banking for Washington and Idaho accounts was down or limited a few weeks ago, and then when it came back up it was completely different? We're now on the national systems.

Re:Thinking about "switching"

[zephvark]

>Fuck banks. We never should have bailed them out. Well, yes. We all knew that. We all were against it. And the Government did it anyway. Hence, the Tea Party and the Occupy Whatever movements, although it's not remotely clear that they understand it's the Government that is the problem. Corruption is such a sweet, tasty drink. So addictive.

Re:Thinking about "switching"

[hjf]

I'm in Argentina. 6 years ago I was trying to get a credit card - I had been working (independent, not as an employee, but as a registered taxpayer) for over 2 years, and had a savings account with money, was paying bills using their online service, etc.

I was turned down by EVERY bank, citing I didn't have any credit history, so I couldn't get a credit card. They all told me if I was an employee of a company that was using the bank to pay the salaries, they would give me a credit card, but otherwise, I needed to build credit somewhere before I could ask for a credit card.

Other banks didn't want to say "no", but didn't want to give me the card either. So they asked for ridiculous things. One demanded 3 years of tax history (flawless, not a late payment ever), and a car AND house to my name (this bank now runs ads on tv claiming "their most valued capital are people"). Another bank (HSBC) wanted me to keep a deposit over USD 30.000 for several months until they would give me a credit card with a $2.000 limit...

I finally got the card with a bank (Santander) that was expanding at the time, they just required 6 months of tax, which is much more reasonable. A few months after that, every bank was calling to offer a credit card. It was so good to tell them "no" like they did with me.

Re:Thinking about "switching"

[TheRaven64]

That's pretty much the same everywhere. Having no credit history means that you have never borrowed money (as far as they can tell). This doesn't make you a safe bet, this makes you completely unknown. Good credit history means that you have borrowed and paid back money in the past. It means that, judging by past behaviour, any loan that you take out will be paid back.

When you borrow money, you have to budget for the interest and the final repayment. If you've never borrowed money before, then there is no evidence that you can do this - you might have been living hand-to-mouth up until then. Lenders would rather let you borrow a small amount, see that you can pay it back, let you borrow a bit more, and so on.

Actually, the final repayment isn't that important. If you have a long-term loan and are making all of the interest payments. Interest payments are regular income, and a bank is generally happy to keep extending the duration of a loan as long as you keep up the interest - if you pay it back, they'll just try to loan the money to someone else.

Re:We are all victims

[Arlet]

Great plan, as long as you don't mind that most people wouldn't survive a full blown revolution. Our society has become too fragile to keep the daily flow of necessities going in the middle of a revolution.

Honestly

[icongorilla]

With how you cannot opt out of debit card overdrafting (you know the tech is there, but they don't want you to use it) I've given up on banks. I've considered going to a credit union, but I haven't gotten there yet. Right now I just prefer not using a bank at all.

Re:Honestly

[DanTheManMS]

Opting out of that was one of the first things I did to my BoA account, though granted this was a few years ago. They might have made it more difficult to do since then; I wouldn't know.

Re:Honestly

[KaLeVR1]

Yea, it's safer under your mattress.

Re:Honestly

[schnikies79]

I can't overdraft with my debit Mastercard. It's opt-in if you want to.

Re:Honestly

[DogDude]

My credit union charges me literally $0.01 for an overdraft.

Re:Honestly

[Fjandr]

Federal law was recently changed. The only way you can overdraw your debit card is if you voluntarily and explicitly opt into the program.

That said, a credit union with a national shared network is still a better option. You get all of the benefits, plus non-predatory fees.

Re:Honestly

[AlienIntelligence]

My credit union charges me literally $0.01 for an overdraft.

Tits or GTFO

Re:Honestly

[TechwoIf]

This is why I've keep with https://www.tabbank.com/ for many years. Years ago when I was having money problems, I notice I never got overdraft charged, but my card got denied making a $5 purchase. It shocked me at first, but having a $5 transaction denied instead of getting hit with $25 overdraft fee is much better. My last bank hit me with a $100 overdraft fees due to delaying a deposit 12 hours. That right, that $25 overdraft fee keep the account in the red even after the deposit went though. Fucking Basters is what I call those banks.

Checks = lame

[mugnyte]

Credit Unions are part of networks. You are misinformed.

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.

Re:Are the sheep finally waking?

[element-o.p.]

If you do business with them, you are an enabler and partially responsible for the bank meltdown of '08.

What a nice, idealistic world you live in. Unfortunately, for many of us, dumping the bank isn't financially possible at the drop of a hat. Case in point: my wife started two businesses in the last eight years. In case you've never tried it, it takes a lot of capital to start a business, which we acquired through a combination of loans and credit cards. She sold the first business a year after she started the second business, but unfortunately, ended up owner-financing it...which means, we'll get the debt paid off, but not right away like we'd hoped. My wife sold the second business last month, and again, ended up owner-financing it (although it will be paid off much sooner than the other business). If things go as planned, we will have dumped BoA by May of next year because you are right -- they are frickin' evil. However, I guess for right now, I'm just an enabler because eight years ago, I didn't see the bailout coming and right now, I don't feeling like selling my house and living in a car just to spite those fat-cat money-pimps at BoA </sarc>

Re:Are the sheep finally waking?

[Scarred Intellect]

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.

Use credit card with rewards and no annual fees. Pay off credit cards monthly to incur 0 interest. Redeem rewards.Visa/Mastercard/Discover/AmEx still get their cut, but the card issuer doesn't. Just be responsible with it, and there's no reason people can't take advantage of rewards cards.

Re:Are the sheep finally waking?

[EdIII]

You pay 3-5% on your purchases, and depending on where and how, you might be paying considerably more. You just see it as wrapped up in the price.

It's true that you are already ahead, but you would be surprised what happens when you deal with businesses and ask for a "cash discount".

I get them all the time. On medical co-pays, parts purchases, etc. Of course with big name faceless places like major grocery stores you can forget it.

Re:Are the sheep finally waking?

[timeOday]

I think the main reason people stick with banks that charge lots of fees is because the fees are designed to flatter the ego. Instead of upfront fees, they tend to charge penalties for irresponsible behavior. People tell themselves, "I'll always pay the card off each month. I would never make a late payment or overdraft. I'll get bonus miles paid for by all the other losers who bank here!" Everybody thinks this. And yet, somehow, the banks keep raking in billions of dollars. It's almost as if people aren't as responsible as they thought they were!

Re:Are the sheep finally waking?

[DeadCatX2]

I wish my bank would automatically take the right amount from checking. I have to log in once a month to do it. But that's a good thing, because it allows me to keep an eye on my account for fraudulent purchases.

Re:Are the sheep finally waking?

[ToasterMonkey]

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.

You probably even get paid 1% or so of your purchases back in some manner too. You're not beating the system or anything, you're feeding it interchange fees by using it more frequently for incidentals and reoccurring payments.

Also, I suspect with a high degree of certainty that your available credit far exceeds what you are capable of paying off in one month, because.. well, that is really the reason to have it for one thing, and your bank/CU knows how big your paychecks are. Sooner or later you'll use it to finance something because it's the most convenient option, and for that convenience it really isn't that horrible.

I'm not complaining, I do what you do too, but these guys get paid either way, trust me. It's shocking I know.. it costs money to move money around. /sarcasm. CU's and banks do have to make money, banks just need to make a little more.

Re:Are the sheep finally waking?

[stephanruby]

The truth of it is, they are complacent and lazy.

Yes, I am complacent and lazy. And no, I'm not even being facetious. I like to have ATMs (I use, with no extra per-use fee) near the place I live, near the places I work, and near the places I shop. Usually, a Credit Union will only be able to satisfy one of those conditions, not all three.

If someone can explain to me what will happen to all my Bank of America ATMs once I switch away from Bank of America, that might help me effect the move. I know that Credit Unions say they have no ATM fees, but then again, Credit Unions have no ATMs either. And yes, there are still a few of us who prefer to deal in cash, and not just credit cards.

Re:Are the sheep finally waking?

[Arlet]

Also, I suspect with a high degree of certainty that your available credit far exceeds what you are capable of paying off in one month

Not really. The available credit is about equal to one months paycheck.

Sooner or later you'll use it to finance something because it's the most convenient option

I don't think so. I've never felt the urge to spend more than I can easily afford, and I doubt that will ever change.

The bank still gets paid through the credit card fee though. I'll admit I keep the credit card because it's convenient to use it for renting a car, booking hotels, or ordering stuff on-line. But at least the fee is constant, and I consider it worth it.

Re:Are the sheep finally waking?

[Arlet]

Well, I only use the credit card for places where they don't accept debit cards, which is mostly for foreign on-line purchases, hotel bookings, car rentals, plane tickets and that kind of stuff.

For regular purchases in stores, I always use my debit card, or cash.

Re:Are the sheep finally waking?

[sqrt(2)]

Most CUs will reimburse you for the ATM fees, up to a certain point per month, so you could continue using your beloved BoA ATMs even though you don't bank with them.

Re:Are the sheep finally waking?

[GNious]

Yeah, what is it with interest-rates on credit cards?
If you don't pay them out, sure, but I usually have 1-1.5 month to pay any charges and during this time, there is no interest-rate. Combined with automated payment, and it is a non-issue*.

*: Unless you use your credit card as a medium-to-long-term loan, in which case you're an idiot.

Re:Are the sheep finally waking?

[cstdenis]

IIRC the agreement says they are not allowed to have a surcharge for using credit cards (advertised price plus more), a cash discount (advertised price minus some) for not using them is allowed.

While in reality those are both the same thing, I'm pretty sure they can get away with the cash discount on a technicality.

Re:Are the sheep finally waking?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Every store that accepts debit card is a de-facto ATM for all. When you buy something with a debit card with a PIN, the cashiers will routinely ask if you want cash back. Tell them how much you want to withdraw, they will add it to your bill and hand you cash. You don't have this option if you choose the "signature" option.

When you pay with PIN it is a debit card transaction, with a very low flat fee, capped at 22 cents or so. When you pay with signature it is a credit card transaction with 1% to 5% transaction fee.

Re:Are the sheep finally waking?

[hjf]

+1000000 points, you win the internet, man.

I don't see why people really think credit cards are basically free. They're full of hidden fees, charges, extras, costs, and whatever they want to name them. It's even worse in a country like mine.

For what I've seen, the normal thing in the US is just buying stuff and pay "as you can", either total or minimum payment, or something in between. Down here we use fixed montly payments. You buy a $1200 fridge in 12 $100 payments (the catch is that now your minimum is $100, since it's already being financed).

The problem is that credit card companies have this system where you tell the customer "12 monthly payments, no interests!!!" and they go crazy about it. The truth is that inflation is nearly 20% a year, so you can't get an interest rate lower than 30%. So how do they offer a $1200 fridge for 12 $100 payments? Easy, they charge the 30% interest to the merchant. So he will get $840 instead of $1200 - and that's ok, the true selling price is probably around that. But since people want "no interest", you have to charge it that way: you sell less EVEN if you charge less, because the "no interest" bullshit is the main selling point.

You know how I avoid all that? I just pay cash, and make sure I ASK for a cash discount. Still, there are a few merchants that play dumb and don't do discounts. If there's an alternative, I go to another place, otherwise I make the purchase in at least 6 monthly payments, just to screw with them.

Re:Are the sheep finally waking?

[DarkOx]

You are right, but those fee structures DO allow you to avoid the fees if you are careful. You have to be paying attention, vigilant, proactive and ever watchful. Pro-activity is important as well.

I am CERTAIN these guys play with dates they mail invoices, statements and such, they always seems to arrive either way ahead of the due date like 2 weeks, or near enough that if you don't open the mail every day its going to be late payment. This will vary widely form month to month with the same provider. You'd better pick up the phone and all them to get the balance a know what size check to write the instant you think, I should have seen a statement by now. Its coming but it show up in the mail a day before its due.

The only way to handle this is with a computer accounting package that tracks events and understands things like 28-day billing cycles. The other "losers" who bank their wind up paying those fees because they don't use things like Money, Quicken, HomeBank, etc. There is a rent to be extracted from those "losers" but it takes real work to get it.

Not true...

[Cephas Aurelius]

Many credit unions are part of the CU Service Center and share ATMs and even teller services. My CU is in Seattle and I have deposited checks at CUs in Minnesota. Not true for all CUs, but many are part of this system.

well

[fireylord]

it's 'merkin for cheque

Re:well

[sheetsda]

I'm confused - when did pubic wigs enter the equation?

I really doubt that BoA cares

[Pseudonym Authority]

The big money isn't in consumer saving anyway, but selling them retarded financial instruments like `mortgages'. Sure, they'll lose a few billion dollars that they could have loaned out, but they can always get a loan from the fed or other banks, or even do all sorts of other shenanigans to make the difference up. This is really a victory for them, because they got rid of all those customers who actually care how they are treated, and now know who can be exploited!

Re:I really doubt that BoA cares

[KaLeVR1]

That cannot be more incorrect. The banks that got clobbered by derivative and other debt trading in the '08 crunch disappeared almost 3 Trillion dollars from wealth management accounts. That's retirement accounts, trusts, and life savings. Someone once said, "A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you are talking about real money."

Re:I really doubt that BoA cares

[Pseudonym Authority]

I doubt that they cared very much about the people whose money they were managing then either. If they felt anything at all, it was fear that it might hurt the management.

Re:I really doubt that BoA cares

[tepples]

The big money isn't in consumer saving anyway, but selling them retarded financial instruments like `mortgages'.

Without a mortgage, how else is one supposed to buy a place to live?

Re:I really doubt that BoA cares

[riverat1]

Someone once said, "A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you are talking about real money."

That would be the late Senator Everett Dirksen (R-IL). Although he apparently never uttered those exact words.

Re:I really doubt that BoA cares

[Anonymous Psychopath]

Yeah, mortgages are retarded. Unless you want to own a home. Then they're pretty damn useful.

Re:I really doubt that BoA cares

[Pseudonym Authority]

The concept behind them is good, but the execution and implementation used to make it overwhelmingly in the banks favor is bullshit.

Re:I really doubt that BoA cares

[malilo]

LOL!!!! Once upon a time, people paid up front. You know, savings. Wait, were you being sarcastic?

Re:I really doubt that BoA cares

[element-o.p.]

I doubt that. The banks are levying every fee they can get away with shoving at the consumer for the exact same reason the airlines are charging for in-flight meals, checked baggage, etc.: they sucky economy and pissed-off customers are finally starting to make them hurt, too. I don't have much sympathy for the likes of BoA and Wells-Fargo. They are pretty evil, IMHO, and I actually hope they crumble (although I'm not naive enough to think they actually will). But I'm all for spending as little money as possible on those leeches until I can actually cancel all of my accounts with them.

Re:I really doubt that BoA cares

[kimvette]

A big part of the problem was banks would underwrite mortgages, and then "sell" the loan to other companies, They didn't care about the high risk of giving jobless people like Joe Crackhead and Sally Meth Addict mortgages because they stood to make a quick buck up front in "closing costs" and then again a few months later when they "repackage" that loan into a bunch of other loans and selling them to speculators. It was idiotic and something which should have been disallowed many years ago. If a bank underwrites a loan, it should have been forced to retain that loan among its accounts until the term of the loan is expired, for better or for worse. By forcing a bank to hang onto those loans it would have forced responsible business practices from the very beginning.

And, let's not even get into the whole fractional banking debt-as-money fiat monetary system we have. It was bound to crash, and we're seeing just the very beginning of it now. If you think the dollar is hurting now, just wait a few more years. It is going to be utterly worthless. Oddly enough, it's being propped up by China at the moment, but that won't go on forever.

Re:I really doubt that BoA cares

[afabbro]

The big money isn't in consumer saving anyway

There's money in it, but not in people with $100 balances who want to talk to a teller three times a month. Many (most?) bank customers are not profitable and this "we'll move to credit unions!" fist-pumping is not being done by people with big bank balances.

This "movement" probably delights bankers to no end.

Re:I really doubt that BoA cares

[fafaforza]

I don't see how the parent was wrong. People will still have to put their money somewhere, and unless the government separates depository institutions from financial services, it will likely go back to the same system of selling insurance, money management, and all kinds of other services to their customers.

I have a simple savings account and get called all the time by HSBC, even as recently as a few months ago, to let them invest it for me. These are the same banks that were recommending securities to their customers they themselves were shorting. A lot more money in that than depository accounts and overdraft fees, which are being regulated now.

Re:I really doubt that BoA cares

[Patch86]

When my parents got married, back in the halcyon days of affordable housing, their marital home was still 3 times their combined annual earnings. It would have taken them literally a decade or more to put together the cash to pay upfront (with money being frittered away on rent in the meantime). Instead, they took a mortgage out and had it paid for within 20 years of small payments.

If you can buy a house cash-in-hand, you're either a) living somewhere with a young housing market that has yet to grow to dastardly, expensive maturity, or 2) earning far more money than most people.

Re:I really doubt that BoA cares

[TheRaven64]

When was this? Before mortgages, most people either inherited their parents house when they died (and maybe sold it and bought a different one), were already rich and owned multiple houses, renting most of them, or rented their entire lives. In the USA, poor people didn't buy houses, they either rented or they found a bit of land that no one was using, claimed it, and built a shack on it, gradually improving it until it was more of a house than a shack.

Re:I really doubt that BoA cares

[TheRaven64]

They're not the only option. Islamic banking doesn't have mortgages: the bank buys (part of) the house and you rent that part from them, gradually buying back their share. Housing cooperatives do the same thing, but without so much centralisation: a group of individuals put up some money and jointly buy a few houses. These are then rented out and the individuals get a share of the rent, which is often then reinvested in more houses. Eventually you either cash out and buy a house, or you take personal ownership of one of the houses (or you just move into one and pay rent equal to the amount you get back, so you effectively own it but don't legally).

Re:I really doubt that BoA cares

[j-beda]

The big money isn't in consumer saving anyway, but selling them retarded financial instruments like `mortgages'.

Without a mortgage, how else is one supposed to buy a place to live?

Rather than spend $X per month on a mortgage one could I suppose spend $X/3 per month on the rental of a very small apartment, and save the $2X/3 each month until you had enough saved to buy something. Once you have that something bought you could save the now unused rent money and at some point in the future buy something bigger. If this type of thing is done for a few generations there might be some significant real-estate inheritances in the family.

But of course, the rate of inflation might decrease the effectiveness of savings, and many people don't want to live in a hovel while saving for the mansion. With interest rates being some low right now, the cost of borrowing can be pretty cheap.

Fundamentally though, the problem is that "the unwashed masses" in the US (and the rest of the "western world") want to have it all, now, and are not willing to live like a middle class family from the 1930s. If "everyone" lived like that, people would be happy to do so too, but since "everyone" now has 2 cars, 5 TVs and a huge empty house, anything less feels like you are losing the game.

Re:I really doubt that BoA cares

[LunaticTippy]

I doubt the bankers are delighted. Banks typically pay hundreds of dollars per customer in acquisition costs. Those 20-something slackers are going to be making real money in 10-20 years, and having all your finances tied in to a bank/credit union is a "sticky" business arrangement.

Really? I did this last year!

[oldman57]

And now in the process of changing all my credit cards now. New years resolution - no Chase, Citi, BoA, AmExpress ccards by the end of 2012. Well I need the AmEx for Costco, what to do? I just moved my carloan to the credit union. I'll have to do my mortgage next. Let's call it Occupy Credit?

Re:welcome the new bank

[Hardhead_7]

Says someone who has clearly never belonged to a credit union.

That's coz

[fireylord]

Nationwide sucks in sooooo many ways. They're supposed to be a mutual, but act like the worst kind of shareholder greasing moneygrabbing outfit there is. insane.

They may have dropped the $5 fee

[milbournosphere]

...but they'll get it in different ways. I just received the fees schedule for next year, and it isn't pretty. I started an account at my local credit union, and as soon as my paycheck direct deposit is setup, I'll be closing my account(s) with BofA. I won't give my money to a corporation that is recklessly investing my money when i deposit it, all while nickel-and-dimeing me to death.

Re:They may have dropped the $5 fee

[quacking duck]

Ridiculous.

This is ridiculous. People are crying over a 5 dollar fee, which is in fact an absolute right for a bank to charge for an account [...]

For years environmental groups advocated replacing plastic grocery bags with bags you bring yourself (re-use). Few listened.

What finally kicked off the re-usable bag trend? A voluntarily (i.e. not government-mandated) fee of 5-cents per new grocery bag, at almost all grocery stores and supermarkets here. Even for grocery runs so large that it takes up the entire cart and might fill ten bags, and cost over $100, consumers were enraged that ten bags would cost an extra half-dollar, and they switched to re-usable bags en masse.

Re:They may have dropped the $5 fee

[fafaforza]

It's not a matter of that $5. It's a matter of customers having been nickel and dimed for years. And after getting bailed out with OUR money, banks invent fees just because the government shut down one of their other fee rackets, err, revenue streams. This outrage is against this general idea by banks that they are entitled to a certain profit margin, and they'll change the rules where they see fit.

They're already getting paid for these accounts on the merchant side, who passes the cost onto the customer anyway. So what banks are doing is double dipping and charging twice for the same service. Yeah, poor them, offering people a service for a nominal fee.

Re:They may have dropped the $5 fee

[Anonymous Coward]

People are crying over a 5 dollar fee

It's not just this particular fee. The mandate of a bank is to make money; the mandate of a credit union is to serve its members. This gives the former a greater incentive to screw you. They have a right to do it, but, we have a right to not indulge bad behavior with our patronage.

but these same people want government to collect more taxes, so that what? More wars and more bank bail outs could be done?

Uhh, personally I'd rather see a reinstitution of Glass-Steagall and reform of regulatory agencies, and then maybe we could get around to single-payer health care. Wanting a more effective government is not the same as carte blanche.

50% of Americans don't pay income taxes

If you're going to repeat this misleading figure, at least get it right, it's 47%.

And among that 47%, most pay other taxes (payroll, social security, state and local property and income, etc). The few who don't pay any taxes are destitute, students, or retired, and most of them pay sales tax.

many of them believe that they will be better off in some sort of a socialist state, while it is SOCIALISM that is collapsing because it turned into FASCISM

I, and the ENTIRE REGION OF SCANDINAVIA, would like to point out that you are completely full of shit. Socialism no more inevitably collapses into fascism than free-market economies collapse into crony capitalism. And, well, many of them *would* be better off in a socialist state (or more properly, a state in which socialist and free-market principles were blended differently than we have in the US). Hell even Germany is more socialist than we are in the US.

That's right, all this socialism, which allows the government to regulate businesses to appease the largest voting block - employees, provides entitlements to employees, while hitting the employers with all the obligations.

As an entrepreneur of fifteen years, I respectfully disagree with your assessment. Regulations in the US tend to benefit (or at least be neutral towards) very large corporations, while harming both small business AND labor.

The worst thing one can do is hire somebody in USA or other Western nations, where this socialism exists

and yet, strangely, Germany (with a very strong labor movement) is doing pretty well. So is Sweden. The reason outsourcing is a threat is because our laws enable it to be a threat.

because once you hire somebody, you lose your rights and they gain entitlements

So, in other words, you're upset about the fact that employees are able to negotiate from a position of power, which employers have been doing since time immemorial. Certainly this can get out of balance (in either direction), but, again, there's too many examples of countries with a strong labor movement and a strong economy to believe your claptrap.

I get the feeling that you, like Ayn Rand, must have been raped by a communist as a small child and now you see everything through a simplistic "commies are bad" lens. Please get over it, and look around to see how the rest of the world does it. Socialism and capitalism can both work provided the government takes an active role in ensuring fairness and the citizenry are participants, but most functional economies in the world have a blend of both.

Re:They may have dropped the $5 fee

[GNULinuxGuy]

I think the vast majority of OWS people just want a job and for the big businesses to be required to play fair. Go ahead and make assumptions though. Everything is just fine here. Nothing at all to be upset about. All the people I know with advanced technical degrees that can't find real work are just insane too. It's all their fault they picked a technical field that _was_ booming to get a degree in, and then economy tanked. The list of injustices goes on and on too, but feel free to keep pretending and ignoring reality.

Re:They may have dropped the $5 fee

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, banks have every right to charge a $5.00 fee if they wish. Likewise, customers have a right to leave and give their hard-earned money to a competitor who offers a better service for less money. Are you suggesting the people should do exactly what corporations tell them and shut up complaining? Son, that's communist. Other organisations are offering the same service at a lower fee. This is called competition and we generally think it's a good thing in capitalist states. People are going where they pay least for a given amount of service. Do you have an ideological problem with that? I think it's great because it makes companies more efficient and competitive.

Didn't B of A drop their fee?

[Kolisar]

I certainly do not like all the fees that banks have, but didn't B of A drop their plans for the fee? http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bank-of-america-to-drop-debit-card-fee-report-2011-11-01

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

[Frosty Piss]

Funny, my credit union's Visa debit card worked just fine with minimal fees when I spent three weeks in Italy last year. Maybe it was that Visa thing and all...

Re:I'm probably not the only one

[element-o.p.]

Meh. I've got an account with a credit union centered in the Pacific Northwest, but I've had decent luck using my debit card while traveling through Canada and even in Guatemala last year. Just check the network that your credit union is in, and make sure it exists where you want to travel...and carry a little extra cash for those few times when the debit card doesn't work.

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'm probably not the only one

[Myopic]

Tell your friends.

Re:I'm probably not the only one

[dkleinsc]

I should point out, in all fairness, that smaller community banks can also be pretty good. The proverbial Bailey Savings and Loans that have survived until the present day are usually nowhere near as evil as the big banks, because their prosperity is closely tied to the prosperity of the communities they're based in. It's not quite as good as a credit union, because in a credit union the depositors own the organization, but it's a heck of a lot better than BofA, Citi, etc.

Re:welcome the new bank

[martyros]

The difference is that credit unions are explicitly not-for-profit. Their main goal is not to maximize shareholder value, but to maximize member usefulness. That makes a really big difference.

Re:Really? I did this last year!

[Algae_94]

And VISA, MasterCard, et al. will continue to collect their money off of your credit card purchases. Sure it doesn't come out of your pocket directly, but it sure acts as pressure to retailers to raise prices. If you really want to do banks in, use cash for everything, but that seems to be downright prehistoric now days.

Re:Are the sheep finally waking? (ATM Convenience)

[KaLeVR1]

By the way: the excuse that big banks give you conveniently placed ATM machines is bunk. I have an E-Trade account and they reimburse all ATM fees no matter how high. I never have to search for a particular bank and the fee is automatically returned. You can't beat that.

There is NO REASON to do business with a big bank.

BoA backed out

[Anonymous Coward]

http://message.bankofamerica.com/debitcard/

Re:BoA backed out

[element-o.p.]

And?

They are still evil. Putting their billing cycle on a 28-day schedule and their automatic payment option on a calendar schedule (i.e., money gets withdrawn on the same day every month, even if that's after the due date of their billing cycle) is just one of many examples I could give you of the way BoA tries to rip off their customers.

Re:BoA backed out

[Myopic]

Agreed. Way, way too little, way way too late.

Re:BoA backed out

[b4dc0d3r]

Others noted they will just roll it into other fees you won't notice as much. And instead of leaving this at 3, it gets up to +5.

This is why most of my moderation points are spent on '-1 overrated' these days. You're not wrong, you're just not adding anything past existing comments. I would allow +3 for those people who read at +3, and not mod you down for +4 if someone thought you deserved it, but +5 is, well, overrated.

Re:BoA backed out

[pwinkeler]

Yeah - and how about running your nightly set of debits from largest $ amount to smallest so that if you do go below 0 you get hit with the highest number of possible overage charges!

Re:BoA backed out

[fafaforza]

Yup, happened to a friend of mine. Three checks made out, with the largest one being deposited first, second one overdrafting, and the third one, a debit purchase for $2 or something, ending up costing them $37. They really do have their customers' interest in mind.

Re:BoA backed out

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

is just one of many examples I could give you of the way BoA tries to rip off their customers.

And another one is in their credit card billing statements. The actual full payment amount is printed in inconspicuous small font. All sorts of smaller numbers, like the cash back earned, or page totals and such stuff will be printed in big bold letters very prominently. They are trying to trip up those who pay in full every month. I am sure one in hundred or one in two hundred customers send a check for the wrong amount and they get whacked with 20% interest for two billing cycles.

When they clear checks at the end of the day they will post the payments first with starting from largest to smallest. Then they will post deposits. The basic idea is if the customer has enough money to pay for 10 small checks or one big check, they want to pay that one big check and bounce 10 smaller ones because each bounced check triggers more fees.

Re:BoA backed out

[element-o.p.]

Sure. That's why all of the truth in advertising laws should be repealed and "caveat emptor" should be the law of the land. &lt/sarc>

Re:welcome the new bank

[Bucky24]

credit unions tend to be very different from regular banks. It's owned directly by the people who put money into it. The people who bank there make the decisions on what happens. And they are not for-profit, so they can put all that extra loan income back into savings account interest rates.

What do CUs do with your money?

[assantisz]

I am curious (and a bit too lazy right now to look it up) but doesn't the money we deposit with credit unions still end up in the "evil banks"' hands? Isn't all so much interwoven that you will never be able to avoid giving your indirect support to the big players in the financial industry?

Re:What do CUs do with your money?

[Anonymous Psychopath]

I am curious (and a bit too lazy right now to look it up) but doesn't the money we deposit with credit unions still end up in the "evil banks"' hands? Isn't all so much interwoven that you will never be able to avoid giving your indirect support to the big players in the financial industry?

Yes, credit unions are linked into some of the same financial institutions banks use. That's unavoidable. The big difference is that banks are ultimately responsible to their shareholders, which are largely not the same people as their customers. Conversely, credit unions are ultimately accountable to their members, which by definition is the exact same thing as their customers. It makes a big difference in how you're treated.

Re:What do CUs do with your money?

[fiannaFailMan]

No. Credit unions operate the way banks are supposed to, by keeping your money on deposit and investing it in the form of loans. They pay out a lower rate of interest (or "dividend" in CU parlance) on your deposited money than they charge on the money they lend out. So they make a bit of a profit (or "surplus" in not-for-profit parlance), but instead of raking in huge amounts via high interest and sneaky little fees and giving it to shareholders, they reinvest the money back into the credit union. That's why they're a better place to go to for loans than banks. They're not out to make money, they're out to give people access to credit and to help people save.

Re:What do CUs do with your money?

[element-o.p.]

Ummm, you're not "up here", you're "down there"...at least from my house ;)

Re:What do CUs do with your money?

[timeOday]

instead of raking in huge amounts via high interest and sneaky little fees and giving it to shareholders, they reinvest the money back into the credit union.

When my CU has a surplus, they deposit my share of it into my account. (It's never much, since they adjust rates to avoid it, but I suppose they have to undershoot somewhat for a margin of error).

Re:What do CUs do with your money?

[lpp]

Sounds like your CU could have used some inch thick bulletproof glass dividing the thieves from the teller and back offices.

Re:What do CUs do with your money?

[tomhudson]

You might ask them to correct one line on their "About Us" page - "Sure, we're proud of the fact that our 417,000 members have entrusted us with $15 billion of their assets, making us Canada's largest Credit Union".

That's not quite true. Caisse Populaire Desjardins is North America's largest credit union ($175 billion in assets). If it were a US bank, it would be #16 in terms of size, beating out Citizens (#20), State Street (#19), SunTrust (#16), American Express (# 21), KeyCorp (#24) and TD Bank US (# 18).

But definitely still something to be proud of - it seems that credit unions are at the forefront in pushing sustainable and green programs.

Re:What do CUs do with your money?

[DanielRavenNest]

Both banks and credit unions make the majority of their income by making loans. The difference is credit unions are owned by the members, and operate as non-profits (excess profits are returned to the members), and they typically don't have huge office buildings downtown with multi-million dollar executive salaries. Because they don't have to earn a profit for shareholders, or have the extra overhead of megabanks, the can give a better deal for customers. That can be in the form of lower fees, lower loan rates, or extra services, and the mix varies by credit union. At the local branch level, banks and credit unions have about the same costs for tellers, the building itself, computers, etc. The difference is outside the branch, in the extra profits required and overhead for a big bank.

Awesome!

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I gotta say, I'm impressed. I just hope they all go after the cell phone companies next.

Re:Awesome!

[Anonymous Psychopath]

I gotta say, I'm impressed. I just hope they all go after the cell phone companies next.

Yeah, let's all switch to coop-owned infrastructure! Oh, wait, there isn't any.

Re:Awesome!

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Oh, well, you're right. There's just no way 650,000 people couldn't send a statement to the cellular companies in the United States.

Damn.

Re:Awesome!

[Anonymous Psychopath]

Yes, quite a large difference between "possible” and "plausible", right?

Re:Awesome!

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

In the vast majority of cases, including this one, the difference between 'possible' and 'plausible' is simply putting a little brain power into it.

Re:Awesome!

[lasinge]

But there could be: http://freenetworkfoundation.org/

IP based telephony could work here.

Worth a shot.

Re:Awesome!

[AmberBlackCat]

But they could switch from (AT&T & Verizon) to Sprint because at the moment, Sprint has no bandwidth cap on the "unlimited" internet. And if one of those two gets better than Sprint later, they could switch back. There aren't as many options as with banks but it's possible to play the game.

Saturday?

[ArcadeNut]

Don't they know the Banks are closed on Saturday!

Foiled again!

Re:Saturday?

[riverat1]

My CU is open on Saturdays (9AM-2PM).

Re:Saturday?

[DogDude]

My credit union is open 7:00 AM - 7:00 PM on Saturday and Sunday.

Re:Saturday?

[ThatsMyNick]

My credit union is open all day on Saturday, half a day on Sunday. I assume most of their business gets done during the weekend.

Re:Saturday?

[Gr33nJ3ll0]

My bank, my credit union, and my gf's bank were all open on Saturday. We were able to open two accounts at the CU, and close one bank account. (We didn't move quick enough for the other bank)

I dumped my bank over a decade ago

[Greyfox]

I signed up with a local credit union over a decade ago. In a decade they haven't raised my credit card interest or charged me any fee, ever. That might change if I went around bouncing checks left and right, but I really do get the feeling that they're not out to anally rape me. Not like the national banks I've done business with. To those guys you're just a rosy pink walking asshole that they just can't wait to violate in unspeakable ways, over and over, month after month for as long as you're willing to take it. And they act like you should be happy that they're anally raping you. A couple years after my move, I got a letter stating that I could join a class action against my previous bank, because they'd been ordering checks from highest to lowest and cashing them in that order, to insure that if you don't have sufficient funds you would get hit with multiple fees. Apparently it wasn't kosher.

So yeah, join your local credit union, for much less anal rape in your life. Now if I could find a cell phone company, a television channel delivery company and an internet provider who aren't trying to anally rape me, I'll be a happy camper.

Re:I dumped my bank over a decade ago

[John Bresnahan]

I haven't had a fee on my checking accounts from "regular" banks in the last few decades (at least). I keep the required minimum balance (which is far less than I normally wish to keep in the account), and I never overdraw against the account.

I also haven't paid a fee or interest on a credit card (I don't use debit cards) in over a decade (since I pay the full balance every month).

The one time I joined a credit union (primarily because I assumed that a credit union would be "better") I found that the credit union was terrible compared to every bank I had ever dealt with.

To each his own, I guess.

Re:I dumped my bank over a decade ago

[Grishnakh]

So yeah, join your local credit union, for much less anal rape in your life. Now if I could find a cell phone company, a television channel delivery company and an internet provider who aren't trying to anally rape me, I'll be a happy camper.

I agree completely about the credit unions. For TV, I solved that problem by simply using rabbit ears. As for internet, I've actually had decent experience with Cox Cable here in Arizona. Their prices aren't the lowest, but the service has been reliable (far, far more than Qworst that I had back around 2003) and their on-the-phone customer support has been OK. Not the most wonderful company, but definitely not anal-rape territory either, unlike Comcast that I hear so many horrible things about. I'm very worried, however, that when I move out of this state (won't be long), that I might get stuck with some horrible internet service like Comcast.

Re:We are all victims

[ClaraBow]

I agree, but sooner or later some major adjustment will have to be made to keep our current system viable. The wealth distribution is getting completely out of balance. If the greedy keep taking more and more, then eventually there will be enough young people under-employed or out of work with nothing to lose. When the hopeless and desperate members of our society reach a critical mass something will give.

For the moment.

[khasim]

Yep, they've put that $5 on hold for now.
But they'll look for different ways to stick you with additional fees.
They want to keep increasing revenue. And you're the source of that revenue.

On a related note, when you switch banks, make sure you know EVERYTHING about your transactions. Too many stories out there about how someone missed an automatic payment (annual or some other kind) and the bank re-opened their account, charged them and then charged them an overdraft fee. Even when the account was SUPPOSED to be closed.

Re:For the moment.

[chill]

The simple solution to that is to not close the first account for some period of time. I'm letting my BoA account sit for the next 90 days until I close it. Even then, I'll review the prior 90 days of transactions to make sure nothing was missed.

Re:For the moment.

[DarkOx]

It really does not matter. If the retail level bank industry can't get away with charging fees they will just keep paying no interest on deposits forever. Honestly ATM and even Debit card fees are not that big a deal, and are mostly avoidable with a little planing. I can't remember the last time I used an ATM, and you can generally get cash back from Grocery stores and pharmacies when you make a purchase with a check. The banks don't charge for electronic payments.

I'd rather get paid a little extra interest on my cash balance, subsidized by my can't be bothered to plan fellow citizens.

With a little thought and good habits you can make a $10 box of checks last a long long time, and manage to put enough cash in your pocket for other needs as well without using a debit card or visiting the bank. Finally get a credit card with some type of rewards program that is useful to you! I am not saying carry a balance, ( I never do ) but you really should use it for any purchase you can. You get both the protection of being able to do a charge back if the provider does not deliver, and you get the rewards. The rewards are not much as a percentage but if you deliberately pay everything you possibly can with the card they do add up!

The debit card offers exactly nothing over a credit card in 99% of situations. Unless your credit is so terrible you can't get a CC with a useable limit, WHY would you ever debit anything?

Re:welcome the new bank

[blind biker]

Mod parent way up - credit unions are basically the consumer's institutions. Banks are the banksters' way to gamble trillions - except they are gambling with tax payers' money (because even if their stupid gamble backfires, the taxpayer bails them out).

I joined a Credit Union when I was 12

[JoeMerchant]

I joined a Credit Union when I was 12, and that was a long time ago, indeed. I have never looked at a bank account set of terms and conditions that was not absolutely offensive and repulsive when compared to the Credit Union.

Once, about 20 years ago, when I lived in Miami and the nearest branch of my Credit Union was in Tampa, I opened a local account to be able to deposit my paychecks locally. That lasted about 6 months, during which time they charged fee after fee, and posted a $20 "computer error" in their favor to my account. Computer error, in 1991, from a bank? The computer made a mistake adding a column of numbers? "Sorry sir, we'll fix that." Yeah, you do that, and give me all my cash, NOW.

Re:I joined a Credit Union when I was 12

[Grishnakh]

I joined a Credit Union when I was 12, and that was a long time ago, indeed. I have never looked at a bank account set of terms and conditions that was not absolutely offensive and repulsive when compared to the Credit Union.

I had bank accounts back in the 80s and early 90s (with smaller banks, not anything national), and I don't remember them having all these ridiculous fees and such back then, in fact I don't remember anything negative about them in those days. On the contrary, I remember when ATMs were brand-new, and "ATM fees" were unheard of, and I could go to any ATM that was part of my bank's network (which was pretty much all of them) and withdraw cash without any fees. I only remember banks getting horrible since around the time Bush took office.

Re:I joined a Credit Union when I was 12

[JoeMerchant]

I joined a Credit Union when I was 12, and that was a long time ago, indeed. I have never looked at a bank account set of terms and conditions that was not absolutely offensive and repulsive when compared to the Credit Union.

I had bank accounts back in the 80s and early 90s (with smaller banks, not anything national), and I don't remember them having all these ridiculous fees and such back then, in fact I don't remember anything negative about them in those days. On the contrary, I remember when ATMs were brand-new, and "ATM fees" were unheard of, and I could go to any ATM that was part of my bank's network (which was pretty much all of them) and withdraw cash without any fees. I only remember banks getting horrible since around the time Bush took office.

I guess I just made a bad choice in 1991. My friend worked at one bank across the street from work, and their fee structure was pretty horrible if you didn't have at least $10K on deposit (for those people who did, they ran a shuttle down to the condos, the little old ladies would take the shuttle to come "check their balance" then get a bag of groceries while they were there and take the shuttle home... with service like that, I definitely couldn't afford the fees.) The bank I chose was Washington Mutual, at least for a few months, then they got bought and renamed, that happened every couple of years. I chose them because they were right across the street, but the lines for deposit were so long (plus the "error" in their favor, and surprise fees) that I dropped them and just went back to mailing my check to Tampa.

Re:I joined a Credit Union when I was 12

[Grishnakh]

To be honest, I was in high school in 1991, so it's not like I would have been fully aware of bad vs. good banking, but I do remember ATMs not having fees, and I don't remember any fees with our bank that I/we used in high school; it was called NBC, and we only picked it because they had a branch inside our local grocery store. A few years later, I got my first credit union account in college, not because of banks being bad, but because that CU had a branch on-campus and so was the most convenient option. After that, I always had CU accounts, and it was later (like the 2000s) where I started hearing all these horrible things about banks and thanking my lucky stars I was already using CUs.

Re:I joined a Credit Union when I was 12

[AlienIntelligence]

To be honest, I was in high school in 1991, so it's not like I would have been fully aware of bad vs. good banking, but I do remember ATMs not having fees, and I don't remember any fees with our bank that I/we used in high school; it was called NBC, and we only picked it because they had a branch inside our local grocery store. A few years later, I got my first credit union account in college, not because of banks being bad, but because that CU had a branch on-campus and so was the most convenient option. After that, I always had CU accounts, and it was later (like the 2000s) where I started hearing all these horrible things about banks and thanking my lucky stars I was already using CUs.

Not only that... but I completely missed when they transitioned from:
No monthly fee, and a charge per each transaction, ie checks written, etc
-to-
A monthly fee IF YOU DON'T have a certain amount of transactions

Obviously it was a business model change where they realized that transactions
MADE them money, thus they PENALIZE you for not allowing them to MAKE money
off of SOMEONE.

Sigh.

Viva la Occupy!

-AI

Tinfoil hat too tight??

[LVSlushdat]

I hope my tinfoil hat is just too tight, but I have a sneaking hunch that the banking industry is gonna put some major pressure on their congresscritters to cobble up some kind of bill to screw up credit unions. I seem to recall there was an attempt back in the 80s to castrate credit unions, but at THAT time there was not enough
stark terror in the minds of the banking industry to bribe .. err lobby (yeah thats the word) congress to make it happen. With 650K deserters in ONE flippin' month, the banking bozos ought to be shitting their pants. Remember you heard it here FIRST when CONgress "manages" to get bi-partison bill written up/passed and Comrade Oblowme to sign it in record time... I pray to God I'm wrong, but you know how this game works......

Re:Tinfoil hat too tight??

[DogDude]

They've been fighting credit unions for decades. Credit unions, due to banks buying laws, are already at a tremendous disadvantage in many respects. One big way is that credit unions must hold many times more cash per dollar loaned out than banks do. It's far beyond keeping credit unions safe. It's hobbled them so they can only loan out so much money, hurting small businesses who need those loans (because banks don't loan to small businesses).

Min-maxing one's credit score

[tepples]

Perhaps it's not sentimentality as much as age of oldest active account, something that gets reported to the three major credit bureaus.

Re:Min-maxing one's credit score

[base3]

That only applies to credit accounts, not to checking or savings accounts.

Re:Min-maxing one's credit score

[DogDude]

Oh, well let's just bend over for the Royal Triumvirate of Credit Bureaus, while we're at it, huh?

Re:Min-maxing one's credit score

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Oh, well let's just bend over for the Royal Triumvirate of Credit Bureaus, while we're at it, huh?

Very few of us have the luxury of making large purchases like a house or a car with cash. Most of those bending over do so because they have little choice in the matter, not because they want to.

Re:Min-maxing one's credit score

[DogDude]

That's your decision to make. Nobody's forcing anybody to buy a car or house they can't afford.

Re:Min-maxing one's credit score

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

That's your decision to make. Nobody's forcing anybody to buy a car or house they can't afford.

Perhaps not a house, but in many parts of this country owning a car is a practical requirement for stable employment. Furthermore its become quite common for landlords to pull credit reports on rental applicatins to try to reduce the risk of having to evict.

So, while one might argue that becoming homeless and and unemployed is better than taking on a loan, this one would laugh at the ridiculousness of such an argument.

Re:Min-maxing one's credit score

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I was irresponsible in my early 20s, shaped up, aggressively monitored my scores (and demandedvalidation of any tradelines which seemed dubious) and was fine within a few years I was fine..

So, what you are saying is that you bent over and took it from the credit reporting agencies. I think you just proved my point.

Re:Min-maxing one's credit score

[tepples]

How does one find a place to live without bending over and taking it from the credit reporting agencies?

Re:Min-maxing one's credit score

[DogDude]

Rent from someone who doesn't check your credit.

Which is why they should be broken up.

[khasim]

Banks are the banksters' way to gamble trillions - except they are gambling with tax payers' money (because even if their stupid gamble backfires, the taxpayer bails them out).

Remember the S&L troubles, too?

The problem is that when those institutions gamble and WIN, the profits are privatized. The profits go to the gamblers. Which encourages others to take the same risks.

But if the gamble fails, then the loses are socialized. They get a bailout from the government or they move the problem assets to another company and let that fail or they get the government to "insure" those assets.

And they're doing the same thing with bad car loans now.

If the bank is too big to fail, then it is too big to exist. Break it up and let the "free market" deal with their gambles.

Also, get the regulations in place. There should be no way to insure crap so that it gets a triple-A rating.

What kind of fees do CU's charge retailers?

[gyroidben]

Does the new law that caps charges to retailers for debit card use apply to credit unions as well? I'm considering switching to a credit union, but don't want to do it if they're charging retailers a lot more than the big banks do. Does anyone know of any banks or credit unions than charge retailers sane fees for transactions?

Re:What kind of fees do CU's charge retailers?

[DogDude]

The laws don't have anything to do with credit unions and banks. They apply to the card processors, like First Data. They had other higher rates in place the same day the Dodd-Frank bill went into effect, nullifying any savings. So no, it doesn't matter what card you use. The name on the card has very little to do with where all of the money flows. Most of the money goes to a handful of very large corporations who set the rules and the fees, not the name on the card.

I did this a couple years ago

[GodfatherofSoul]

When the moveyourmoney.info campaign was in full swing. Bank of America flat out lied to me about my mortgage, defrauded me on escrow fees, and conned me on a car loan. It was so bad I wrote my congressman and senators as well as the BBB.I went so far as to refinance my house to sever all ties to that organization. For some reason, business culture from this country has gone from "take care of our customers" to "squeeze those suckers for every drop of blood, then if they pack up and leave try to kiss and make up."

Re:I did this a couple years ago

[electrosoccertux]

When the moveyourmoney.info campaign was in full swing. Bank of America flat out lied to me about my mortgage, defrauded me on escrow fees, and conned me on a car loan. It was so bad I wrote my congressman and senators as well as the BBB.I went so far as to refinance my house to sever all ties to that organization. For some reason, business culture from this country has gone from "take care of our customers" to "squeeze those suckers for every drop of blood, then if they pack up and leave try to kiss and make up."

and why shouldn't BOA have? Under what moral code should they oblige to being "nice"? Life is about power, ???, and profit. It's not like there's some old man in the sky to keep people interested in being honest anymore.

Re:I did this a couple years ago

[Trubadidudei]

Yes, because "taking care of our customers" is completely motivated by religious dogma.
And of course, religiously motivated organisations like say for example.. the church, have never been murderous, crooked and manipulative! Oh where have those good ol' times gone, those sweet days with wholesome and honest witchburning, crusadin', peasant extortions and altar boy rape.

*facepalm*

People never have and never will be primarily motivated to be nice and honest due to the fear of eventual retribution of some man in the sky. The main motivator will always be the fact that if you aren't it's likely to come back and bite you in the ass in the world you're living in now. This is a lesson that is learned over and over again by people and organisations that start to act out of line, and that underpins some of the basal aspects of human emotionality. It looks to me like BoA might be a bit on the receiving end of this lesson right now, as a matter of fact.

Cash for absolutely everything? No.

[tepples]

If you really want to do banks in, use cash for everything

As much as possible? Yes. Everything? No. Drop your debit card and your credit card, and you won't be able to pay when shopping online.

Re:Cash for absolutely everything? No.

[DogDude]

Stop shopping online. Shop local.

Re:Cash for absolutely everything? No.

[lasinge]

That's great and all, but when I go to my "local" electronics store in Marin county to buy piezo tweeters for my keyboard amplifier and they are damn near $30 and I can get the same ones online for a couple of bucks, well... and they blow after about a month. I know I need to update the electronics, will do it soon - but still. I know they have crazy overhead, but isn't that also a function of the cost of renting commercial space which goes back to the mortgage problem?

Re:Cash for absolutely everything? No.

[tftp]

Stop shopping online. Shop local.

If you are shopping for anything except a commodity it's a waste of time and money. A century ago it was common to go to a local general store and ask the proprietor to mail-order a special product for you from one of his contacts in the industry. It was expensive and took forever. Nobody is interested in going back to that kind of shopping.

Re:Cash for absolutely everything? No.

[GenSolo]

You mean actually go into a store and give money to people? WTF do you think this is, 1995?

Re:Cash for absolutely everything? No.

[kimvette]

Stop shopping online. Shop local

Some of us try to, but when the price of an item in a local shop is 3x what it is online, or when the selection at local stores sucks, or if you simply can't find the item locally, what do you do?

Re:Cash for absolutely everything? No.

[DogDude]

You make a decision, with the money you spend, what is important to you. Generally, it's somewhere along the spectrum between "The people working here support me and my community, and the taxes support me and my community, so I'm going to spend significantly more here" to "I just want it cheap. Screw everybody".

I've looked into Credit Unions

[russotto]

...and community banks, and I've always found I'm getting a better deal at my large bank (currently called Wells Fargo, formerly Wachovia, First Union, and Corestates). I get interest-paying (nearly zero, but still interest paying) no-fee checking, savings, a couple of credit cards, free online bill pay and a large ATM network and two free out-of-network withdrawals a month.

Re:I've looked into Credit Unions

[DogDude]

I get 2.5% on my checking and no fees and a larger free ATM network at my credit union.

Re:I've looked into Credit Unions

[bill_mcgonigle]

I'm getting a better deal at my large bank

Yes, but why?

Can your Credit Union lend out the money it has on deposit 9 times over because it can access the Federal Reserve Bank's discount window and if it gets over-extended go running to the FDIC for a bail-out? It's the Federal Reserve System that's created our current economic mess, so by pulling your funds out and going to a Credit Union you're helping to solve the actual problem.

And, yeah, doing the right thing* is going to cost you something.

* some Credit Unions use direct or indirect Federal Reserve deposit accounts and access the Fed discount window. Determining if switching to a particular Credit Union is really a help is more work than it should be. Not every Credit Union is lilly white.

Re:I've looked into Credit Unions

[Rudolf]

Can your Credit Union lend out the money it has on deposit 9 times over because it can access the Federal Reserve Bank's discount window and if it gets over-extended go running to the FDIC for a bail-out?

Credit Unions are insured by the FDIC same as banks. And before that, they were insured by the FSLIC, which did not turn out well for taxpayers.

Re:I've looked into Credit Unions

[bill_mcgonigle]

Credit Unions are insured by the FDIC same as banks.

No, typically their deposits are insured by NCUA.

Wait, did FDIC take over NCUA recently?

Re:I've looked into Credit Unions

[YojimboJango]

Depends on your credit union. I get all that and if I over draw my account by under $500 they take out a low interest loan for me, so I dont bounce anything.

Credit union is lake michigan credit union.

Re:I've looked into Credit Unions

[Moridineas]

Who is giving 2.5% interest on checking now? That seems pretty nice. I'm getting ~1.1% on a money market linked to checking right now at a credit union.

Re:I've looked into Credit Unions

[DogDude]

https://www.coastal24.com/ 2.51%, actually.

Re:I've looked into Credit Unions

[russotto]

Wait, did FDIC take over NCUA recently?

No, still separate. But they're tentacles of the same Federal Government, and the fact that they're nominally separate means little, as the FSLIC (which was for savings&loans, not credit unions) debacle showed; the feds did not let the FSLIC go under, nor did they even leave depositors stuck with the losses that were above the FSLIC insurance limit (which was then $25,000, I believe, compared with the FDICs $100,000).

Re:I've looked into Credit Unions

[bill_mcgonigle]

But they're tentacles of the same Federal Government, and the fact that they're nominally separate means little

I'd totally believe I'm just unaware of it being true, but I don't know about NCUA forcing Credit Unions closed under sketchy pretenses and selling them off to bigger conglomerates. The FDIC has been doing just that, to benefit the big banks.

I think because the Fed (and its shareholder banks) is not a the top of the food chain under credit unions, there's less political influence.

Re:I've looked into Credit Unions

[Moridineas]

Oh that's funny, I actually live about a mile from a Coastal Credit Union.

Are you happy? I don't think I would be able to get that rate because I don't do 30 debit card transactions in a month, but that's tempting!

Re:I've looked into Credit Unions

[DogDude]

Happy with Coastal? Mostly. I wish they had "real" tellers again, but otherwise, year, Coastal is great.

Another good word about Credit Unions here!

[King_TJ]

I'd long heard the advice about Credit Unions being a better bet than a bank, but honestly, I felt switching might be more hassle than it was worth. I knew Credit Unions had membership restrictions, for starters. (For instance, Navy Federal Credit Union pretty much requires you're either in the armed forces, or a family member of someone who is. That doesn't help me.)

I always tried to bank with smaller, local banks though, instead of any of the "mega banks". That strategy worked pretty well for me when the bigger ones went through a phase of eliminating "totally free checking" accounts, some years ago.

However, I tried to get refinanced on my car loan a couple years ago and found none of the banks were willing to help me at all -- even the one I have direct deposit with from my work, and hold both a checking and a savings account with. My rate was WAY too high and I wasn't asking the world ... just an opportunity to get a sane interest rate. That's when I decided to take a closer look at Credit Unions. I discovered one of the bigger ones had 2 convenient branches near my house AND was partnered up with most of the others in town, so you could use ATM machines belonging to ANY of them free of charge. Their only rules for becoming a member seemed to be based on you living in a zip code somewhat geographically close to their branches. A day later (since they had to have the bank manager review my situation and he was out for the day), I had my loan refinanced at a rate a full 10 percentage points lower than I was paying!

I switched my checking account over to a second Credit Union not long after that, and was paid over $100 in bonuses just to switch!

Re:Another good word about Credit Unions here!

[King_TJ]

Uh, sure.... and then you make sure you go home and wash your hands with hot water from the "hot water heater".

Whatever .... it's just the way people refer to these things. Get over it!

Re:Another good word about Credit Unions here!

[gmanterry]

If you can qualify, Navy Federal Credit Union is absolutely awesome. It reminds me of what banks were like in the 50s. They truly treat their customers as if they were the reason that the institution exists. I bailed out of Chase two years ago when they started charging $6.00 a month to use online bill pay. Luckily my son was with NFCU and was able to secure me an account. If you can qualify there is no finer banking institution around. You might have noticed that I really like them.

Curious if there's any informed people here...

[Anonymous Coward]

How many people here know the $5 debit card fee is a direct response to Congress stupidly passing a law that targeted only very large banks like BofA forcing them to cap how much they could charge as a processing fee to retailers. All smaller banks don't have that limit. This limit means only very large banks lose money on debit cards while smaller banks still make a good profit on them.

This is yet another example of the politicians passing self-serving laws then demonizing how people or businesses have to respond to those laws.

Now that BofA is dropping the $5 fee they will have to raise other fees like overdraft charges to make up for the money they are losing with debit cards.

Re:Curious if there's any informed people here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that BofA is dropping the $5 fee they will have to raise other fees like overdraft charges to make up for the money they are losing with debit cards.

That may be the most foolhardy statement I've read today. And it's late.

Specifically, the words, "Losing" and "Have to" ring stupid.

Re:Curious if there's any informed people here...

[dogmatixpsych]

It's kind of like charging people who make more money higher taxes. What kind of craziness is that?!

Re:Curious if there's any informed people here...

[lasinge]

Wait a minute, banks LOSING money? Come on son, which financial institution are you working for? What desert island have you been living on for the past two months? That's like all the money you supposedly SAVE when you buy something from your local shyster used car salesman. That's the biggest pile of horse nitrogenous compounds I've ever heard. The banks did more to shoot themselves in the foot by lending bogus loans and bundling them and reselling them as financial instruments, laughing all the way to the ... errr wait. Seriously? We are talking about enough money lost to equal the whole economy for one year of the whole planet!! And then lobby to get the money from the US government. This has always pissed me off about banks, they hold on to 10% of your money make money hand over fist with YOUR money and charge YOU fees for their trouble. They should be paying you for the privilege of making money from your money. That's why the kids are Occupying Wall Street, that's why. To quote Matt Taibbi .... oh never mind. Go stroke your gold bullion or something. "My precious, my precious..."

Re:Curious if there's any informed people here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah no joke genius. I don't agree with all the legistlation, but for the most part that was put in place as a consumer protection. So we get protection, and what to big banks do. Bend us over their giant money wad and give it to us from behind. Cry me a river big banks. "we can't make a cabilliom dollars off these suckers any more, and I hate regular billions." we bailed em out, and we are all still $&@Ed from the risks they made. Why can't they just for once not make quite as much profit? Everyone else is having to deal with hard times, why shouldn't they too?

Re:Curious if there's any informed people here...

[perlith]

To the AC, informed, yes: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/business/bank-of-america-drops-plan-for-debit-card-fee.html
" On Oct. 1, a new federal rule went into effect that limits the fees banks can levy on merchants every time a consumer swipes a debit card to make a purchase. The new limit is expected to cost the banks about $6.6 billion in revenue a year, beginning in 2012, according to Javelin Strategy and Research. That comes on top of another loss, of $5.6 billion, from new rules restricting overdraft fees, which were widely seen as onerous and went into effect in July 2010. "

The full report unfortunately is paywalled: https://www.javelinstrategy.com/brochure/219


However, if we ask what percentage of revenue this is: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-25/dodd-frank-cutting-9-billion-of-revenue-spurs-u-s-banks-to-invent-fees.html
" The 10 biggest banks’ estimated impact of the two rules accounts for less than 2 percent of the $514.6 billion net revenue they posted last year. "


I'm not sympathetic.

Re:Curious if there's any informed people here...

[Idbar]

Poor creatures. They provide minimum interest on saving accounts, they charge for about anything and they want to charge fees for using the cards.

I signed up for an account at INGDirect. They used to pay the best interest rate and not charge a dime for basic bank functionality. Now I realize my interest rate went dramatically down, it's still not down to the point of my other banks and yet, they don't charge me for the stuff.

Something is not working right with BoA approach that they need to look into. Mainly, I think is the "we want lots of money from anyone willing to give" mentality.

Re:Curious if there's any informed people here...

[sjames]

None of them are losing money on debit cards, and Congress passed that law after the large banks tried to screw everyone by jacking the fees up unreasonably.Meanwhile, the same banks have rigged the deal so even customers who pay cash end up eating the costs of fraud so the banks can avoid actually securing their system.

The banks would like to portray themselves as poor and downtrodden victims of the bad old government, and you apparently went back for seconds and thirds on that cool aid.

Re:Curious if there's any informed people here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Boohoo. I work at a bank myself and I am fully aware of the laws you are talking about.

Painting BoA as a discriminated against business is bulls**t philosophy that people like you follow to *use* any argument to support your bias against Government. Even if in this case, the law is meant to support people like you and me from price gouging.

Do you really think the processing fee loss for BoA is such a big hit to their baseline that they cannot absorb the shock?

If you read BTN (Bank Technology Newsletter) -- BoA has some ~92 data warehouse centers that are running below 5% utilization -- you know closing even half of these warehouses and consolidating their data processes will result in far more savings that running after nickels and dimes of the consumers -- who are being kicked in the shins when they are at their very low due to the recession.

The real reason BoA is charging customers is because banks are currently flushed with liquidity; but not enough opportunities to circulate that liquid cash. Hence, you reduce the most volatile component of your liquidity by imposing a fee that a not-so-valuable customer will shirk from and run away. Their hedge here was that customers with significant relationship with them will stay because $5 is relatively insignificant. What they underestimated was the anger of people over a grid-locked congress and state of economy resulting in loss of even some *valuable* relationships.

And of course -- as a pleasant side-effect -- pandering to the blatant GOP/Faux News agenda -- the bank could easily blame the **tight** regulations!

What short memories we have? It was the lack of regulations that lead to those subprime mortgages and the current economic conditions starting in 2008 (remember Lehmann collapse -- tight regulations?? I don't think so. In fact - LAX REGULATIONS!) and yet somehow today we are saying it is over-regulation that is causing our economic problems???

A**hole Congress - certainly. A**hole Republicans - definitely. They are so incensed over their own hubris and zealousness to protect the rich and opposition to the president that they have destroyed this country.

Re:Curious if there's any informed people here...

[Eil]

How many people here know the $5 debit card fee is a direct response to Congress stupidly passing a law that targeted only very large banks like BofA forcing them to cap how much they could charge as a processing fee to retailers.

Oh man, I hear you. Those poor big banks, right? The ones that get to gamble with the economy, get bailed out by taxpayers, and continue to post record annual bonuses to their executives. Retail stores, restaurants, and gas stations all around the country sure have those big banks bent over the counter now!

Re:Curious if there's any informed people here...

[Osgeld]

yes how dare the government pass a non fuck you law on a bank they kept out of failure. BOA is a prime example, too incompetent to run a bank then try to fuck their customers for the mistake.

Re:Curious if there's any informed people here...

[sqrt(2)]

Or they could, you know, be happy with making a little less money and giving their customers a better deal. The scales are so tilted toward the corporations and away from the customers/consumers that I struggle to have any sympathy for a bank or any other business that has to make a little less profit so that their customers can not be exploited. People are waking up and realizing that the scare tactic/threats from businesses saying they'll shut down if they're a tiny bit less profitable are pure bluff. If we stand up to them, they'll shrug and take it, being happy that they're still allowed to make SOME money and haven't been nationalized outright. Business should be scared of their customers, business should be horrified of the populace and the power they wield BOTH through the market and through government regulation.

Re:Curious if there's any informed people here...

[DanielRavenNest]

The new $0.21 per transaction limit on debit card fees are still about three times what it actually costs to process the transaction. It's electronic transfer of funds. In theory the cost should approach zero. What little cost there is is partly to do with having to produce a physical plastic card, the human paperwork to set up the account, and the occasional odd charge or fraud, when a human has to get involved.

So cry me a river that they can't charge more than three times cost on debit transactions. Maybe that will force them to become more efficient.

Re:welcome the new bank

[mysidia]

The difference is that credit unions are explicitly not-for-profit. Their main goal is not to maximize shareholder value, but to maximize member usefulness. That makes a really big difference.

A lot of insurance companies started that way too. This works great until "demutualization" happens.

Eventually a big company comes in, wants to buy out/get profit from the members of this association.... slips enough money under the table to the right people, and suddenly you have the CU turning into a for-profit bank with a one-time payout for members, maybe some shares of stock if they're lucky

Credit unions

[DogDude]

Credit unions are fantastic. I run my multi-million dollar business solely through credit unions. People think they're silly things for pensioners. In reality, I have much more credit, and I earn a lot more interest than my competitors do who are still going to banks. I know most individuals save maybe a hundred bucks a year going to a credit union, but I save thousands a year. I love my credit union(s)!!

customer service?

[KingAlanI]

I'm a currency collector and a WheresGeorge addict, so I visit banks very often, complete with unusual requests. So I suppose retail service is more relevant to me than others.

Do you have any problems with the folks at your credit union branch(es)? I honestly wouldn't know either way. CU's won't do even simple stuff for non-accountholders, so I don't have any experience with the personnel save for a negative impression. I have gotten accounts at some regular banks that I initially visited as a non-accountholder.

of all the issues with big banks, retail-location customer service doesn't seem to be one of them.

In general, the cheap version of something is sometimes satisfactory, sometimes not.

Re:customer service?

[riverat1]

No, I've never had any problems with mine. I'm sure some are better than others. I wouldn't know about non-account holders but the couple of times I've needed to do banking away from home I was able to accomplish it through another CU that's in the same network as mine without undue problems. I've got my house and car paid off so about the weirdest thing I do is ask for rolls of dollar coins when making a withdrawal. I haven't seen a WheresGeorge bill in 2 or 3 years but maybe that's because I use $1 coins instead of bills.

Re:customer service?

[Mister Transistor]

I have had many big banks refuse to cash a check for me, too. As a non-customer of theirs, even when the damn check was DRAFTED ON THAT BANK, they refused! They cited some ridiculous bullshit about not being able to identify me or some crap even though they try to humiliate and even fingerprint you when you want to get a simple check cashed. Utter crap - that should be fucking illegal - if a check is drafted on a given institution, it should have to honor it no matter what.

Re:customer service?

[KingAlanI]

I meant stuff like swapping cash for the same face value in other cash.
I don't have experience with the check-cashing issue. When I get paper checks, I take it to the bank where I have an account, rather than the bank it was drafted on, even if the bank it was drafted on has branches nearby. Since I don't have paper checks handy, I could ask them what they _would_ do.

Re:customer service?

[KingAlanI]

yes, various comments in this thread point out CU networks as alleviating CU branch location issues.
I often use $2 bills instead of $1 bills or $1 coins.
I search through piles of $1s for collectibles. (many of the $1s I do spend are some of the leftovers from these searches)
I find many WheresGeorge bills as a side effect of those two activities. I enter them as well as starting off bills myself

Re:customer service?

[Eponymous Coward]

My problem with credit unions is finding one that doesn't have very high fees for foreign currency transactions. I have relatives in Canada that send my kids birthday checks from Canadian banks and the three or four credit unions in my part of the city all have either very high fees or won't cash the checks at all. That's why I'm still at Wells Fargo. Officially there's a $1.50 fee per check, but they've never refused to waive the fee (and I make sure to ask every time).

Re:customer service?

[KingAlanI]

I use purple. ;)

Re:customer service?

[drinkypoo]

At my local CU we have about six tellers. Two of them, the oldest ones, are nosy busybody bitches which is not what people want from their banking establishment. I took a bunch of bills that had gone through the washing machine in and she insisted on checking every single one very carefully for a counterfeit in spite of the fact that I've been a customer for years and have never brought them a bad bill before. So I'm sitting at the teller window for like five minutes while she's off in another room peering at bills with the manager, which made me feel like an asshole. But the youngest one is very sweet, personable and helpful, and I've never had a problem with any but that one.

However, if you compare it to the other options in town, this is by far the best banking experience available in this backwater. I had WestAmerica for a while, worst banking experience ever, hit me with all kinds of invented fees, holding deposits long enough to cause checks not to clear, then refusing to remove the fee - they are scum and I want to pee on them, and not in a sexy way. I had WAMU, but then they were taken over by Chase with the aid of the federal government, even though they were in much better financial straits than banks that were not declared to be insolvent. So I left there and went to the CU and it's been an improvement. I've banked with Wells Fargo and Blood of Apartheid before so I know they're assholes, and those are the only other options around here.

Re:customer service?

[war4peace]

Sorry for living in another country, but what's a WheresGeorge?

Re:customer service?

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked as a teller while getting my undergrad degree. In short, the patriot act requires that banks identify whomever they do business with so that the bank isn't "funding terrorism." I agree that it's stupid, but the law is the law. At one point, my supervisor was so afraid of us "doing business" with non-account holders that we were required to get a social security number / photo ID even for making change / giving out a roll of quarters for a $10 bill. Ridiculous.

We required any non-account holder to provide a non-expired government issued photo-id (driver's license, passport, military ID, etc.) and a social security number. Every week the Gov't would supply a list of "known terrorists" that we had to check against our database of account holders / non-account holders. At first, we didn't require social security numbers, but eventually the list of "non account holders" that we did business with got so large that checking it by hand was a full-time job. We then collected social security numbers so our computer system could cross-check the list provided to us weekly.

Re:customer service?

[billstewart]

It is illegal. If the check is drafted on that bank, and you ask the bank manager "Are you refusing to honor a check drafted on your bank?", he's supposed to get very embarrassed and apologize, assuming the check's not signed by the account holder or the account not having money in it. Other banks don't have to honor the check, but the bank it's written on does.

I hated my credit union

[John Bresnahan]

They had a credit union at my last job, and I decided to use it, in part because I was going to be buying a house soon, and I assumed that a credit union would offer a better deal than a "regular" mortgage company.

I didn't find anything about the credit union that was better than what I was used to at regular banks, and when I applied for a mortgage, I discovered they had a "demand feature", which I had never seen before (this was my third time buying a house). For those who don't know, a demand feature means that the credit union could, at any time and for any or no reason, demand that I pay the mortgage in full.

When I asked them about it, they assured me that "everyone did it" and that they wouldn't actually do that even if they could and that I should just trust them and not worry about it.

I immediately dropped them and went to a regular mortgage company, which did not have a "demand feature" and offered a better rate. I later learned from other employees that the credit union had "called" mortgages of other employees when they missed a payment on their linked credit card.

So, don't assume that a credit union is better than a bank or other financial organization. Some may be, but others aren't. Caveat emptor!

Re:I hated my credit union

[Lifyre]

Exactly, not every Credit Union is better than a bank. My credit union has been very good to me. My credit card rate drops to zero when there is less than $1000 on the card, my car loan was a point and a half lower than either the dealer or other banks could offer, and they were amoung the lowest mortgage rates my friends could get. I unfortunately can't comment on their mortgages personally though.

It should also be said I have an account with a bank as well because it offers some perks that I appreciate that the credit union doesn't offer.

Re:I hated my credit union

[John Bresnahan]

That's on every mortgage contract I've ever seen. Maybe you haven't been looking for it. It's standard fodder.

I've bought 3 houses, and had several re-fi's, so I've seen a fair number of mortgage contracts, and the only one that had a demand feature was the one from the credit union. It was unusual enough to jump out at me when I read the contract for the first time.

I'm certain that the mortgage I got after rejecting the one from the credit union did not have such a thing, since I was specifically looking for it. I'm fairly certain that my earlier mortgages did not have them. It is possible that this is a state-specific thing, since all of my other mortgage contracts were from a different state than the one from the credit union.

Note that this was different than the routine clause that if you fail to uphold your end of the deal then they can foreclose. The "demand clause" in the credit union's contract said they could demand an immediate payment in full at any time, for any reason.

Re:I hated my credit union

[khallow]

All loans can be claimed in full at any time by the bank

No, they can't. This simply is not a feature of most loans.

Re:I hated my credit union

[John Bresnahan]

You shouldn't let that affect how you see all other credit unions.

True enough. I was just interjecting my negative experience to offset the other posts suggesting that credit unions are always better than banks.

Re:I hated my credit union

[LunaticTippy]

I've done a dozen mortgages and the only demand clauses I've seen were on ARMs. I'd never sign a mortgage with a demand clause. If rates go up your lender can hold you hostage to agree to higher rates. If you don't pay they can call your loan, forcing you to pay current mortgage rates and closing costs.

Natural market forces at work

[cvtan]

Certainly no bank could complain about THAT.

Re:Natural market forces at work

[Attila Dimedici]

Of course they could, and will. They will get Barney Frank to introduce some law to "protect the consumer" more and low and behold there will be all kinds of regulations on Credit Unions that will force many of them out of business (or at least drive up their costs so that they are not competitive with BofA).

Not every customer is charged...

[LameMonikerGoesHere]

... the fee. I have (had, woo hoo!) a checking acct with wells fargo since 1994. I stopped using it as my primary account after moving to a region where they had little presence. I retained a portion of direct deposit for years and now they decided to charge me 5 bucks a month unless I kept a $xx daily balance or increased my direct deposit amount . Dropping them was an easy decision, but my point is that they aren't charging everyone fees -- only those customers who aren't necessarily making them money. They can still kiss off though, for sure.

That works ... unless there's a fee.

[khasim]

Just make sure that the bank (BoA in your case) doesn't charge you fees for low balances. If they do, you'll have to keep your balance above that level to avoid the fees.

All that for a service that SHOULD BE STOPPED WHEN YOU CLOSE THE ACCOUNT.

The companies that you have automatic payments going to have a process in place for when they don't get the payment. Usually it involves letting you know (via email or mail or phone) that your card was declined.

Re:That works ... unless there's a fee.

[TheRaven64]

Just make sure that the bank (BoA in your case) doesn't charge you fees for low balances

WTF? A fee for low balances? I thought the US banking system was a bit fucked up with charges for EFT and for using cash machines, but a charge for not keeping enough money in your bank account?!?! The worst that they'll do on this side of the pond is have a lower interest rate if you're below a certain threshold.

We Already Knew Thanks to AMC

[dugn]

It's called the American Policy Institute (API)

Re:Are the sheep finally waking? (ATM Convenience)

[DogDude]

E-Trade is one of the biggest banks in the world.

Re:welcome the new bank

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we have that model for health care please?

I want to start an open-source health union where the members have to be programmers, and the business rules are written down in git-managed open-source program code, which will be used in place of a human management, and is executed independently on multiple systems belonging to those with the biggest differences in opinions in the union. That way tampering of the source or will immediately raise a shitstorm, and will probably be followed by a fork/rejection. In other words: We'd have a verifiable and trustworthy management. Even bigger bugs in the system would be found and implemented or implemented in a fork.

The only problem I see would be that not everyone could join, since non-programmers couldn’t verify the code themselves, and so the trustworthiness of the "management" would go away, making the whole exercise pointless. Anyone got a solution for that? Not that I, as a lonely single programmer, would care. ;) ... :(

Oh, and wait for the banks and FOX to call credit unions "socialism". Cause I will call it *democracy*, and the hallmark of a healthy economy: Voting with your wallet, and creating your own successful business. (In a credit union you are not a client but a member, which means you’re also a owner, and the management is voted in fairly.) Let's see them call democracy socialism. ^^

Words of caution

[fiannaFailMan]

I made the switch a few weeks ago after BoA announced the debit card fee stunt. I don't care that they've reversed the decision, their customer "your call is important to us and will be answered in the order in which it was received" service is shockingly bad. They don't deserve my money, even if the girls who work in the local branch are hot.

I closed my checking and savings account and switched to a local credit union, but not before doing a search on Yelp to find a good one. I was surprised to find a local credit union (which was part of a larger network and had an impressively professional looking website) getting uniformly bad reviews for its customer service, so I searched a little more until I found one with positive reviews.

I kept my BoA credit card account open even though I've cut the card up and have no intention of using it. Closing credit card accounts can hurt your credit rating.

Re:Words of caution

[tomhudson]

Closing credit card accounts can hurt your credit rating.

Not true. Your total credit carrying capacity is reduced by the maximum balance you COULD charge against your credit card, even if the balance is currently zero. This is because you can, at any time, load it to the max without any review.

Example: If your total consumer credit carrying capacity is $50k, and you have credit cards with a balance of $0, but limits of $10k each, you won't get a $40k loan. Drop one card, you now qualify for that same loan.

This is a dirty little secret the banks won't tell you unless you really push them, because they make more profit off those monthly basic fees than they do from any other operation.

So, all you really need to do is keep, at most, one credit card to maintain some sort of record. Get rid of the rest, and the fees, and be happy.

Re:Words of caution

[Moridineas]

I've always read that closing credit cards -- reducing your maximum available credit -- and therefore also increasing your ratio of current debt to maximum credit, can temporarily hit your credit score.

This is a dirty little secret the banks won't tell you unless you really push them, because they make more profit off those monthly basic fees than they do from any other operation.

What monthly fees? I probably have 12-15 credit cards that I've signed up for because of various promotional reasons. I only use one of them. One of them (Chase Sapphire) I actually just cancelled 2 months after getting the card due to annual fees, waived in the first year. The rest, I don't pay anything, and I don't use them. I also don't pay anything. For me, it's a win win.

Re:Words of caution

[tomhudson]

I've always read that closing credit cards -- reducing your maximum available credit -- and therefore also increasing your ratio of current debt to maximum credit, can temporarily hit your credit score.

Nope. Your maximum credit available is determined by your capacity to carry debt, plus your history of paying back debt. A credit card with a zero balance has the same effect as co-signing a loan for someone else - your total debt load has to take into account future events, such as you maxing out your credit card or being called on to pay the note you co-signed.

Credit card issuers want you to believe the opposite, because it's in their self-interest. After all, if they told the truth, most people would only have 1 (or even zero) credit cards.

Also, even if you pay your balance every month, you're still paying in higher costs. Merchants have to pay 2% to 4% to the card company. Take 3% of what you spend every year and multiply it by a hundred million people. That's a LOT of money. And if you're going to pay by cash or debit card, you can always ask for a discount. On a $1,000 purchase, paying $40 less is a "Good Thing".

Most people don't even try to bargain because they wrongly assume you can't ask for (and get) a cash discount at places like Best Buy.

Re:Words of caution

[Moridineas]

Do you have any references to back up your statements? I literally have never heard that before. One example of a blogger stating the opposite of what you're saying:

http://www.mymoneyblog.com/more-inactive-credit-cards-being-closed-protect-your-fico-credit-score.html

Secondly, you didn't answer my question at all about monthly fees? What are you talking about?

Also, even if you pay your balance every month, you're still paying in higher costs. Merchants have to pay 2% to 4% to the card company. Take 3% of what you spend every year and multiply it by a hundred million people. That's a LOT of money. And if you're going to pay by cash or debit card, you can always ask for a discount. On a $1,000 purchase, paying $40 less is a "Good Thing".

I do agree--to an extent with this. I think 4% is a little high from my own experience, but yes, it's not at all an insubstantial amount. I spend cash wherever possible. I use credit cards to get gas and for any electronic/appliance purchases. I use an Amex that gives an extra one year to the warranty. Online purchases I use credit cards (no cash for Amazon!). Other than that, I'm just about entirely cash.

Re:Words of caution

[tomhudson]

The blog writer is full of it. Their "logic" is not supported by anything but their own "logic". Go talk to someone who works in retail finance. When you apply for a loan, the risk assessment is based on your maximum, not current, balance, because you can go up to your maximum balance without requesting new credit be extended.

Your credit rating will go up and down with your payment and credit history - however, your borrowing capacity is not the same. You can have an excellent credit rating and still not be able to borrow because you've got that unused capacity "overhang". Don't confuse debt with wealth.

Re:Words of caution

[Moridineas]

I appreciate your input, but given that you've been unable to provide any citations or references, I'm going to keep believing what I've always read. Moreover, even the wikipedia writeup on FICO score EXPLICITLY says the opposite of what you're claiming.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FICO_score#Makeup_of_the_FICO_score

30%: Credit utilization—The ratio of current revolving debt (such as credit card balances) to the total available revolving credit or credit limit. FICO scores can be improved by paying off debt and lowering the credit utilization ratio.[7] Alternatively, applications for and receiving the credit limit increase will also drive down the utilization ratio. The closing of existing revolving accounts will typically adversely affect this ratio and therefore have a negative impact on a FICO score.

Let's say you have $2000 debt, and $20,000 available credit, split between two credit cards. If you close one credit card ($10k), your ratio goes from 2000 : 20,000 to 2000 : 10,000. Credit utilization counts for 30% of the FICO score! Do you disagree with this?

Re:Words of caution

[tomhudson]

The wikipedia entry is inaccurate (how FICO scores are arrived at is a closed secret). Or did you miss the big notice at the top that it needs citations?

For example, while FICO's website says "Proportion of credit lines used (proportion of balances to total credit limits on certain types of revolving accounts)", it doesn't say whether this is a positive or a negative. The article itself also notes that FICO has had to change its models

In other words, you can score high but still not be eligible for new credit. This is especially true since having too many credit cards is now itself a risk factor (post-housing-bubble).

Your credit rating is not what determines whether you get a loan or not. If you're already at your maximum carrying debt capacity, you won't get it. If you have too many open lines of credit already that could push you over that without any notification or application, you won't get it. This is not 2005 any more. There are simply too many cases of people who took out one obligation too many and then went into a death spiral on their credit cards trying to, for example, keep the house.

Your "credit utilization" theory sounds nice in theory, but fails in practice. It should imply that you can improve your score by getting an additional credit card, and, for example, transferring some of the debt onto it. The only way that works is by reducing your debt, not by taking out more credit cards and putting a bit on each one, because your overall debt carrying capacity doesn't change.

Your credit utilization ratio is still bounded by that debt carrying capacity factor. Exceed the carrying capacity and your utilization ratio becomes irrelevant (for obvious reasons).

Re:Words of caution

[Moridineas]

I don't get it, are you trolling me? You're very good at describing what you feel but you've provided absolutely no sources to back up your guesses.

Since you don't like financial bloggers or wikipedia's explanations, let's go right to the source (very clearly linked to on the wikipedia article). Myfico.com. Myfico.com is run by Fair Isaac.

http://www.myfico.com/CreditEducation/WhatsInYourScore.aspx

Section, "Amounts Owed" (30% of total score): "Proportion of credit lines used (proportion of balances to total credit limits on certain types of revolving accounts)". Revolving accounts--credit cards.

Re:Words of caution

[tomhudson]

Again, the MyFICO.com website does NOT state HOW that is proportion is actually used in calculating the score.

You (and the original financial blogger) are making the logical fail of assuming that it correlates as a positive, not negative.

The actual formula has not been made public. However, from talking with people who actually do the loans approval process for millions of dollars a year, the fact is that unused but available credit is taken into account when rejecting a loan - you can have too much unused credit, in which case you're better to dump the extra cards.

So, rather than just assume, go talk to someone who actually works in the biz, mkay?

Or simply apply logic. You go to the bank to borrow $50k. You have credit cards and lines of credit with a zero balance, with total available limits totaling $50k. Your earning capacity would support total debt of $50k..

Because you already have available credit (albeit unused) that is at the maximum level you can support, you are denied the loan.

Your way of thinking is confusing credit with wealth. The lender is looking at credit as debt that has to be paid back.

Re:Words of caution

[Moridineas]

Yeah, given that the blogger I cited (and others) have, through experience, found that closing credit cards can hurt your credit score, along with what's been said publicly by Fair Isaac, and the best you can come up with is "go talk to someone who actually works in the biz, mkay" I'm going to call bullshit. Your feelings about what you feel ought to be the way FICO scores are calculated, while perhaps interesting as an academic topic, just really don't matter at all.

If you can find a single source--anything!--that says closing a credit card does not hurt your credit score, and, in fact, could positively affect your score, post away! If you still don't have any sources and are just going to rant more about "my way of thinking" or "confusing credit with wealth" (which is just extremely irrelevant to the question at hand), my part of this conversation is done.

Re:Words of caution

[tomhudson]

1. Actually, the blogger doesn't cite any such experience.

2. Go talk to someone who works in the business. I did. I worked for 7 years at one such place, developing their software, so no, it's not just "anecdotal evidence". To do the work, I obviously had to talk to my boss, equifax, etc.

Re:Words of caution

[Moridineas]

1. Actually, the blogger doesn't cite any such experience.

Not that one post no. Go talk to any researchers in the field, come back then, mkay?

2. Go talk to someone who works in the business. I did. I worked for 7 years at one such place, developing their software, so no, it's not just "anecdotal evidence". To do the work, I obviously had to talk to my boss, equifax, etc.

So ok, still not a single source that you can cite. I appreciate your attempt to relay your position, but you're really not good at this. I mean, you can find people on the Internet who advocate molesting children, but you can't find a single reference that aligns with your feelings on this issue? Ok...

Re:Words of caution

[tomhudson]

Look, you have NO citations that are valid. NO documentation of the FairIsaacs scoring method (which is proprietary and closed, so you can't have), you cite random bloggers who have zero industry experience, you yourself have no industry experience, and you are just being lame at this point.

So either save it for Troll Tuesday, or ST*U, mkay?

Re:Words of caution

[LunaticTippy]

Part of your FICO score, around 20%, is based on average age of accounts. Closing a card older than your average age will lower your credit score. You are correct about the loan amounts.

Hope Occupy dont take over this...

[azke]

I really disagree with a lot of their stuff, but this (independent movement) I can totally agree with, banks treat customers like crap.

Re:welcome the new bank

[Fjandr]

That might be true if they were publicly owned; they're not. They're owned by their members. While it may be a form of socialism, it is not state socialism. The latter is what most people against "socialism" actually object to. Language is frequently used too ambiguously and requires a bit of context to determine how to differentiate two different concepts when they share a common descriptor.

Just because something is non-profit does not mean it's anathema to someone who is fiscally conservative.

even some regular banks have this issue

[KingAlanI]

Many regular banks _are_ all over the place. However, many are quite regionalized, with a lot of branches in some areas and none in others.

This year, I had a summer job out of town. I have accounts with a couple banks common in my hometown but neither of them had branches where I was staying. (and vice versa - a couple banks common in that area are nonexistent in my hometown)

Some things that helped alleviate the problem:
Direct deposit (insert negative comments about paper checks here)
Debit card cashback (Many retail stores offer this. I found it useful as a substitute for ATMs or withdrawal slips)
Banks willing to make change and handle other straightforward requests for non-accountholders, particularly relevant to me as a currency collector and a WheresGeorge addict.

Re:Really? I did this last year!

[Grishnakh]

What about debit cards? With that new law that BofA was so mad about, I believe debit card fees are limited to a very low fixed amount per transaction (like under $0.20 IIRC), rather than 3-5% of the transaction total as with credit cards. Honestly, I'm shocked that law made it through Congress since it isn't so pro-corporation (or at least not pro-bank corporation; it's extremely pro-every-other-merchant-corporation; I guess Walmart's lobbyists won out over the bankers').

So unless I'm missing something, using a debit card is probably the best way to stick it to Visa and Mastercard et al, and to remove pressure from retailers to raise prices (remember, handling cash has a significant cost and risk).

SunTrust

[TypoNAM]

Funny how I see all the rage about Bank of America charging $5/month to use debit cards, but what about raging against banks such as SunTrust who wants to charge both $5/month for debit card usage and $7/month on banking accounts that have less than a required minimum that were forcefully converted from Free Checking to Standard Checking for a total of a $12/month fee charges and that would be $144 taken each year out of the poor's checking accounts. SunTrust also decided to cancel the monthly debit card usage fee for now, but they're still going to charge us poor folks who can't manage to keep at least $500 in the account a $7 fee each month.

Yeah, that seems so fair to charge the poor to have a checking account...

O RLY?

[Weezul]

I've used a credit union account in another state for the past 5 years. I should find some local place yeah, but I never got off my lazy ass, and my other one works fine.

other special occasions too. but mailing cash OK

[KingAlanI]

heh, last time I dealt with paper checks was when people gave me college-graduation gifts. (A few gave cash, and I received a couple gift cards)
They were local friends/family that brought me the stuff in-person. However, I've rarely if ever had problems with sending/receiving cash through the mail. Just use a small number of bills (not necessarily a small dollar value), and package them well. The cash would probably be well-packaged inside a card (or plain cardboard/ regular paper for that matter)

WheresGeorge as another incentive

[KingAlanI]

WheresGeorge revolves around circulating cash, so taking that up as a hobby leads to using cash more often. However, Visa and/or PayPal are still useful for most online purchases.

Ditching the Big Banks

[ATLHivemind]

I was one of those lazy, complacent types. Until I actually talked to a rep from my local CU at an event-thing at my office. After hearing "9.75% interest on credit cards" and promptly picking my jaw up off the floor I signed up. Repeat with "2.75% car loan..." Went in, took care of the paperwork, no fees, no BS, and I got both usable paper and plastic for the checking account before I walked out the door. Wells can suck it.

I use my brokerage account.

[jcr]

They can do everything my retail bank used to do, my debit card works in the VISA system, and they refund ATM fees.

-jcr

most are open

[KingAlanI]

most banks are open for a few hours on Saturday, opening at a usual time and closing sometime in the early afternoon. I think CU's are like this too.
some retail locations (such as grocery stores) have in-store bank branches. those are even open Sunday, and have extended hours the other six days of the week.

Yes, but...

[formfeed]

Their main goal is not to maximize shareholder value, but to maximize member usefulness.

I was with a CU for a few years when they sent me a "check" over a few thousand dollars in the mail with a letter stating "you earned it". Cashing the check would have given me instant credit with very poor conditions (and at the same time it took them forever to clear my checks). I found that quite dishonest, not something I'd expect from a credit union that doesn't go for maximal profit but for usefulness.

Within a month I was with a different credit union. Lesson learned: Not-for-profit isn't enough. There are not-for-profit HMOs, where members never learn about or participate in internal decisions, but that have a well-paid CEO. And there are the same kind of credit unions that don't treat you much better than a for-profit bank would; usually they have their branches right at the mall or in the shopping center.

Re:Really? I did this last year!

[timeOday]

And Costco (in response to the GP) *does* accept debit cards. The only time this bit me was when buying a new TV at Costco - turns out my debit card has a $1000/day limit. So for large purchases you need to call ahead (during bank business hours) to have the limit temporarily lifted.

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!

Re:Missing Information

[sanjosanjo]

Who exactly won? Thanks Dick Durban!

I would say the consumers and small banks have won. Based on the 2008 financial mess, I think it's safe to say that having money distributed across many small banks is better than having to depend on the financial decisions of a few giant banks.

Re:Missing Information

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's think about this: A law that provides a means for smaller institutions to compete against the behemoths that have been driving smaller companies out of business. This same law will drive the country to more diversified banking environment by promoting people to utilize smaller institutions and thus provide an economy with a broader and more diverse foundation that can easily absorb the loss of 10 companies. And you're asking who the winners are?

The way I see it, the following are winners:
1. Small(er) businesses
3. Local communities that those smaller banks are run in for greater distribution of profits in the communities those smaller institutions have their headquarters in.
4. The good citizens of the united states for now having greater selection (real competition), and knowledge that if one of these smaller companies fail that their tax dollars won't be used to prop them up
5. those who rely on the us economy in any shape due to a larger breadth of institutions...pretty much the world at large.

I think the real question is who lost? The ginormous financial companies that demonstrated they can't be trusted in any shape or form. Those lazy complacent people who now have to shop around for a local bank with at least a tiny bit more integrity?

I agree with you on one thing: Thanks Dick Durbin!

Re:Missing Information

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this +5 insightful?

1. Banks are charging merchants large service fees per transaction which are then passed on to the consumer by merchants
2. Banks with $10b in assets have millions of transactions per day and computers make this a massive profit center for banks at the expense of consumers.
3. The rate is cranked down to provide relief to merchants and consumers, which reduces the massive profits of banks who then proceed to be outraged that they'll only make $4.2 billion in profits this quarter instead of $4.6 billion.
4. Banks which used to give customers toasters to open accounts now decides depositors are really just profit centers and attempts to increase their profit margins on those who fund the deposits they use to provide loans and other services.
5. Consumers finally say WTF?! and banks cry that they were just trying to keep the doors open and that it's hard to live on $12b in annual profits.

Who won exactly? The banks who are borrowing at nearly 0% from the fed and then buying treasuries rather than loaning the money to businesses to spur the economy as intended?

Re:Missing Information

[RobNich]

I'll just reply to you, since you're the only non-coward to reply. I agree that having a bunch of "too big to fail" banks is a bad idea, but I disagree the terminology: nothing is too big to fail. If the banks had failed, other banks would have bought up their assets, the FDIC would have made up the difference to account holders, and the people who made the bad decisions at those banks would be looking for new jobs.

Instead, the Feds bailed them out, incentivizing their behavior. Worse, they made it profitable. In the future, those banks and probably others will do the same thing, because they expect the Feds to bail them out again.

On the other hand, the bank "bailout" was forced on the banks as a way for the Executive Branch to make the banks look bad, because people will continue to talk about those greedy banks even though they had already paid back the loans.

However, this debit card transaction fee fiasco is not going to affect large banks at all. They will continue to make the same amount, because they are forced by their shareholders to do so. So every time the government artificially intervenes like this, the bank's customers will feel the pinch in the form of higher fees. And they won't move to "smaller" banks because they need national coverage, or the various other reasons that large banks are advantageous for their customers.

Don't think that I'm on the side of larger banks. I'm not. The entire consolidation of US banks was started by various assholes including J. P. Morgan, the Rockefellers, and the Rothschilds, who started rumors that Knickerbocker Trust would fail, and then sold it short. When it finally occurred, they stepped in and bought the failed trusts and other banks for pennies, even getting government loans to do it. They controlled the press (by owning most newspapers), so to this day are talked about as the savior of the financial system rather than the cause of the crisis they profited from.

The long and short is that the government needs to stop fucking with the financial system. If they hadn't assisted in the creation of a central bank, and assisted in the bailout of the "too big to fail" banks and every other smaller thing that they've done in between, we might not be in the mess we're in. While Dick Durban's intentions might be to help smaller banks (and it's more likely that his intentions are to *look* like he wants to help smaller banks), it will end up backfiring in some way. Because that's how these things happen. Every government intervention ends up backfiring in some way, and it always leads to increased costs in the long run. Recent examples off the top of my head are Sarbanes-Oxley and the "Affordable Care Act".

Re:Missing Information

[RobNich]

(So I'm going to violate my rule and reply to the AC.)

1. No small(er) businesses will see any difference because of this. Fees are charged to merchants at an average rate, not per-transaction, so they will not see any appreciable difference.
3. What the hell is a "local" community? Every bank is located somewhere, and employs people in that area. It's "local" to them. If a bank has a branch near you, they employ people in your area. Whether the headquarters is near you or in another city, the net result is the same. I have a large CitiBank building a couple of miles away, and their headquarters is nowhere near here. Fifth Third is headquartered near me, but they employ people all over the damn place. And every bank has investors who don't necessarily live anywhere near the headquarters of the bank.
4. They have the same selection, because they moved from one bank to another that already existed. If the other bank hadn't been competitive, they wouldn't have moved their business to it. And since the "too big to fail" are still "too big to fail", their tax dollars will STILL be used to bail out those damned banks when they fail because a bunch of customers left them for other banks.
5. The same institutions continue to exist. No changes have occurred or will occur as a result of the reduced debit card transaction fee.

Shipping around for another bank, people can't gauge integrity, so they'll just go to whichever offers them the best incentive.

Re:Missing Information

[RobNich]

(Yet again I'm going to violate my rule and reply to the AC.)

The fees we're talking about are not charged to other banks, they're charged to the merchant, who then passes them to the customer in the form of higher prices.

You continue to repeat BILLIONS OF DOLLARS like it's a bad thing. According to my brief research, Bank of America has 10.13 BILLION SHARES. If they make $2B in profit, that's only 20 cents per share. And they lost money in 2010. The larger the bank, the more the profits have to be spread around.

Hell, my employer rolls in BILLIONS OF DOLLARS and then spends it all on tens of thousands of employees spread throughout the world. And if we start turning a profit again, I might see a penny dividend per share on my stock, because I happen to be one of the investors. And if I didn't expect to see a profit at some point, I wouldn't continue buying the stock—I'd invest it in another company that does have a plan to make a profit.

And finally, the "really big banks" are going to be able to charge less than half of what the other banks charge. You're characterization of this mess makes me think that you 1) don't understand it, 2) didn't bother to research it, and 3) don't give a shit, because you've been lied to about how the economy works in the first place. For instance, nobody makes money by charging EACH OTHER fees. That would be a zero-sum game.

Re:Missing Information

[Sprouticus]

Exactly! In an odd way this law has reversed the slwo of people (if not funds) to smaller institutions. The banks lobby against getting real regulations enforced again, so thats not an option.

It is indirect and not perfect, but if this has the unintended consequence of forcing banks to compete with their smaller breathren again, good for us!

Re:Missing Information

[dkleinsc]

Yeah, damn that government for encouraging market competition rather than a few giant corporations running the world!

That effect may have been intentional - more smaller banks give depositors and borrowers more choices, and can get them a better deal. And if Elizabeth Warren were able to get her way, they'd also be mostly using boilerplate contracts that get banks competing on service and interest rates and the like rather than on who can soak their customers the most.

Market forces, if left unchecked, create a playing field tipped in favor of the larger entity. This has been shown time and time again.

Re:Missing Information

[Bender0x7D1]

Yes, when is 'Dump Your Congress(wo)man Day?'

We refer to this as "Election Day", and it happens on a regular basis.

Re:Missing Information

[RobNich]

OMFG AC, here I go again.

2. Banks with $10b in assets have millions of transactions per day and computers make this a massive profit center for banks at the expense of consumers.

Every bank has transactions in proportion to the amount of money it has under its control. What the hell do computers have to do with it?

3. The rate is cranked down to provide relief to merchants and consumers

If it were to provide relief to merchants and consumers, it would apply to all banks. Instead, Dick Durban is telling people to switch to smaller banks who will continue to charge merchants the same amount that were previously charging.

which reduces the massive profits of banks who then proceed to be outraged that they'll only make $4.2 billion in profits this quarter instead of $4.6 billion.

Made-up-number billion in profits on what revenue? Let's look at Bank of America:
$75 billion in revenue in 2010, net loss of $2.2 billion in 2010, or 2.9% loss.

Want more? Citigroup:
$79.5 billion in revenue in 2010, net income of $10.9 billion in 2010, or 13.7% profit.

13.7% return on investment is slightly above average for corporate investment--a US Treasury bond will yield 13%. Bank profits are not extremely high. The repeating of "BILLIONS IN PROFIT" as a mantra is a way to snag useful idiots who think that's meaningful. It's fucking propaganda. The more is invested in a company, the more it needs to make to keep investors interested. If they've got TRILLIONS INVESTED, they damn well better be making billions back on that investment.

4. Banks which used to give customers toasters to open accounts now decides depositors are really just profit centers and attempts to increase their profit margins on those who fund the deposits they use to provide loans and other services.

Because it doesn't currently pay enough to lend money, so they need to make money moving the money around instead. The real estate market is headed for another correction, and everyone knows it. What else do people borrow for? Oh, credit cards? Those are easier than ever to get!

The banks who are borrowing at nearly 0% from the fed and then buying treasuries rather than loaning the money to businesses to spur the economy as intended?

And whose fault is it that the banks can borrow money from the Fed so cheaply? Why would anyone be surprised that they seem uninterested in borrowing from customers and paying them for the privilege of holding their money?

And how in the world can you expect anyone, corporation or person, to put their money at risk by investing in businesses when they can loan it instead to the US government with no risk at all? Since the US government can just order more printed, they'll "never" default!

Certainly something needs to change, but it's NOT THE DEBIT CARD TRANSACTION FEES.

Re:Missing Information

[zippthorne]

Indeed. The bailout should never have happened. It would've been one thing to bail out the depositors, but any banks themselves saying they needed the money should've been dissolved, their assets sold off to make the depositors whole, and the depositors can move their money to wherever they want. Local banks maybe.

Credit unions are still part of the federal reserve system btw, so I don't understand why people think they're any less shady than banks. Especially smaller, local banks.

USAA

[Revotron]

For all you servicemen and families of servicemen, USAA is a great institution. They offer 100% free checking - free bill pay, free checks, free debit cards with cash-back, and they refund ATM fees at the end of every month (even fees from non-USAA ATMs). Deposits can be done via smartphone, scanner or at your local UPS Store.

Even those with no relation or connection to the US Armed Forces are eligible for certain banking products, so if you're looking to drop your mega-bank I absolutely urge you to check out USAA's offerings. The lack of branches outside of San Antonio, TX can be a bit disappointing when you need to deposit cash, but the customer service is wonderful and I've never really even had a need to do anything in-person, anyway.

Re:USAA

[nicoleb_x]

I've been a USAA member since 1980 something. They aren't Gods! Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. I have accounts at various institutions and make the best use of which ever institution I can. They all have to generate profit or they can't stay in business. So, you have to do business with the institutions that are willing to not make so much profit from your business.

Re:USAA

[sco08y]

How is USAA's OFX support?

Re:USAA

[chooks]

I'll second that -- been with them for twenty years or so. Banking is good - free checking, they cover ATM usage fees (up to $10 a month) and you can use your scanner at home to deposit checks, which saves loads of time. Bill pay is good too.

As an added bonus, my wife says that police seem nicer to her when she gets pulled over and shows her USAA proof of insurance :)

Re:USAA

[basotl]

It makes me smile every time I get that USAA deposit back for profits they make in a year. It's a nice little distribution model to give back to USAA members.

They also offer auto/home/rental insurance with some good multi policy discounts.

Meanwhile in the Real World...

[RobinEggs]

It's all well and good to call people with retail bank accounts "complacent and lazy...enablers", but it really isn't so simple in many places to avoid traditional banks. I used a credit union throughout high school and my first two years of college. Then I transfer to North Carolina and I swear to god there aren't any credit unions.

I've Googled myself blue; there appear to be literally zero public credit unions in my country, if not the entire state and the closest place I can even get shared branching is 15 miles away. I opened a Wachovia account, now Wells Fargo, and I hate every minute of it. I'm hardly in hicksville, either; I live in Chapel Hill. 50,000 people, home of the flagship public school and just 20 miles from the capitol. Still no public credit unions that I can find.

Am I some lazy enabler because I think it's not worth a maze of mailing and notarizing and faxing every time I want to handle anything more complicated than a deposit, not to mention the types of business I can't do at all? If you want to go heaping this much blame on people who don't use credit unions then please, please come to my town and start one. I will be your first customer. Otherwise get off your damn high horse.

Re:Meanwhile in the Real World...

[cdrudge]

Costal Credit Union has "public" membership if you get a North Carolina Consumers Council Membership for $18. Not completely free but anyone can qualify for that. They have a variety of shared ATMs in the area according to their location maps that you could do a majority of your banking with, and if you needed to visit an actual location, there isn't one all that far away.

Banks vs Credit Unions

[Anonymous Coward]

So where is the actual evidence the credit unions provide better cost/service than banks? I mean, banks want to maximize shareholder value, but maybe the best way to do that is to provide good service/low price. Where are the detailed comparisons which take into account all fees and all services?

Re:Banks vs Credit Unions

[dontbgay]

Once a bank reaches critical mass and they can afford to lose customers, their game changes. It goes from gaining/serving customers to maximizing profits. At that point, it's about cutting services and raising prices. After all, your stock price HAS to continue to climb, even if they aren't bringing in new customers. It doesn't matter if you drop ~1000 customers if you make up the difference on the backside. At least the new regulation is giving people a reason to diversify their banking.

Re:Banks vs Credit Unions

[j-beda]

You can probably find data if you look for it, but regardless of what the data show for the "average" bank or CU, there are going to be a whole lot of them that do not completely follow the trend. Thus if you shop around you can probably find both good and bad local banks and CUs in your region.

From a governance point of view something really pisses you off about the local CU, it is probably easier to get elected to the board than it would be for your local bank. The CU probably sends you a notice for date/time of the AGM even.

Re:Banks vs Credit Unions

[deepthoughtless]

Glancing at my savings account at Boeing Employees Credit Union, I've got a 1.05% interest rate. My Checking account is running a 6.17% yield. It's their basic checking and savings package. It's been three years, and I've never once seen a fee or charge of any kind. If your bank meets that, then I salute them for offering value to their customer. But for some reason, I'd be surprised to hear that a rate on a basic checking account at Wells Fargo (or BofA, or Chase) exceeds a 0.2% APY, if it has a rate at all. More likely, you pay for the privilege. If a credit union is well run, it delivers that performance to rates and services. If a bank is well run, it delivers that performance to the top. That's simply how those businesses are designed to operate. If you want detailed comparisons, find a credit union at random in your neighborhood, and ask about their rates. Compare that with whatever national bank you like. You will see that there IS no comparison.

Re:We are all victims

[tomhudson]

cut up your credit cards

THAT is what would really hurt them. And while it might also slow down the economy for a while, in the long run it would be healthier, as people paid $X for an item, not $X+50% over N years in interest. That interest is money that could be spent locally.

And anyone who won't take credit...

[RobinEggs]

Any business that won't take credit cards at all is worth a closer look for that fact alone; Costco won't take them, and look at their model. Fantastic customer service, decent prices, one of the only stores left with a real return policy, and their treatment of employees is also bar none.

It's telling when a company would rather lose a fraction of possible sales and keep the screw factor down for everyone rather than roll over, jack up their prices 4%, and suckle up on the Visa teat.

Re:And anyone who won't take credit...

[MaskedSlacker]

Costco won't take them

Then how in the fuck did I get all these groceries?

Re:And anyone who won't take credit...

[afabbro]

Fantastic customer service

Huh. I thought the only company named "Costco" was the big warehouse retailer but I guess you're saying there's another company with the same name...

Re:And anyone who won't take credit...

[Jibekn]

never had a problem with a Costco product i guess? When you complain, want to know what their knee-jerk reaction is? Full refund, or rarely, full price credit against a similar product. I bought a 60' led tv from Costco, 9 months after i bought it, it had 4 dead pixels(no, not clustered, not even in the same quadrants). I took it back, walked out with a 63' plasma because they refunded me the full purchase price, no questions asked, they didn't even power up the TV, I just said "there's dead pixels" they took my word for it, processed the refund and I walked out with a brand new TV, under another 12 months warranty within 30 minute.

try that at future shop, bb or even Walmart, those are true big box stores, Costco is a club, and they treat their members accordingly, its actually fantastic service for only 50$ a year.

Re:And anyone who won't take credit...

[youn]

Either Debit or Amex

Re:And anyone who won't take credit...

[w_dragon]

What do you think Amex is?

Re:welcome the new bank

[riverat1]

I know the commercial banks lobby pretty hard against credit unions. They hate them. I guess they represent a loss in profit potential.

They take one

[SuperKendall]

Actually they do take Amex, but there you are paying the card fee instead of Costco...

Re:They take one

[nwf]

Actually they do take Amex, but there you are paying the card fee instead of Costco...

Actually, you can get a free Amex as a Costco member that pays you back 1% of your purchases each year.

Re:They take one

[devman]

There are AMEX cards that don't have monthly fees. In fact, I use one everytime I go shop at Costco.

Re:They take one

[tlhIngan]

Actually they do take Amex, but there you are paying the card fee instead of Costco...

No. Amex has one of the WORSE credit card rates - their rates are consistently higher than Visa or Mastercard. Amex sees themselves as a "premier" card and want to ensure their card is only accepted at places that are more lifestyle-related. So Visa/MC is accepted everywhere, and Amex in fewer places but often in places like restaurants and hotels and the like.

A small retailer wanting Amex can easily be dinged 5% for Amex, versus 2-3% for Visa/MC. Plus the per-transaction fees are higher for them.

As for cash discount - it only really works for mom and pop shops - where handling cash is cheaper than credit cards. But larger businesses can start having significant cash handling charges - from extra training of cashiers (all the cash handling needs to be taught to ensure the balance comes out right) to simply having to deposit those huge wads of cash at a bank (depending on the store, it may mean an armored car has to be hired which can cost $1000 easily. If you're depositing $30k, that's the 3% credit card fee right there).

Re:welcome the new bank

[riverat1]

I've never heard of that happening to a credit union. I doubt the members would stand for it in most cases. Why would they want their cost of banking going up?

Re:BoA scraped the fees

[couchslug]

I wouldn't bank with them if they blew me at the service counter.

Credit unions for me (Safe, and Pentagon Federal Credit Unions).

Not just credit unions, small internet banks good

[SuperKendall]

I do most of my banking at a small online bank. They have pretty good interest rates (much better than most banks), reimburse a few ATM fees a month (since realistically it's the only way I can get money from the account with them not having a local branch) and have free online bill payment for as many bills as I care to pay - a model I greatly prefer because then I control when payments go out.

So don't just consider credit unions, look around at internet banks - they can be every bit as good.

Re:Well's Fargo

[russotto]

Well's Fargo shall of Nov 16th be charging for checking accounts, at least in California, between $3 and $100 a month.

Waived on most accounts with direct deposit, which I use. They also waive it with a few other screwy things (like transferring $25/month to savings automatically -- as far as I can tell, you can automatically transfer the $25 right back the next day if you care to)

Re:welcome the new bank

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I know the commercial banks lobby pretty hard against credit unions. They hate them.

It's totally true and ironically a much more closer case of actual socialism since the banks are using the government to protect them rather than doing it themselves.

Credit union vs. bank clearing issues.

[Anonymous Coward]

Last real credit union experience was with Nevada FCU in 2003. My payroll direct deposit would sometimes go at 1 or 2 pm. Any check presented before then would bounce out after I was charged $27. Yes, I shouldn't be writing checks until I had the money in my account. But, if you're broke sometimes you pay the rent on the 1st with a check knowing that it won't hit until the 2nd or 3rd when your pay check goes in.

So, $27 and a bounced check would cause me to get dinged by the apartment for another $50-75.

I wanted to switch TO BofA (my how times have changed) due to a previous experience with them, but thought it would be too hard. So, the next two times over the year where my paycheck would arrive a few days late, I would use a payday loan place that did daily interest. They were pretty good-$1/$100 per day. So, 600 for two days was $12-beats the hell out of $27+$75.

After some other nonsense where I got hit with a $27 fee for being exactly $0.15 overdrafted, I switched to BofA. A check could hit BofA at 2pm when there weren't funds, BUT as long as the account was positive by 6pm that day, nothing bounced and no fees were assessed. If I wrote a check to pay off a card and I saw it clear and realized that I put a different amount and would be overdrawn when it hit, I could go deposit cash before 6pm and avoid any fees.

Switching from a credit union to BofA potentially saved my broke ass several hundred dollars and a lot of stress. They also had no fee as long as I did 2 direct deposits a month vs. NV FCUs (small) $2/monthly fee.

For about 5 years my relationship with BofA was just fine. THEN, they raised my credit card interest rate from 10.9 to 18.99 without any real reason. I began paying it down and they raised the rate to 23.99. When I called for an explanation, they told me that the rate hike notice was in my statement and I missed the timeframe necessary to close the account and avoid the rate increase. The rate increase notice was on the last page of my PDF statement (I was paperless) and I didn't go that far in. Yes, my fault for not seeing.

So, I immediately switched to Citibank and began earning American Airline miles with my debit purchases and free checking with a direct deposit. I opened a second account and used it for BIllPay. They had the 6pm thing as BofA, so on the very rare occasion that I might be overdrawn, a deposit before 6pm kept me from getting dinged. They've been pretty good until about 6 months ago. My previously free checking was now $6/mo. unless I had >1500 in the account. The other account was now $9.50 unless I had >1500 in it as well. They are oh so nice enough to credit me 1.00 for direct deposit, another $1.00 for bill pay, etc.

Now they've cancelled the airline miles part of the debit card and turned one account into a flat, no exceptions $10/mo. fee. I've moved that account to ING Direct where I may earn some trivial amount of interest and pay no fess. I no longer live on the financial edge, I so I don't need the 6pm float and may move my main day-to-day debit card stuff to ING Direct as well, not sure yet. Either way, looking back, credit unions have cost me a lot more than banks in a lot less time.

Re:Credit union vs. bank clearing issues.

[justthinkit]

Your financial affairs are a mess that has little to do with credit unions vs regular banks. It reminds me of co-workers who can barely round up gas money but always take their Starbucks cup with them when they go out for a smoke.

Would love to join dump your bank day

[Fujisawa Sensei]

I would love to join the "Dump your bank day", but I've been banking with my credit union for the past 30 years.

Re:Would love to join dump your bank day

[fafaforza]

Cool story. Really.

Switched from Wells Fargo to pscu

[WindBourne]

The fact is that wells fargo and other large banks are investing into China's many businesses. Many of those are likely to go tits-up in this next year, leaving America holding the bag (and without ANY ability to sue in China or here).
OTH, Public Service Credit Union invests into American businesses. Why? Because they are local. In addition, they are trying harder. I like that. Now, if I could just get them to get off windows and move to *nix so that I do not have to worry about China, Russian, Al Qaeda, etc stealing the money directly.

Re:Switched from Wells Fargo to pscu

[WindBourne]

I agree. I had a small colorado bank, that got swallowed by a bigger bank (forget both), who then got swallowed by Wells. I was OK with them at first, but am now with a CU. I will not be going to the large international bank for anything. Ever.

Re:welcome the new bank

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I've never heard of that happening to a credit union. I doubt the members would stand for it in most cases. Why would they want their cost of banking going up?

On the other hand, I've seen a couple of cases where CUs got big enough and started acting like banks. CEFCU (formerly the Caterpillar Credit Union) in IL is one of the biggest in the country and nearly 20 years ago they started doing that crap where they charged extra fees to people who only had small balances. It pissed me off enough that I closed my account with them, despite being way beyond the minimum balance requirements.

A few years later when debit cards were just starting to become popular, TexIns (formerly the Texas Instruments Credit Union) started pushing debit cards on all of their members via the combo ATM/Debit card trick - unless you kicked up a fuss your ATM card was automatically enabled for debit usage too. My understanding is that such pushes were actually widespread in the CU community and usually accompanied with a bunch of evil PR to convince members it was actually a good thing. Anyone who was paying attention knew that debit cards were a bad deal for practically everyone -- a big fee generator with far less consumer protections than credit cards.

So it isn't easy, in fact it may even be illegal to formally co-opt a CU in the way the GP described, but sometimes they do end up being managed by execs with a bankster mindset.

Re:welcome the new bank

[kimvette]

Depositors of credit unions are the shareholders.

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_union

A credit union is a cooperative financial institution that is owned and controlled by its members and operated for the purpose of promoting thrift, providing credit at competitive rates, and providing other financial services to its members.[1][2][3] Many credit unions exist to further community development[4] or sustainable international development on a local level,[5] and could be considered community development financial institutions.

Worldwide, credit union systems vary significantly in terms of total system assets and average institution asset size,[6] ranging from volunteer operations with a handful of members to institutions with several billion dollars in assets and hundreds of thousands of members. Credit unions are typically smaller than banks; for example, the average U.S. credit union has $93 million in assets, while the average U.S. bank has $1.53 billion, as of 2007.[7]

The World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU) defines credit unions as "not-for-profit cooperative institutions".[8] In practice however, legal arrangements vary by jurisdiction. For example in Canada credit unions are regulated as for-profit institutions, and view their mandate as earning a reasonable profit to enhance services to members and ensure stable growth.[9]

This difference in viewpoints reflects credit unions' unusual organizational structure, which attempts to solve the principal-agent problem by ensuring that the owners and the users of the institution are the same people. In any case, credit unions generally cannot accept donations and must be able to prosper in a competitive market economy.

You would have to get >50% of shareholders (depositors) to vote for higher risk, higher fees, fewer services, gross overpayment to executives, cutting of interest rates on savings accounts, switching from the NCUA to the less solvent FDIC, having less access to credit when it's most needed, and so on. Credit unions are not perfect and sometimes do tank, but not nearly as often as banks.

Re:welcome the new bank

[Anonymous Coward]

That's also the key issue here, not the picayune $5 fees that are wagging the press dogs. The mega-banks take ridiculous gambles with your money because they don't give a crap about you. Credit unions almost always do not take such chances, in part because they don't have enough capital to call on the White House if it all heads South.

While you're at your credit union getting information don't forget to ask about the banking industry's on-going campaign to destroy credit unions via government regulation. And don't shotgun this; there's a lot of good, small banks. It's the mega-banks that need to be taken down. They're the ones buying Congress persons.

Support credit unions, just don't forget brokerage

[iamacat]

Since you are already rearranging your finances, consider that cash is a lousy investment. The goal of US treasury is to maintain about 5%/year inflation so that people spend or invest money instead of hogging cash. Weather it's wise or not, you have to play along unless you want to lose 40% of your money in 10 years. Even if your local credit union gives you 3% APY for checking, it's not going to keep up with inflation over long term, especially after tax on interest. On the other hand, you can get very conservative mutual funds that are pretty much guaranteed to outpace inflation if you don't pay attention to short term market fluctuations.

Re:Really? I did this last year!

[kimvette]

FWiW, AmEx is not a bank, and I have nothing but good things to say about them. They never nickel and dime me, never balk at any purchases on my corporate account regardless of size (I've made six-figure purchases on it before), and on the personal side, the services and customer service are equally good, even though what I put through my personal account is a small fraction of what I put on my corporate account. Their fraud detection is excellent (I log into my account every 1-3 days on average and they actually spotted fraud before I did and called me, so I logged in and sure enough there were charges I did not authorize), their customer service is always very helpful and actually friendly, and if I have a problem with a vendor and they refuse to honor a warranty on a DOA item, or didn't deliver what I ordered, and refuse to resolve the issue, AmEx is always willing to go to bat on my behalf and threaten the vendor with a chargeback. I never got that kind of customer service from any VISA or Mastercard.

Some clarifications about credit unions

[Mean Variance]

I am on the board of a credit union. Credit unions must make a profit or they will die. They must have some fee structure to offset costs of members who are expensive to service. The idea is that fees should be minimized to the extent that the CU can run a healthy business in accordance with its mission.

Since it is a non-profit, the board is unpaid. We are members who volunteer our time. We must make decisions in the interest of the membership as a whole and that means working with the executive staff on decisions related to which services we can provide to the members and how those services will be paid for.

The distinguishing difference between a credit union and a bank is that banks can raise capital in the open markets by issuing shares, issuing debt, or taking on risky bets in the form of loans and investments.

Credit unions, on the other hand, can maintain capital only through profits from loans, investments, and certain income like fees and interchange fees. The investment side is tightly controlled. Investments are boring - bonds, CDs, money markets. The best income is from loans.

There are good credit unions and bad ones. When the bad ones go under, the credit unions are collectively assessed via the NCUSIF (in most cases) to make the the depositors whole. Or the NCUA works with the failing credit union to merge them into a healthier one. But we are all collectively responsible for each other in a small way -- yet we compete against each other and banks too.

Even though I've been with the same credit union for 22 years (and now on the BOD for 3 so far), I don't label "credit unions = good, banks = bad." I also have an account with ING Direct and had excellent customer service - all by phone, mail and email - for a mortgage a few years ago.

Do your homework and figure out what you need and talk to people you trust. Don't think that you are necessarily constrained by a credit union. You might not be. It depends.

Re:Some clarifications about credit unions

[Antisyzygy]

Thank you for being an advocate of the voice of reason.

Re:Some clarifications about credit unions

[butlerm]

Credit unions, on the other hand, can maintain capital only through profits from loans, investments, and certain income like fees and interchange fees

May I ask how a credit union gets its initial capital? Does it require a donation? The requirements seem strict enough that without a relatively large initial infusion, it seems like it would be next to impossible to start a credit union at all.

Re:Some clarifications about credit unions

[jez9999]

The distinguishing difference between a credit union and a bank is that banks can raise capital in the open markets by issuing shares, issuing debt, or taking on risky bets in the form of loans and investments.

And getting a trillion dollars of taxpayer bailout money.

Re:Some clarifications about credit unions

[xaxa]

In the UK there's also The Co-operative Bank, which I recommend. I moved my account there a few years ago since they have an ethical policy (no investing in things the membership don't like). I do everything online, and haven't asked for anything like a mortgage, loan etc, so I can't really comment on their customer service. It gets high ratings in surveys.

Re:Some clarifications about credit unions

[Mean Variance]

Board members are not executives. I'm not hoodwinked. I know exactly what I'm doing.

Re:Some clarifications about credit unions

[Mean Variance]

It is really difficult to start one, thus you don't see too many start these days. Realtors FCU is one that comes to mind that is newish. It does need a capital infusion from the chartering group, e.g. a company, a trade group that will form the membership. Then you need deposits. Profits then begin to build and maintain the capital base.

idget..

[SuperCharlie]

My Bad.. most *Credit Unions*.. have apps...etc..

Re:Wells Fargo Customer No More

[Spiked_Three]

wells fargo is one of the most clueless banks I have ever dealt with. I had some jerk steal credit card info from a vendor I had done business with. He used it to purchase, like $2000 worth of prepaid postage, $24.99 at a time so it wouldnt trigger alarms. then he sent over $40,000 in fake wells fargo money orders. half of them got returned to me. I tried for 3 days to find someone at wells fargo that cared. they didnt. they didnt lose money (but I assume they paid the other $20,000?) so they didn't care. My next experience found a man wanting to buy my house, and had pre approval from wells fargo on the loan. I accepted his offer, then wells fargo backed out. he had to come up with $100,000 cash from somewhere else, and fast. they have got to be one of the worst managed, lying-est banks there is. second only to skank of america, i'm sure.

Canada..

[iONiUM]

First, I'm in Canada. I don't know what a Credit Union is. I don't think we have them here, though I don't know why.

Second, here in Canada almost all banks charge fees for debit transactions, but typically they offer packages (i.e. $3/mo for 20 debit transactions, or keep $1k+ in your chequing account and get free unlimited debits). I don't know why people here don't complain like crazy..

Third, if you don't use your own bank's ATM (ABM in the states, I guess), you get charged $1.50, right away. And, if you use an independent ATM, you may be charged anywhere from $1.00 to $2.00 on top of that, perhaps more if it's in a bar. It's a pretty crappy situation.

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Re:Really? I did this last year!

[ToasterMonkey]

And VISA, MasterCard, et al. will continue to collect their money off of your credit card purchases. Sure it doesn't come out of your pocket directly, but it sure acts as pressure to retailers to raise prices. If you really want to do banks in, use cash for everything, but that seems to be downright prehistoric now days.

Where do you get your cash from? An ATM with all its fees?

Oh no, you'd go to a teller because they're "free" volunteers I bet, and you'd ask them to cash your check for "free" because they just turn it over and print the cash on the backside of scrap paper with recycled ink.

The way it works is banks provide you a service, and they take their cut.

Well, unless your employer pays you in cash, then I suppose you'd have me there unless you ask them if it would save them money to cut you a check or direct deposit instead of sending a secretary to the bank to pick up your cash every week. From a bank.

Money does't move for free. Period.

Re:We are all victims

[Jibekn]

You don't have to look far for an example either, Google "brazil kidnapping"

Re:welcome the new bank

[cheekyjohnson]

Why wouldn't they? The credit unions are stealing money from them! A potential loss is actually theft.

Mod parent up.

[khasim]

The banks are NOT "losing money" because of these rules. They are still turning a profit. A huge profit.

They ARE "losing profit".
That being, they are NOT making as huge a profit as they could be making if they were allowed to charge whatever the market had to bear.

Here's an easy example:
"Losing money" is when you build a game console for $100 and sell it for $50. You LOSE $50 on each transaction.

The banks are NOT losing any money on these transactions. Each transaction is still TURNING A PROFIT for the banks.

But the banks want BIGGER PROFITS.

Re:We are all victims

[fafaforza]

Well, if your purchases have 50% tacked on them in interest, then you probably should cut your cards up as they're clearly not for you. But most of us can use credit cards responsibly and not pay a single cent in finance fees, aside maybe from a missed payment once in a long while.

Re:Ah! I was too early

[fafaforza]

Don't worry, people have been despising BoA for years. I'm sure there are droves that left the bank much earlier and got even less notice than when you did it. They were probably even seen as a bit odd as why would one hate a bank?

underhanded fix to "too big to fail"

[electrosoccertux]

This is actually a pretty good way to discourage people from using the larger banks. Viola, smaller big banks that aren't so big they can't fail anymore....

My 2 cents

[WeeBit]

I was a member of some big banks though the years. A real long time. I got tired of dishing out money at every turn. So I switched to a credit union and i have never looked back.

At my credit union I have 0 interest on their credit card, no charge on my debit card, I get my checks real cheap, no monthly charge, but don't use those hardly at all because I can use my other cards. My debit gets used more than anything.

Honestly I believe the banks saw the debit cards as their money train. They are accepted everywhere, and you can pay bills etc. So they banks decided they wanted some of the pie. They couldn't stand the fact that people were using the debit cards more than checks, and credit cards, and they wasn't seeing a dime of it. You can nickle and dime people for so long, and then they use their feet. Another thing is everyone I know doesn't even use checks anymore, they use a debit card. I am willing to bet that use of checks and their credit cards has dropped dramatically in the last few years. Because debit cards have become popular the banks tried to take advantage of it. That was the reason for them trying to charge on the debit cards.

Another thing about the credit Union is something that happen a few years back. I was on strong meds for a broke leg. I wrote a check to pay a bill, and my credit union called me to enquirer about the check. They said it did not look like my signature. I said yes it was blah blah, and I could not believe they called. I never had a bank call. I even one time had another family member write out the check and send it to pay a bill and even though you could tell it was not my signature they never called me about the check. Banks are nothing but the money. I really don't think they care about their customers until it's time to pay up.

Be careful!

[Duckman5]

I have had so many problems with Bank of America it's not even funny. They don't understand the words "close my account." After I get fed up with them nickel and dimeing me to death, I closed my account with them. I moved everything over to my new bank, but forgot to delete my debit card from paypal. Bad move. Six months later, my wife bought something on ebay and selected the debit card by accident. Not only did they let the charge go through, the tried to charge me overdraft fees galore. They even proceeded to send me letters threatening to turn me over to some agency so I would be banned from opening a checking account with any major bank. Remember, this is SIX MONTHS after I had them "close" that account. I will NEVER open an account with them again.

Re:Be careful!

[rleibman]

So let me get this straight... you used a closed account to make a payment, essentially equivalent to paying with the checkbook from an account 6 months closed... though I understand it was an accident, some would go as far to say it's fraud. I'm not one to defend BofA in general, but this one is not 100% their fault.

Re:You're not, it's impossible

[fafaforza]

> Get a good job. Rent. Save up. Maybe you'll eventually save enough to buy a house with cash.

Or I could buy a house now, and pay someone for allowing me to tie up their cash for three decades.

I like how home ownership is s#at upon, but my fixed mortgage on my 3 bedroom condo is fixed and runs me less than what rent would have cost me. There ain't a landlord that will raise my rent just because the neighborhood got gentrified and tell me to hit the bricks if I refuse. And in 20 years of paying less than a comparable, I own a piece of property outright. That gives me many options, such as lines of credit, a reverse mortgage, passing it down to kids, renting it out while I go live in a lower cost area.

It isn't an area to speculate and invest for most people -- you'll likely get richer putting money on the indexes -- but I don't see how it's some sort of a dream that was sold.

Re:Well's Fargo

[Atypical Geek]

Well's Fargo shall of Nov 16th be charging for checking accounts, at least in California, between $3 and $100 a month.

November 14. The lowest fee is five dollars, highest fee is thirty. Can be waived via minimum balance, qualified direct deposit or a linked Wells Fargo loan account.

LOCAL bank

[p51d007]

I've been using the SAME locally owned bank for over 30 years. THAT is how you do it. You belong to a LOCALLY owned bank or credit union. These national megabanks are ripping people off and have been for decades.

Re:LOCAL bank

[El Torico]

I once banked with a local bank; it got bought by a big bank.
I then switched to another local bank, and it got by a big bank too.
Again, I then switched to another local bank, and it merged with another bank, and two years later was bought by a big bank.
I switched to a Credit Union.

Ally Bank

[eWarz]

I use Ally bank. Not only are they no fee, but they let you use any ATM and refund ALL atm fees at the end of the month. They also have a competitive interest rate on their checking/savings/cds (compared to brick and mortar banks) and they have the best customer service i've ever used. www.ally.com

Re:Ally Bank

[quist]

I wonder how many folks realize that Ally is owned by the Imperial Federal Government?

Re:welcome the new bank

[dryeo]

Still this is the way socialism should work. Companies owned by their members/customer/employee. The governments job is to ensure a level playing field and the companies looking out for for real owners, members/customers/employees. A little harder to raise money, but that can be a good thing as they'll be more thoughtful about how it is spent.
It always amazes me how Americans have been convinced that socialism is about big government when really it is about the average person being involved instead of the 1% manipulating everything so they can become the 0.5%.
In an ideal world, which unluckily doesn't exist, socialism would lead to communism, where there is no government. Just average people running things. It's a shame that human nature doesn't work logically.

I dumped my bank years ago and I dont regret it

[jonwil]

I dumped my old bank (the National Australia Bank) for Police & Nurses Credit Society (and no you dont have to be a cop or nurse to join). I get access to any RediATM branded ATM anywhere in Australia including (ironically) all National Australia Bank ATMs with no fee whatsoever. And I get fee free EFTPOS (which means I can pay for stuff and do cash out at retailers ranging from fast food joints to computer parts shops to the machines where I recharge my public transport payment card.
I also get fee-free online banking (including being able to pay any bill with a bPay logo on it as well as being able to transfer money to any Australian bank account if I have the account details). I think my account has a minimum ballance requirement (i.e. must have $x in the account or get $x in income per month in the account else you pay fees) but in all the years I have had this account, I have never hit that limit or paid those fees.

The only fees I get charged for is a fee for using a non-RediATM ATM (something I almost never do given that there are 1000s of RediATM branded ATMs all over Australia), a $1.50 per month fee for having a VISA Debit card and fees if I purchase something from an overseas retailer using said VISA Debit card.

The situation may be different in Australia compared to the USA but the big banks are just as greedy and I am glad I switched and dont regret it.

Anyone who hasn't at least investigated the alternatives and come up with legitimate reasons why switching is not possible has no right to complain about their bank IMO.

Re:I dumped my bank years ago and I dont regret it

[jonwil]

At the time I switched, the NAB didnt even DO Debit Cards.

Maybe, but it's not fair.

[raehl]

The reason the credit unions don't charge the account holder fees is because they still get to rape the merchant on the debit card transactions.

The law that cut the fees Bank of American and other large banks could charge does not apply to banks with less than $10 billion in assets. So while the feds capped what BoA can charge, your credit union can keep charging merchants whatever they want to process debit card transactions.

So, problem not solved, just moved.

Re:welcome the new bank

[Fjandr]

Yup, unfortunately in the world we live in it's inevitably implemented by the people with the most guns. It only works well on a small-scale voluntary level because it only takes a few bad actors to ruin. When it's enforced by people who don't want to participate, it's a race to the bottom.

Re:Support credit unions, just don't forget broker

[Arlet]

You can only outpace inflation in a exponentially growing economy, and that's just physically impossible. So, there's no guarantee at all.

Re:Support credit unions, just don't forget broker

[iamacat]

This makes no sense. By definition the inflation occurs when the amount of circulating money increases faster than the growth of the economy. Just by holding a tangible property with stable value, you outpace inflation in even stagnant economy.

Re:Support credit unions, just don't forget broker

[Arlet]

If the value is stable, it doesn't outpace inflation. Instead, it will go at exactly the same pace.

Brian Moynihan can eat a dick...

[quackPOT]

Seriously...

All the banks suck on one level or another, like charging you $5 to cash your payroll check that is drawn off their bank. But, BofA has some of the highest suck factor. I dropped them and wish I had done it years ago...

Re:welcome the new bank

[Patch86]

"Credit Union" is pretty much a synonym for "Building Society" in the UK. You only need to look at how many of those demutualised as soon as they had the chance. And at how many of the demutualized Societies survived (hint- pretty much none).

consumers?

[hitmark]

Why has that word replaced customers?

Re:consumers?

[Elrond, Duke of URL]

Yes! Thank you!

Personally, I can't stand this. I'm a customer, damn it, not some mindless all-consuming locust. And for a related question, when did this trend start?

Bah...

Re:consumers?

[hitmark]

Best guess, somewhere around the 70s/80s with the switch from a wage to credit...

Things not sold locally at all

[tepples]

Stop shopping online. Shop local.

I visited three local stores in a row, and none carried the product I want to try. Now what should I do? Should I get on an airplane and fly to where the product is available? Nope; a lot of people report that they can't buy tickets with cash anymore.

After a move

[tepples]

Why on earth would I ever need to cash a check when I'm traveling out of state?

Say you move, and there are no branches of your bank or your CU near where you've moved to.

Re:After a move

[SnapShot]

Credit Unions have agreements with other CUs. I live 3000 miles from my CU but I have no trouble using local CU ATMs to deposit checks. The website for your CU should have a map of all the ATMs in your area that allow for deposits.

How do I shot online banking?

[tepples]

Can't your friends or your family just transfer some money from their account to yours? You know, using the bank website.

Not all of my friends and family, especially those drawing Medicare, know how to operate all features of a bank's web site by themselves. Even if someone does use the bank's web site to check her balance, anything beyond checking her balance is "so what do I push now?" over and over. Even when I walk her through transferring funds, she forgets after every time. I'll take a guess that she's afraid that she'll A. not know how to get back to her account summary when she follows some random link or B. accidentally push something that involves a fee

They don't make that app for my device

[tepples]

Most banks [and credit unions] have apps or methods to take pics of checks and deposit them.

I tried calling Chase Bank about its quick deposit application, and it works only if I have an iPhone or an Android phone that has Android Market. The flatbed scanner connected to my PC doesn't count, my Archos 43 Internet Tablet doesn't come with Android Market, and my cell phone doesn't have a camera. Are credit unions any different in this respect, or would I need to buy a smartphone and subscribe to a data plan "to take pics of checks and deposit them" with a credit union the way I would have to with Chase?

Flexibility to move

[tepples]

[Renters] have the flexibility to move every year.

Not if you don't want to find a new job for your SO and put your kids in a different school every year. And not if you want to min-max your credit score by building up a history of having lived at one address.

Property tax is rent

[tepples]

There ain't a landlord that will raise my rent just because the neighborhood got gentrified and tell me to hit the bricks if I refuse.

Your landlord is the government. The government owns all land, and it charges rent called property tax.

Re:Property tax is rent

[fafaforza]

Yup, all $80 of it, every quarter. The difference is that there is oversight in tax increases: votes, public opinion, hearings. A sleazy landlord that doesn't even want to fix your leaking faucet will raise it indiscriminately, w/out needing any justification, and the increase will be a whole lot higher.

Re:welcome the new bank

[Dr_Barnowl]

I actually think something similar to this would be great for all legislation.

Currently, legislation is constantly revised - by adding additional clauses to the bottom of the law. This makes it very difficult to read.

Instead, keep it clear by keeping your legislation in a git repo, branching it, and just editing the law to read as you think it should. Propose your "patch" to whatever legislative assembly you use currently, and if they approve, your patch is merged at the designated date.

The first exercise would be to check in all the current legislation, then progressively edit each law such that the amendments are removed, and combined with the body. Use the same process - write a patch that removes the amendment, and when people agree with the body, merge it.

Once you have that, the law is much simplified and you can proceed from there.

You win several times with a credit union

[Colin Smith]

The money is almost universally invested locally, so you benefit from improved local facilities.
It reduces investment in outsourcing countries like India and China which means less competition.
the interest rates on your loan to the Credit Union typically have higher interest rates than large banks.

I would have said the risks are higher but given the way the big banks are blowing up I don't think so.

Re:You win several times with a credit union

[timothyf]

For standard checking & savings accounts, they are just as federally insured (via the NCUA rather than the FDIC) as an account with a bank. I can't think of any standard you could measure them by that would make them more risky than banks.

Re:We are all victims

[tomhudson]

Well, if your purchases have 50% tacked on them in interest, then you probably should cut your cards up as they're clearly not for you. But most of us can use credit cards responsibly and not pay a single cent in finance fees, aside maybe from a missed payment once in a long while.

First, I cut mine up decades ago.

Second, the credit card companies have a name for people who pay their balance in full every month - they're called deadbeats. Really. Not joking.

Third, half the people out there are carrying a balance. Thanks to the wonders of compound interest, most of them will pay 50% or more in total interest on every purchase, because they're just paying the minimum. and rolling over the debt. And that's not counting all those "pay in 36 interest-free payments" deals where you've actually prepaid the interest and had it rolled into your purchase.

All that interest paid is future money taken out of the local economy. It also contributes to higher prices, since people focus on "the payment" and not the actual cost (which explains the housing bubble being caused by ARMs and other scams).

http://moveyourmoneyproject.org

[bussdriver]

http://moveyourmoneyproject.org/

A credit union is not a bank it is member owned and democratically run; there are no customers or consumers; no authoritarian model with a dictator at the top. It is no more socialist or communist than democracy itself.

People who preach democracy and profess democracy need to begin to practice it and support it.

http://moveyourmoneyproject.org/

Re:http://moveyourmoneyproject.org

[hitmark]

"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"

The use of consumer rather then customer in that part of the summary was what threw me off. And it almost seems as the more things are failing with the world economy, the more the words consumer and consume is attached to actions that have very little to do with actually using up some resource or other.

Re:Really? I did this last year!

[TheRaven64]

If you really want to do banks in, use cash for everything

Yes, I'm sure the banks would hate this. Imagine if the bank could only charge the cash handling fees, rather than having visa / mastercard take a cut of each transaction!

Re:Really? I did this last year!

[TheRaven64]

And AmEx can afford to do this because they charge a higher percentage of the transaction than Visa or Mastercard. This is why they are less likely to be accepted anywhere, and why Douglas Adams described it as 'a form of payment not accepted anywhere in the galaxy'.

Re:welcome the new bank

[j-beda]

Can we have that model for health care please?

I think a number of insurance companies started out as not-for-profit type associations, and then later turned into for-profit businesses. Similarly for many hospitals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Cross_Blue_Shield_Association

There is some regulation preventing assets of charities ending up as part of a business, but they do not always work well.

Re:And?

[element-o.p.]

Get a life.

Says the anonymous coward, living in his mom's basement. LOL.

I see what they did

[zerodl]

I was on unemployment recently, but before I got work and stopped I got a bunch of reminders that they were switching from checks to a debit card through Bank of America. Since people on unemployment don't have a choice, that's a prime position to throw a mandatory hike here and there for those cards. And since unemployment is so high... If the bailout wasn't clear enough of how the McBanks work, I'm glad that something finally pushed people away from them. Or at least starting to.

Re:welcome the new bank

[mysidia]

So it isn't easy, in fact it may even be illegal to formally co-opt a CU in the way the GP described, but sometimes they do end up being managed by execs with a bankster mindset.

When has "illegal" been a sure stop? If the executives, under whatever influence, decide to appoint a consultant to put forth a conversion proposal, and the members are persuaded to go with the conversion (which is in the consulants' interest), within the rules of the CU's charter, conversion can happen legally, ultimately at a loss to members, and profit to the acquirer.

And yes, Credit unions can convert to bank charters, although it has been rare in the past , see CU Financial Services.

See... FRBSF Economic Letter, Credit Unions, Conversions, and Capital , Credit Union Conversions to Banks: Facts, Incentives, Issues, and Reforms.

A mass exodus to credit unions could change matters greatly, as the members who have the most $$$ tied up, could begin to see opportunities from the mass importation of financially unsavvy members joining, to provide the CU as a whole great opportunity for exploitations.

And the loss of $$$ to banks would give then a great incentive to want to join / become a "partner" in a credit union.

Meanwhile as the CU struggles with growing pains due the importation of members and requires more scalability and more resources to provide service, for-profit models become more enticing, as they provide more capital towards that end.... P.S. and more capital to pay executive bonuses

Re:welcome the new bank

[mysidia]

You would have to get >50% of shareholders (depositors) to vote for higher risk, higher fees, fewer services, gross overpayment to executives, cutting of interest rates on savings accounts, switching from the NCUA to the less solvent FDIC, ...

No... not >50% of "shareholders". >50% of "shares". There is a difference. If a single member has enough money in the CU that they have a 51% share as a member, then that one depositor can vote >50% of voting shares..

Anyways, shareholders don't decide everything with a vote. Normally only the board will be chosen by shareholder vote (from the nominees).

The board sets the rules for the organization, the shareholders don't vote on those. Executives are chosen by the board, and work with the board to set policies.

Normally, most members of the board will be from the banking industry, and they are supposed to represent the short-term interests of the CU's members.

Policies that members will hate in the long term can be to "their immediate" benefit, however. There can be a windfall profit for the members, they get shares of stock and/or cash payout for their membership rights, as the CU is converting and possibly joining with a larger organization to form a for-profit enterprise.

Later after the conversion decision is made however, nothing really assures the shareholders who used to have CU member shares do not have their interest diluted by the acquirer and other for-profit forces pouring money/investments into the new for-profit org. that dwarfs the members' contributions, or basically results in the members' shareholder interests being "compressed" to a small fraction such as 15% of the interest in the joint stock company.

funny, and kind of fitting

[fireylord]

But check (that's how you use that particular group of letters!) the disambiguation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkin_(disambiguation)

WheresGeorge definition

[KingAlanI]

http://www.wheresgeorge.com/
a game based around tracking circulation of US paper currency
enter bill information into the site database (denomination, date, serial number) as well the postal code of your current location. Entries are timestamped.
If someone has entered that bill before, you see its past travel history. If someone enters that bill later, you get an update on its future travels.
Many entered bills are marked with the site URL

Similar sites exist for some other currencies. For example, there isn't one for the Romanian leu, but there is for the euro: http://www.eurobilltracker.com/

Where is George?

[billstewart]

George Washington's portrait is on the US $1 bill. He was the leading general in the US revolution, and was the first president under the current system of government (though not actually the first US president - there were several under the Articles of Confederation government before the current US constitution was adopted.)

George W. Bush was a recent US president, and a real loser who was often on vacation, typically at his farm in Texas instead of in Washington, and there were people who thought this was a bad idea. (I'm not one of them - since just about everything he did was evil, incompetent, or both, the less of it he did, the better :-) A popular rant at the time went "___some_event___ happened - where was George?".

Some years ago, somebody set up a "Where's George" website to track dollar bills by serial number, and stamping "Where was George" on them. You can type in the serial numbers and see where that bill has been, and watch how money flows around the economy.

Re:Where is George?

[war4peace]

Thanks :)
I knew who both Georges are, but wasn+t aware that people track currency bills.
Good info :)

Re:We are all victims

[billstewart]

Feel free to use barter instead, or declare leaves to be your preferred currency if you'd like, or cigarettes with dollar signs printed on them in gold or whatever.

I've used both

[billstewart]

Back in the 80s, my credit union was low-tech and really lame, and I kept a small amount of money in it in case so I'd be an active member in case I ever needed a loan from them, but had a commercial bank I was really happy with - it even had a telephone-based version of on-line bill paying, before the web was around.

In the early 90s, I moved to Silicon Valley, and while I did join a credit union, I also opened an account at a small commercial bank which had recently expanded to having four branches. The week after I opened the account, I came in to deposit my paycheck and they greeted me by name. After a year or two of great service, they got bought by a large regional bank and started jacking up fees, and I'd moved across the bay - their most convenient cash machine was in Denver Airport :-) My credit union didn't have an account near me, but had a cooperative agreement with several other credit unions so I could go to a nearby office, and I moved my money and haven't looked back. Since then my CU's opened a nearby office, set up their website to make paying bills convenient, and I can use ATMs at 7-11 for free.

It Wasn't Me!

[damn_registrars]

I'm just posting here because some hacktacular idiot thinks I have been running around moderating his comments down. If it was me, this post would undo all those moderations. Since it wasn't me, this post will have no effect.

Go ahead and moderate this comment down if you want, I've got karma to burn. It deserves to be moderated off-topic, at the very least.

Re:Really? I did this last year!

[Algae_94]

I agree with you on all your points. All fees and charges serve some purpose to keep the financial machine moving. Some can be debated as excessive and some can be seen as a downright good deal.

My original thought was that if the GP did switch all his credit cards to credit union cards from major commercial banks, he wouldn't exactly be avoiding the financial system that is in place. The only way to really avoid it would be to get paid in cash (or cash equivalents), keep it stuffed under a rock or where ever, and use that for all your purchases. Not really my idea of modern life, but I suppose someone could do it.

Bank fees are really only onerous and excessive when you don't have a lot of actual assets held with a bank. I've found that when keeping a good enough balance in a top tier commercial bank, they don't charge me fees to access and move my money as long as I'm not using specialty services like wire transfers. The hidden fees I pay them are in the form of lower interest rates than I could get elsewhere, so that would be how they afford the services I get from them.