Outraged about bank fees? Vent here!
Skyline 4 PR 323308 : Pruhter | Wikimedia Commons
Next week I’ll be writing a column about the big banks’ new checking account and debit-card fees.
Are you steamed about those? Then put your angst right here.
This is what I want to hear:
1. Name your bank.
2. Describe the new fee they’re charging, or will be soon, and tell us how much it will cost you per month.
3. Tell us what you intend to do about it. Accept it? Switch banks? Change to a credit union?
Use actual email addresses when you’re signing in to post comments, because I may get back to you for some more information.
Thanks, folks!
October 8, 2011 - 12:00 PM
Ehh, not really venting… but it’s info.
BB&T’s fee that I’m running into (for now) is a $10 monthly ‘maintenance fee’ that is automatically taken out of my account if I don’t maintain a balance of over $1,500. There are various qualifiers to opt-out of the fee, one of which is as easy as signing up for direct deposit. The other ways are having $6,000 in savings/retirement accounts and/or tied up in loans and lines of credit.
I’m not really doing anything… direct deposit is easy enough to opt-out. And if I had multiple accounts, all it takes is $100/mo direct deposit waive the fee.
The only thing I will say I think is stupid about the whole thing, they started this back at the beginning of the summer and I had a couple of friends graduating college who had limited bank accounts and small part-time jobs to just get by until they found a full time job, and when you’re unemployed/underemployed, direct deposit is not always an option, a $1,500 balance is wishful thinking, $6,000 in savings is even more wishful thinking, and $6,000+ in debt is just stupid. $10 is a lot when you’re pulling that many strings a month to get by.
But BB&T still offers free student banking through age 23… it’s just once they drop you from that, you better hit the ground running or else you’re on the hook for $10 a month.
Wall Street and Big Banks greed and questionable dealings is what started this whole financial debacle, but now they are the ones with no financial problems after the Big Bail-out by George Bush. What is wrong with this picture?
BBandT called me last June to let me know their fee structures were changing, however, it turned out that I generally meet the requirements(as described by Aaron) and I haven’t been charged the extra fees. In the course of the conversation, the bank representative did try to sell me additional investment products. If the fees become prohibitive, I’ll consider one of the local credit unions.
I bank at Suntrust and they’ll be charging $5 a month. I’d switch banks cause I think it’s ludacris to charge me to access my own money, but frankly I think this will quickly become the industry norm and I don’t want to face this same situation again a few months down the road with someone else. Banks know that it is inconvenient to switch banks (with many people having direct deposit set up or have bills automatically withdrawn) so they feel far too comfortable abusing their customers with piddly fees. The banks have a right to make a profit and most industries pass on extra cost to the consumer, but now is not the time to be stealing from struggling people….now is when you say “hey, we know times are tough right now so this change won’t go into effect until 2014″ or something like that.
Dan,
Do you remember a few months ago when you were naively excited about the bank regulation and how when I argued that the regulations would be ineffective and banks would be one step ahead of the government by shifting their fee structure?
You of course tried to insinuate that I was against the consumer and pro-banks.
Well you get what you ask for Dan. Instead of just those with late payments getting their rates increases, it is everyone with increased fees, less rewards and being punished for paying off your balance. Want to limit interchange fees? Welcome your fees and your article. If consumers can’t read and understand the contracts and legal agreements that they sign as well as the responsibility that comes with their signature, well this will only continue whether through mortgages, credit card agreements or checking/saving accounts.
My stance isn’t in support of these institutions, it is in support of consumer education and responsibility. Be skeptical. That is the only way to proactively combat fees, rate increases etc. Sure there are still times you will get screwed but it is better than thinking the government can cure all ills. Government regulation by nature is always reactive and by the time our government can get any bill passed the target has moved.
Dodd Frank is the reason banks have to look elsewhere for profits. Once again, government meddling is the problem.
Member One FCU
No fees
Why would I change? They don’t charge for anyone that works for their money and don’t only deposit welfare checks and complains that they cannot find a job.
Dan, I’m interested in hearing what your thoughts are about the cause of the new debit card fees.
BB&T also added a $4.00 chrg,also for your statement! Banks are part of the problem that got us into the mess we have gotten into and still part of the problem because of their terrible business practices! it is shameful….Alot of them got bailed out and with our m9ney and look @ their behavior!
“Be skeptical”
I’m totally skeptical of a twenty-something that thinks he knows it all.
The government regulation that you speak of has been watered down to nothing by the Republicans. It’s effect on profits is negligible, it’s called plain GREED.
We should send them a change of terms and tell them we want our bailout money back!
Elliot,
My thoughts on the new debit card fees are this: The banks decided they wanted to charge these fees, so they announced them.
Do you have different thoughts as to the cause? Pray tell. . .
After repeal of Glass-Steagall, all of the big national banks switched their strategic attention to proprietary trading, along with the mortgage derivatives secondary market, and it led to the balance sheet crisis that is still affecting everything. Retail consumers mean about as much to them as they do to the conglomerates that own both cable systems and networks, like Comcast. Expect their attitude to retail consumers to be similar. Local banking is the way to go for most consumers in our area.
Don’t let the big banks’ proud boasts of providing liquidity sway you. Of course we need it, but in the liquidity analogy, remember, a farmer needs liquidity (water), but not a flood. That is what we got and it has destroyed our economic crop for several years.
For overall financial reform, re-enact Glass Steagall, and strengthen Dodd-Frank. Use anti-trust enforcement to prevent too big to fail, greatly regulate CDO’s, and require much greater transparency of both hedge funds and the U.S. activity of foreign sovereign funds. Restore individual tax rates to the late Clinton era levels. Then there’s also the many equity market reforms to make, and allowing greater federal (vs. state by state) insurance regulation. For a start…
I know one thing, it’s toodles to Wells Fargo. Longer lines, longer waits, surly employees. Been with one incarnation or another since the FNEB days, in the immortal words of Cheech and Chong…”not any more, man.”
Political cartoonist Steve Breen of San Diego seems to have a handle on the Bank Fee issue. See link below.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/photos/galleries/steve-breen-gallery/25123/#galleries
Perhaps this one from Steve Sack of the Star Tribune also says it pretty well.
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/131177628.html
The bankks have been hurt by lawsuits and fines for thier fraudulent mortgage and investment practices. They have had additional reserve requirements due to their risky activies. They have had mortgage loss after mortgage loss and cannot foreclose because they do not have the correct paperwork. They are taking losses on overseas investments. The biggest banks are having to reduce the overcharging they were doing on retailers on debit cards. Because of their fraudulent and irresponsible behavior, they are having to deal with losses and reduced income. Add to that a bad economy and you can see why, in spite of trillions provided by TARP, they remain in trouble. They want to increase revenues and are finding business refuses to pay their unfair fees so they are turning to the consumer. Not so long ago, banks beffed us to use debit cards because it was cheaper for them to process the transactions. All electronic, no labor involved and no chance of a bounced check. Plus they could allow overdrafts when they wanted to increase overdraft fees. Much like overpriced shipping and handling chareges, these are just bogus. There are banks that have not been poorly run that do not charge the consumer fees to use their money. I am moving my money to those banks.
I bank with Carter Bank & Trust. NO FEES. The drive-through is open until 7pm even on Saturdays. The only complaint I have is that there is no online banking so I cannot double check my register until the first of the month when my statement comes in the mail.
Already started moving from BofA to a credit union.
Gee….why would banks charge fees? Oh yeah right…they’re money grubbers looking to pad their bottom line! Doh! Why would anyone think otherwise?
I bank at Valley Bank…it’s all free, in fact I make a little on my checking account. I have my kids accounts there too.
Dolan, I feel the same way about the airlines.
I use 2 different Credit Unions, no fees…love their services. The lone bank I ever had an account with was Wachovia. I opened it so I could have ATM access to cash and some branch services when I started college. I closed it as soon as I graduated, they were notoriously awful with their customer service. Didn’t get whacked with fees, but they did play games with the credits/debits to/from the accounts, and I didn’t like that. Every credit union I’ve done business with runs transactions chronologically in the order they are done, and usually instantly…rather than with 2-3 day delays.
0bama wants you to be outraged at banks. That’s why they were FORCED to accept bailouts — so the left could use that against them. http://articles.businessinsider.com/2009-05-13/wall_street/29994241_1_scribd-bank-documents
Then Dodd-Frank put the screws to them so they had to find other ways to make money. And, again, the left has orchestrated this ‘outrage’. Dan got his memo from Soros-Landmark:
“Hey Dan, could you do this thread on your blog? Something about where you invite people to vent about bank fees?”
You simpletons are being played big time. This is all designed to deflect from Idiot Boy’s failures at election time. Same with the Occupy Wall Street bused-in maggots.
#21 Tin foil alert!!! Tin foil alert!!!
I think I’m beginning to understand:
Hank Paulson and President George W. Bush forced the banks to take the tarp money.
This would make everybody mad at banks.
Which would result in regulations.
Which would cause the banks to institute fees that people mad at banks all over again.
Which Barack Obama would use in his 2012 re-election big.
It’s all a plot by GWB!
Paulsen and the Democrats were behind TARP. It was one of Bush’s few errors going along with it. Does anybody think this “collapse” six weeks before the election was a coincidence? It was all designed to elect Monkey Boy.
if calling the president “monkey boy”, a clearly bigoted term with racist overtones,is not enough to ban a person from posting on a newspaper sponsored blog, what is?
Veritas,
People are allowed to freely use the term “cracker” as well on this blog, which is clearly a racist term, originating in the pre-Civil War days. It named a white slave master who cracked a whip. The term I used is not racist. 0bama resembles a chimpanzee which if anything is descriptive of his white characteristics.
Yep, it all happened just 6 weeks prior to the 2008 election. Suzie Q says so, so it must be true. See the link below. When you get to it scroll down to the heading call TIMELINE and read closely. The collapse didn’t happen just six weeks prior to the election. It had been coming for sometime.
http://www.creditwritedowns.com/credit-crisis-timeline/
The collapse didn’t happen just six weeks prior to the election. It had been coming for sometime.
Sure, and you could say that about the Great Depression, but the culmination date in the history books was October 24, 1929. In the current crisis, it was September 15, 2008. That’s the date years of Democrat malfeasance came to a head.
#26 Don’t worry, veritas, most of us here can’t figure out why suzie’s frequent vileness is tolerated. In the case of her racial references, she alleges she’s lampooning liberals but she does it so frequently that excuse doesn’t wash. If you read for long you’ll also discover that she uses language that goes right to the edge of Dan’s obscenity limit, and she does it more often than all of the rest of us put together. And despite claiming to be Christian, she doesn’t mind taking the Lord’s name in vain. Occasionally, Dan has to delete her posts.
Of course all of this is part of her inexplicable, pitiful need to draw attention to herself. We’ve discovered it’s best to ignore it as much as possible — something I’m not very good at sometimes, as you can see by this post.
History is rewritten everyday on this blog by a few TPs. If they can’t get it right only a few years back, it is easy to understand why they have such a misguided concept of politcs and economics.