Does you bank charge high fees and if so, for what?

I'm going to have to change banks.

Last week my spouse used the debit card and didn't bother to tell me and low and behold it put us in overdraft for a WHOPPING $1.32. Yes, one dollar and thirty-two cents. Wow, the bank might go broke on that:eyes: So, what does the bank do? The bank charged us $31.00, which then threw the next thing into overdraft and so on. Got the picture?

When it was all said, done and added up (hopefully it's all) we had over $400 in just FEES alone. I nearly died and my spouse is having heart palpitations. I make a conscious effort to not let anything go into overdraft, so needless to say, I'm pretty strung-out. The bank knows me and knows that we are good customers. Hopefully, tomorrow when I go up there to figure this out, they'll reimburse some of those fees. In the meantime, I want to blow my brains out.

This may be a redundant question, but why do the banks need to charge these outrageous fees? It's pure greed from the way I see it and unless someone here can enlighten me on anything different then I guess I'm right.

So much for Christmas.

Our laws have allowed them to do this. You know as well as I do that your slight miscalculation in your account balance didn't impact the bank to the tune of $31! But they have executive salaries and bonuses to pay, and that's where a lot of their income comes from.

We need change in America. Change in the way our government operates, change in the way it looks after our interests, and change in doing away with the old way of doing business in government. As long as lobbyists and corporations are handing out money to Congress, that's the way it's going to be.

We will have the opportunity to make that change start happening next year.

If the bank's fees are ridiculous, complain. If there is no remedy, close the account and move it to another institution with a lower fee structure.

they can usually take off any fee, no matter what they may tell you. I used to be a bank teller and I would take fees off all kinds of shit.

and its cheaper for the bank in the long run to keep from losing a customer and having to close an account. It also works with hotel rates. I've called hotels to make reservations they give me a rate, I tell them I'll pay X (usually 20% less) they say Okay.

A $2.00 monthly fee for "check image." I'm sure I'm getting my monies worth. We use our banks ATM's as much as possible for no charge and we keep balances so we haven't had any problems. We bank with Chase (because they bought out the bank we previously did business with) and I am rather satisfied with the service and their website is user friendly.

I will drive out of my way if I know there is an ATM for my bank rather than go to another ATM JUST because my bank charges and the bank I'm drawing from charges. It's ridiculous!

I'm thinking about going with Chase too.

I need to get away from this bank.

was my forte in the Navy. I had to counsel severall young knucklehead Sailors about their money habits. Like using an ATM for $20.00 and getting hit with a three dollar charge and thinking nothing of it. We have had no problems with Chase, but that's probably because they haven't had any problems with us. As my wife would say I'm quite anal about our money, its management and maintenance. I know where every penny goes. And on a lesser note, I've known the people at the bank for several years and its a pleasure stopping off at our bank. I know thats not a reason to switch banks but the face to face folks are great to do business with. Sometimes I just stop by to say Hello.

gas prices keep going up.... As one who travels constantly, works unusual (and long) hours, a debit card is a necessity and I rarely deal with cash, but as you say it requires incredible vigilence (and restraint). I now check my primary account online daily.

close to home but when we infrequently use another bank's ATM we get more money then we normally would and stash the extra to lower the cost of withdraw to cash withdrawn ratio. I check our accounts quite frequently and I keep my driving to a minimum.

minimal fees and great service, when needed. Mine's on the SUM network, so I use one of those ATMs for no charge.

I agree they are much better than banks on routine fees, especially ATMs, but when it comes to overdrafts, make sure you have sufficient overdraft protection on your ATM, debit card and don't use it as a credit card.

The key point here is that Credit Unions are not-for-profit, not charity. It cost the Credit Union money when you bounce a check, so it's going to cost its members money too...

That happened to me one time. But I called the bank and since I had been a longstanding customer, they reversed the fees.

they have been sold a zillion times, all bets are off. I am the long term customer, but THEY are "new to the deal."

A lot of people here have complained about them, but I have never had any problems. In fact, one time, I had left my card in the ATM and after I had gone, someone that had been behind me withdrew $100 from my account. Would you believe, the bank reimbursed me.

and they took off the fee. They will do that if you don't do it all the time.
They also have the very best online banking for personal and especially business.

I used to work for Bank of Corruptia. They had a bounty of $100 for any employee who could think of new fee ideas. The only reason was pure greed. But then with half the employees as non-working relatives and cronies collecting free paychecks, I reckon they needed the extra cash.

my roommates rent check bounced (which in and of itself pissed me off x() and then my bank charged me $15 for it. when i called and asked why, they told me it was to pay for them to send the check back to me.

i cannot believe it costs 15 damn dollars to stick a couple of pieces of paper in an envelope and put it in the mail

I keep telling myself to breatheeeeeeeee...but it ain't helping:banghead:

They are member-owned and you get better rates and better service. I used to bank with what is now BankAmerica (after several buyouts and mergers). I had to stop and think who I was banking with at any given point in time after so many changes. But they had outrageous fees and charges like you describe so I looked around and got a much better deal. When I closed out my account with BA the lady I worked with there told me candidly that they just can't compete with Credit Unions in many ways.

They wanted to charge me a $3.00 fee!!! I couldn't believe it! I cancelled of course and went to my own bank, but I'm still in shock over that.

haha
its only the fee they charge that varies...
ive seen 1.50 up to 4 dollars.

If for some reason there is an overdraft a charge is made on the card. I don't plan on using it but when more that one person makes withdrawals from an account anything can happen. Good luck at the bank, I hope you find them receptive. peace, kim

is basically used as a savings account so that usually only has deposits except for every month they charge me about $5 for "Account maintenance" and i still have gotten a good answer for what that entails. the accounts are not connected, meaning i have no over draft protection. The one good thing i will say about BOFA is that so far their security dept. has been excellent, i had a charge to my debit card that was not mine and within an hour of the transaction they called me and told what happened and issued me a new card which i got in 2 days.

Only to a credit card and they considered it a cash advance with a cash advance fee and then an overdraft fee. Cancelled BofA's credit card too.

I moved everything to my credit union. They allow overdrafting to a savings account and don't charge when you do that.

On ATM fees, BofA would hit me with their fee for using another ATM and that ATM would usually charge also. The credit union doesn't charge at all, though they pass on the ATM fee (there aren't any for other credit unions), but even other bank ATM's I only get charged the $1.50 or $2 when I'm out of town which I can live with. With BofA it was $2+$2=$4 and I had a lot less money then and visited the ATM more for $40 withdrawals --I never do that now, I always get more.

after seeing the "Out of network fees" and they're dying to give me OD protection but i refuse it, they also swallowed up my credit card company, it was MBNA but now it's BOFA. I like to pay with cash and i like the blank stares "You're paying with cash, omg i need a key"

debit cards. You can easily and unknowingly go into an overdraft situation, triggering outrageous fees just as you've described. And the biggest danger is when two people are using the same account.

You can possibly sign up for overdraft protection, in which your bank essentially advances you a loan (at a fairly high interest rate but it's still a lot less than the overdraft fees) instead of bouncing a check.

Frankly, a better solution, and one that almost no couple I know of uses, is for you each to have a separate account. Make them both joint accounts, so you can each write checks on them if needed, but you are the only user of one, and your spouse is the only user of the other. And each of you has a debit and/or ATM card on only the account you use. My husband and I made it through 27 years of marriage without ever bouncing a check by this system.

An electronic deposit went to my wrong bank account, something I've been unable to fight because the moron hit choice #2 bank account of my on-file accounts, but "it was on file after all."

I was traveling and used the card for one small transaction (probably a $3.75 latte at Starbucks), which set up a cascading set of events that had me out several hundred dollars in fees. What really pissed me off, is that they could have bounced one transaction, a check for $300 some dollars, rather than 6 or so individual transactions of a few dollars each (at $31 fee each) since all were presenting on the same day and even with the glitch there were plenty of funds present for all the small individual transactions. But, no, they cleared the $300 check and bounced a total of 6 little transactions for a total of about $28 total in addition to hundreds of dollars in service charges.

In a climate that allowed the passage of that bankrupcy bill, it is unlikely congress will do much about this. If it had been Sonny from around the corner, it would be called illegal loan sharking, but given it was a bank (or credit union), it is "good business."

Billy the Kid and Jesse James had horses and guns... banks and hospitals only have a building, but they do a far better job of robbing you blind.

maybe I aught to keep the many millions stacked away under my mattress there. At least I could watch it better:D

Even if I could understand the small print, I'd need a very big filing cabinet to store all the crap they send out. Damn if you do and damn if you don't save all the correspondence.

years ago when I worked for a bank, they CALLED people and told them their account would be overdrafted it they did not come in and deposit some money..

We have overdraft protection (have not had to use it, but it's there ) but my son used to use his atm card without recording stuff and he ended up paying $22 for a $2 purchase..and $20 at the merchant..

I used to keep extra money as a cushion because my husband thought that you HAD to take $200 out evcery time at the ATM..and then he would hand me 5 or 6 "slips" from his wallet..:grr:

If you are changing. I would highly recommend Provident Bank if you have one near you..or just about any credit union

connected to a 5-written-check free before charges in addition to a $10 mo. maintenance fee checking acct. w/Cash Rewards Visa debit and w/any amount of monthly auto savings. Also, a $10 fee for over five transactions per month limit on regular passbook account, deposits included. Returned checks/overdrafts - $35 each and paid as OP stated above to maximize deficiencies.

The bank may temporarily reverse the charges so account does not remain OD, but the charges will be taken out again as soon as a deposit comes in that covers the original problem.

and then 5 dollers each day it remains in the red.


i also noticed my grandmothers account, which has exsisted long before the bank was owned by its current private bank(several banks have been in the building, that they are charging her a 15 dollar maintainence fee!

i know my account with the same bank DOES NOT.

i guess they decided since she was old, theyd just keep whatever deal she had with the previous banks.
bastards.

how the initial $31 charge added up to $400?

I´m curious. Thanks.

He used the debit card, which they automatically put through, although charging a fee, I had purchases out that were to be covered by what he took out and before long it dominoed.

I'm still trying to go over what all they charged and I'm pissed as hell.

It is frightening how much you could inadvertently be out if you are not checking your accounts constantly online (as I do now, almost daily) and if you travel a lot (or have a spouse that uses the same account, something I would NEVER do now).

she was just being condescending...

I check my account constantly online too. My spouse travels (driver) for a living and even though he is supposed to let me know when he uses the debit card (they have an expense account) --and usually does--it's when he gets back home that I have the problem with him. I told him I wish they put alarm systems on debit cards so I could know when he's using it. He NEVER checks the account balance and it drives me nuts!:banghead: We've been lucky this hasn't happened before. Now maybe he'll check it.

Sadly, we do have some sanctimonious folks on the left that assume anyone who is not just rolling in dough, must be deficient somehow (or a poor money manager).

this one is even on the left...

notice no profile...nine times out ten that's the dead giveaway ...but then, I'm not one to call someone a TROLL:sarcasm:

It was an honest question from an honest person, (not a troll).

I simply asked about how the fees kept growing. That´s all.

We get sensitized sometimes to those that post a question that could be either sincere or snarky, only to disappear.

Welcome to DU, Angela and glad you came back to clarify. :toast:

If I could stay at DU for prolonged periods of time, I would.

Maybe you will agree that it´s quite addicting.

Unfortunately, I can only "attend the DU town meetings" sporadically.

If you have enough money in your account suddenly all the fees go away. I mean all of them. They even give you a free safety deposite box.

A good acquaintance is the VP of a major bank and said that the bank makes money from you one way or the other. If you are a small account, you get "fee'd" to death as the interest and money in those accounts aren't worth investing like the bigger accounts are. He said if you have assets of $50,000 or more, good chance the bank will waive fees cause they're making more off your money. But then in those larger accounts they hide all sort of "management fees"...so they catch you coming or going.

all on your own:applause:

Why didn't you and I both realize that all we had to do was keep $50k in the account. Duh (smacks head)....:sarcasm:

guess we're not one of the "blessed" ones...:eyes:

And the bank still charges $30 for an overcharge... worse still, the overcharge fee is charged for every item that hits the account... worse even still, I had four overdrafts ($120 in fees!!!) because my electronic paycheck and my electronic bill paying hit the account on the same day. Yes, on that day a deposit was made far exceeding the amounts marked as payable on the same date.

So much for free fucking checking. I hate banks. All of them. Now we have the Saudis bailing our banks out... so much more to hate banks for. We are funding terrorism by doing business with them... lets not forget the nation of origin of the people who flew the planes on 9/11/01. That's the real 9/11 story that no one wants us to remember.

Follow the money... from your wallet to the hands of terrorists, thanks to BushCo.

I think this is the clincher of it all. Every week a check goes in and they know it.:mad:

The fees piled up while various humans tried to fix the "glitch." At one point I was told I shouldn't be charged the fee because I had enough money, but if I had less then I would be charged. :eyes: Makes perfect sense. The less money you have, the more you should pay. We need regulators.

I got the fees removed, but not without wasting my time and effort. Personally, I think banks do this to improve their balance sheets...all those fees (multiplied by millions of customers) look like assets, and not every customer will notice or take the time to argue it They're playing percentages. And banks aren't the only ones pulling this crap. The telephone co. charged me 6.95 to disconnect long distance that I didn't have. Insane. I gave up and paid. Multiplied by millions of customers, it's a lot of money. Where are the regulators?