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Several banks are putting an end to free checking accounts for millions of customers. The least they can do is give fair warning, Sen. Chuck Schumer said Sunday.
Schumer is calling on Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to police large and mid-sized banks that are slapping fees on free checking accounts. Culprits include Wells Fargo and Bank of America. The banks are looking to recoup revenues they'll lose from changes in rules about overdraft charges.
One of the down side of Quiken/MS money is I get my statement as a download, so when he paper comes i never look at it. So they can slip that stuff in.. I back in my credit union and so far they have not done anything like that, They do Email info about changes, from fee's to office x is closed due to power being out.
If there's fine print in the contract that they don't have to, then they don't have to. You signed it.
What's the big deal. You see the $5 charge on your statement, you take your money to a different bank that still has free banking, you lose five bucks.
I opened an account at a local bank, because it's impossible to cash $1 rebate checks if you don't have one. But I never used it. After 90 days, I got a $5 charge for "inactivity fee". So I opened another account at the same bank, and set up an automatic transfer from account A to account B every month of $10, and another automatic transfer back the other way. Presto. No inactivity fees ever, and they do all the work. My branch manager laughed and said "Even better, I get a bonus for each new account---Thanks!" And, he waived my inactivity fee and credited it back to my account.
I've Noticed that one of my credit cards has been send a $0.00 Monthy Tranaction fee to my Quicken Download each month. For the last 6? months or so, I have a no-fee for life credit card, but my thinking is that they will send $0.00 so you get use to it, then some month. A computer 'error' will occur and a fee will start showing up. Since you are use to seeing it it may slip past. Then they wait to see how many call in, and they only 'fix' (remove) the computer errror for those who call in.
Heaven forbid that people expect their money to be kept safe in a bank for free. How do you think banks earn their money? It sure isn't on the interest generatated on a $1500 month average balance.
Heaven forbid that people expect their money to be kept safe in a bank for free. How do you think banks earn their money? It sure isn't on the interest generatated on a $1500 month average balance.
there was a great podcast on this the other day (either planet money or npr fresh air). banks used to make money by taking deposits and paying interest (let's say, 2%), then taking that money and loaning it out and charging interest (let's say, 4%). the spread was their profit. but, the word "bank" doesn't mean the same thing anymore. due to years of deregulation and other policy changes, banks can do a lot more. so the traditional bank has changed, and now they make money from all these fees.
if i give citibank $5,000 in deposits, i'm not keeping my money safe for free, i'm loaning my money to the bank, who in turn loans it out to someone else and makes profit off of that. now, they want to further make profit by charging me to access the money i loaned to them? well then, i should be able to tell them not to loan my money out and take risks with it. of course, i can take my money elsewhere, but Bank of America has me locked in now because they used to not charge a fee to pay my mortgage electronically, now they charge me $2 if i pay from a non BAC checking account. That's absurd!
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