A Thread on American Banking Options That Don't Suck a Caribou's Ass

I keep spare change in a five-gallon water bottle. No fees!

What about credit unions, are they any better?

What I'd like from a bank (at least):

- no fucking chintzy debit-card surcharge when I'm stuck using the damn thing at Stop & Shop because I forgot my credit card @ home
- foreign ATM fees that don't resemble interest accrued on delinquent maxed-out credit cards
- no fucking 0.00000001% interest on jerkoff savings accounts
- a website that doesn't continually treat my home computer like a college library workstation
- cheese danishes

interest on jerkoff savings accounts

you mean like a sperm bank?

"cheese danishes"

commerce

i haven't had any problems w/ wamu but lots of other people have. the fact that there is a branch every 2 ft in nyc helps with the withdrawal fees.

From the other thread as I consider myself scolded.

Anyone have any views on Citi? They have an account that will make moving to the US easier, but that move is speculation right now. Are they going to make my mouth taste like digested caribou chow?

though wamu is always like "free checks for life!!!" and i just got charged $30 for my checks somehow (first time ordering them in 5 years)

wamu was fine when i had an acct with them, but afterwards when i needed some records from them i had the absolute worst customer svc experience of my life (shouting matches with supervisors, lawsuit threats, etc).

re: citi, my account (who i trust and adore) said that she'd rather keep money under her mattress than use citibank. she's the one who recommended commerce.

fuck an overdraft charge! i know it's my fault but still.

Wamu is pretty decent. Free checking, some decent interest rates on savings accounts, decent customer service. They have an account called Savings for Success that give you 6.5% interest for 1 year. You deposit up to $500 then get automatic w/drawals from your checking account ea. month, up to a max $500 a month. At the end of one year you can either start again or take the money and run. Not bad.

I'm liking BofA's Keep the Change - it rounds up all your debit purchases to the next dollar and puts the difference in your savings. They match some portion of it every year.

I'm spoiled by USAA. So spoiled. If there is any way you can con your way into becoming a USAA member you should, that applies to everyone ever. PNC seems reasonable but I'm really only saying that because they let me use their ATMs for free as a USAA member and it seems like they follow a lot of other USAA type customer service deals.

I've had credit union accounts before that and they're very decent in comparison to what I keep hearing about the big corporate banks. I don't think I'd want to put my money anywhere that's going to skim my interest to pay for super bowl ads and shit.

Better than any debit or keep the change program is cashback on using my debit/atm card as a regular mastercard - it still gets taken out of my checking account like a debit, but I get a cut of the interest USAA collects while holding that money during "processing" payment to the vendor

last but not least I have to give a shout to Chevy Chase for letting me dump $400+ worth of change into their machines every few months and get it converted into paper with no fee

Wow that is pretty sweet. The best I get is airmiles on my amex if I pay it off on time.

xpost

WTF is USAA, is that some east coast government man thing?

yeah overdrafts are what kill me. wamu is particularly unrelenting with them. and yeah they are my own fault and yeah, but still. I used to know some nice people in a branch who would just overturn them when I got them, but they're all gone now.

I have a wells fargo account as well, and a credit card with them so if I'm going to overdraft it just charges to the card, which is nicer. also they let you advance your paycheck (for a free, but still handy if you need to buy $100 of groceries two days before payday like I do all the fucking time).

I have to give a shout to Chevy Chase for letting me dump $400+ worth of change into their machines every few months and get it converted into paper with no fee

http://images.movieeye.com/store/images/chevy-chase-celebrity-photo.jpg

"thanks I needed that money for coke!"

USAA is the greatest reward our country offers to veterans and their families.

there are only hawaiian banks in hawaii.

hsbc is fine.

I haven't had problems with Wachovia. But we are talking about an industry whose financial model is built on milking their patrons for as much as they can get away with.

Aw, Chevy Chase bank still exists? That makes me feel sort of fuzzy and homesick.

most credit unions just tread water though, and they don't deal with so much capital that they need to fuck over little people to cover shit like mortgage-backed securities turning sour on them

Aw, Chevy Chase bank still exists? That makes me feel sort of fuzzy and homesick.

-- Hurting 2, Thursday, March 27, 2008 6:17 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

http://www.clipstr.com/videos/ClassicSNLSkitRichardPryorAndChevyChase/thumb.jpg

Credit unions vary, but I prefer them over banks. They tend not to slap nearly so many fees on you as banks do. Try to find one as close to home as you can since they have far fewer branches, if any at all.

http://bankdeals.blogspot.com/

I have Wachovia and am happy with them. Absolutely no fees, no minimum balance, saving linked up to checking so no overdraft fees and they give my girlfriend $6 a month to cover her atm fees because there's not that many Wachovia atms in nyc. I don't get the $6 because I opened my account in Philly.
Actually, the only surprise with this bank is the lack of surprises.

usaa all the way

bank of america u suck ass

of a caribou

we changed from wamu to commerce a few months ago. i got tired of the nickel-and-dime fees at wamu. not getting charged for using other atms is a big plus, for one thing. i hate commerce's website design -- looks like some smalltown car dealership or something -- but it functions fine. (i just don't understand a big company having a shitty-looking website. it's not hard to have a good-looking one, so it almost feels like a deliberate choice. but maybe they just don't know any better.)

i also heart credit unions. mine's a tiny one in central NJ, so it's a bitch to find an ATM that won't ding me with these bullshit fees. (fortunately, i work in a building with a USAA ATM now so at least for the moment that problem is solved.)

i have checking accts w/ sovereign, wamu and etrade and they all suck dicks

etrade is nice enough to reimburse me for ATM charges tho

lol wtf there is a such a thing as a usaa atm?!?!?!?!?!? where in the shit is this

lol wtf there is a such a thing as a usaa atm?!?!?!?!?!? where in the shit is this

absolutely -- in downtown manhattan, within spitting distance of wall street yet.

WaMu doesn't charge me for using other banks' ATMs.

The best checking account I've found is Charles Schwab. They reimburse all ATM fees from anywhere; they offer 3% interest on your checking account (down from 4.25% when I signed up); there are no fees or minimums; and their customer service treats you like a rich person.

my favorite option is getting an ING electric orange checking account and an ING savings account. there are only a couple brick-and-mortar banks in the US, but if you look on their website, youll see they have a huge network of fee-free (on both ends) ATM's across the country. no paper checks is the only real drawback. they have high interest rates on checking and savings and an automatic overdraft line-of-credit, which is the preferred option, over fee-based overdraft protection.

aside from that, there's two options. join a credit union, content yourself with a little less convenience, set yourself up with whatever non-fee-based overdraft program they have (line-of-credit, linked credit card, transfer from savings/money market, etc), and take advantage of the way awesomer customer service they offer. learn the network of CU ATM's in your area, and be satisfied being part of a revolution.

the other option is to join ANY large bank. b of a, wachovia, chevy chase, us bank, wamu, wells fargo, whatever. REFUSE fee-based overdraft protection. if they wont let you do this, go somewhere else. link your account to a savings account if you have money, link your account to a line-of-credit if you dont. PAY ATTENTION to your balance, and to the notices they send. read the small print. use ATM's wherever; thats the advantage here, convenience. dont let the clerks push you around. ask for a manager anytime ANYTHING goes wrong, whether youre on the phone, email, or in person.

USAA is for military personnel and their families. get in on that shit if you can! dont join TCF.

i have a schwab savings account, but i didn't even know they had checking. hrm. maybe i will do that.

they reimburse ALL atm fees? like even bodega atms?

youll still get charged by the bodega ATM though

if theyre like etrade, they reimburse all fees from banks, not fees from individual atms at bodegas and stuff like that

Schwab reimburses every ATM fee. Seedy wobbly silver-plastic-colored bodega ATMs are my secret pleasure, hitting YES $2.00 FEE while the bodega cat watches knowingly. At the end of every month my statement says like ATM FEE REBATE $29.75

I didn't know they had savings accounts! Are they FDIC insured?

Every ATM withdrawal fee, I should say -- they don't reimburse if you just get a balance printout from a weird ATM at midnight.

yeah, i'm looking at their website now and it says that you get a free brokerage account when you open a checking account, so you probably have one and just need to set it up?

the brokerage accounts would be non-fdic insured though.

schwab's regular savings is FDIC-insured. the brokerage account is NOT, since it's not technically through schwab bank. xpost 2 lindz

Yeah, I have a brokerage account but I do my savings savings elsewhere.

Weird how schwab.com and schwabbank.com seem to offer a different set of accounts. I am all about schwab.com.

from schwabbank.com:

How is Charles Schwab Bank (Schwab Bank) different from Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. (Schwab) the brokerage firm?
Charles Schwab Bank is a federally chartered thrift institution and an affiliate of Charles Schwab Corporation, a financial holding company. All bank products and services are offered through Schwab Bank.

Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. (CS & Co.) is a registered broker-dealer and is not a chartered bank. CS & Co. is principally engaged in providing securities brokerage services to customers. The products offered by CS & Co. are not FDIC insured, are not deposits or obligations of, or guaranteed by Schwab Bank, and are subject to investment risk including possible loss of principal.

ah ok i should have just said "brokerage account" not "savings account" before, but i didn't want to sound snooty

wtf @ people in america being worried about ATMs... no one uses cash in nz, we have the almighty EFTPOS!

still not sure which bank i should go with when i move to US. credit card fees seem a lot lower over there - like, HALF of what most credit card interest rates are in nz - so that is upside.

wtf @ people in america being worried about ATMs... no one uses cash in nz, we have the almighty EFTPOS!

still not sure which bank i should go with when i move to US. credit card fees seem a lot lower over there - like, HALF of what most credit card interest rates are in nz - so that is upside.

Somewhere upthread someone said something about being charged for debit card transactions over a certain ludicrously small minimum every month. US banks be a bunch of anti-deluvian troglodyte fraudsters as far as I can see.

In the UK they try and encourage debit card usage seeing cash as an unnecessary and expensive. Luckily they didn't manage to put in widespread withdrawal fees on bank owned ATMs a few years back although the number of bank owned ones seems to be going down and the number of bodega style ones and fee paying ones disguised as bank owned ATMs seems to be on the rise.

69's points about watching your bank like a hawk are OTFM8080, I'd add to that to switch at the drop of a hat if the fuck you around. The only reasons banks fuck us around is because we are all to lazy to punish them for bad service by taking our custom elsewhere.

Also, you might as well surf the introductory deals that are a consequence of our laziness.

there are pretty much no charges for debit card/EFTPOS use here; most banks offer a fee-free deal. pretty much the only place i can't use my debit card is the bus - a lot of taxis even have EFTPOS machines now. but i do pay around 21% p.a. on my credit card.

Ruby, a quick look at http://www.interest.co.nz/creditcards.asp says you're bonkers - you're probably seeing advertisements for US credit cards giving an introductory APR of around 9 or 10%? shit is all damned lies

really? jordan pays (i think) less than 10% on his credit cards... maybe i need to ask him about it again. i'm no good at this stupid money stuff! ;_; i need to get rich so i don't have to think about it.

i should switch to kiwibank - it's our new nz-owned bank (the only one left) since their interest rate is 13.3% but seems pointless now, and i pay my cc regularly so i get charged fuck all interest.

hey ed, is there any difficulty in getting US credit card, being a foreigner, or are they just gagging to send us into debt?

It is pretty difficult to get a us credit card if you don't have some kind of presence in the US. The best you can do is find one that doesn't shaft you for overseas usage. Amex doesn't for us transactions but for non us transaction (and not your own currency) you get double hit by two currency conversions at not too favourable rates.

Some banks in the uk pride themselves on zero fees for overseas transactions (some hit you in the exchange rate, some don't).

I've just signed up for citi account which gives me US and euro denominated current accounts with debit and credit linked to them which should minimise fees.

If you are paying balances off in full every month then you should have a credit card that gives you something for that (cashback, airmiles, sexual favours, charity donations) otherwise you are overpaying. I keep two credi cards, one that I pay off every month, which I use for business expenses, mainly, on which I get airmiles and one low rate card I use for emergencies, large purchases I need to spread etc. If it has a balance on it I try and make sure I shift it to a zero introductory rate to pay it down. This is becoming harder to do due to the credit crunch and the fact that my credit rating shows me not to make much money for the banks because I am not a profligate debt spender.

bank of internet!

Do any Chicagoans know of any credit unions whose eligibility requirement is simply "live in Chicago/Cook County"? Bank of America and US Bank have both pulled some pretty annoying shit and I'm done with it.

no fucking chintzy debit-card surcharge when I'm stuck using the damn thing at Stop & Shop because I forgot my credit card @ home

Um, you don't get this surcharge if you have a MC/Visa check card and you use it as credit. At least, you don't get it with BoA. ALWAYS use your debit card as credit.

Unfortunately the credit uses don't post as quickly, so you might check yr balance at an ATM and not realize that something from last week hasn't been deducted yet! I know this is slightly sloppy but still, potentially dangerous for overdrafts.

I actually started using my ATM card as debit all the time because it posts and is deducted immediately. Have not noticed surcharges but maybe I'm not looking closely enough...?

some banks do make you pay a POS (point of sale) surcharge for using it as debit rather than sending it through as a credit. for reasons I can't remember now; it has to do with who pays for the transaction I think. weirdly the reason seemed totally backward to me when it was explained to me. both my banks finally got rid of this surcharge though.

yes it is a good idea to run stuff through as credit, that way you are protected by MC/VISA return policies which will credit you back if something is wrong! I guess not as big a deal if you're buying a loaf of bread, but if you're buying a TV or something it might be.

i think i'm gonna get a wamu credit card cos they are offering 0 apr deals and will transfer over my boa balance. boa sucks for charging a credit protection fee that the claimed came over when the merged with mbna but i never signed up for that shit. still the refuse to take it off. i just need to get rid of this card.

Um, you don't get this surcharge if you have a MC/Visa check card and you use it as credit. At least, you don't get it with BoA. ALWAYS use your debit card as credit.

Dammit, I think you're right. I just selected debit because, duh, that's what it was. Still, it's balls in an unwashed jock, that stuff.

I have been sucking the combined caribous arses of RBS and citibank who apapparntly aren't best fwends and can't transfer my direct debits from one to the other in less than 3 months (the banking code of practice says this should take 5 days).

I'm spoiled by USAA.

^^^^^this. And since they added Deposit@home last year, letting you just deposit paper checks via your own scanner, it's like FU ALL OTHER BANKS. I do my banking + car and homeowner's insurance through USAA. Can't imagine going anywhere else.

I am loving my ING Orange account that was suggested here.

this seems appropriate timing for revivotron

indeed

I'm going to hold out until they're sucking a panda bear's spermy nutsack.

i'm going local, in part

Time to revive again as I need one. Options:

Citi

Pros I have a UK citi account with a dollar balance and can transfer stuff instantly between citi accoutns for free (think I can transfer to other US banks for free but it takes time)
Probably won't go bust
GF has an account with them

Cons
Very little presence in pittsburgh so ATM charges
Upthread people don't rate their customer service experience
charges for almost everything it seems

Citizen's bank

Pros
All over pittsburgh
fewer charges than citi
probably won't go bust as owned by RBS

Cons
have promised never to give RBS another penny as long as I live

Charles Schwab

Pros
Free checking,
refund ATM fees
good interest on balances

Cons
No idwa whether they will go bust
no branches

Anyone else I should be looking at?

wamu/chase may be keeping their 5% 12 month cd open until interest rates drop again.

now you're all awake, save me from sweet tasty caribou

dude there are lots of banks. just pick one and stop being a wuss about it. you're insured for 250,000 or soon will be. ride the mechanical bull with the rest of us. why would you even think about using charles schwab for your bank, though?????

they refund all ATM charges, don't charge for checking, someone recommended it up thread

For those not tracking my life story, I recently moved from the UK to the US and opened an account with Wells Fargo (the guy there nearly left mine and my husband's SURNAMES off the accounts until I suggested it might be useful to record).

Online banking is OK, but it doesn't seem like you can transfer money to people's accounts if they're not with Wells Fargo. This can't be right, right? In the UK you can transfer money to anyone electronically (NOT wiring) because it's exactly the same as writing them a cheque. Soemtimes it even goes in the same day!

Is this a US thing or a Wells Fargo thing? We can't seem to do Direct Debits, presumably for this reason. (We wanted to set one up to pay our landlord that lives below us. They offered to do this automatic bill payment thing that automatically prints a cheque and posts it to the person . I mean, what.)

So anyway we want to send money back to the UK and want to use a currency exchange broker. But it looks like we'd need to transfer money electronically and as they're not a Wells Fargo account holder we can't do it.

Any and all advice welcome.

yeah I have citibank, was recently in the same position and couldn't figure out a way to do it without wiring. and the other person even had a citibank account...

that seems really strange. if you'd be ok with an online-only checking account you might try this http://home.ingdirect.com/products/products.asp?s=ElectricOrange
i have their savings account. the interest is low but it's really easy to transfer in and out of my checking account (which is not ING) without fees or anything.

Bank of America is similar to Wells Fargo on this - I can transfer to another BofA account but when I tried to set up a Chase account for transfers/bill payer I got an email back saying they couldn't do it "for security reasons". I used Paypal instead, which is slower but didn't require anyone physically going to a branch/finding a stamp to mail a check.

???

Never had any problems doing wire transfers with Bank of America.

Not wire transfers - direct electronic payments from a BofA acct to another personal bank acct, that you set up through the online bill payer service.

The major consumer banks are all restricting the hell out of ACH transfers from account-to-account because trojan keylogger operators have switched from "carding" to stealing online bank credentials and just flat-out no-kidding emptying accounts. Some small businesses & associations have been taken for the large six figures via fraudulent ACH transfers -
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/small_business_victims/

NACHA - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Clearing_House - just recently released a bulletin to participants recommending add'l risk controls to be put in place:
http://searchfinancialsecurity.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid185_gci1376711,00.html

But for all that frankly "printing the check and mailing it" has worked wonders for me over the years - it's how I paid my rent from day one in my old apartment, I've used it to pay one-off medical bills, make charity donations and transfer money back and forth with my parents even. Knowing someone's mailing address isn't THAT hard.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/nov/16/money-mule-scam

Thanks, that's interesting, although I don't understand why this isn't a problem in Europe? Do you know of any consumer banks that will allow transfers between banks or is it a blanket thing?

This has become a major asspain in trying to manage finances across two continents. I can mail myself a cheque to my dollar account in london which has to be mailed back by the bank to clear taking about a month or suffer paypal's fees for something that used to be a click away. I appreciate the banks concerns but it seems like this is hard to do now even if I go into the back branch with ID and try and get the transfer initiated from there.

Other than this PNC does not seem to suck caribou ass, i guess I haven't tested them too hard but on the plus side they refund all ATM fees, which is nice given that I feel that a $5 atm fee can't be far in my future.

Wells Fargo will save you from an abusive relationship with your cat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnAfB8P53MI