i hate fucking banks

Apparently, though, that only applies to being overdrawn, not overdrawn in excess of an agreed overdraft. Fair enough, there's some ambiguity there, but when I rang up they refused to refund me on the basis of my honest misunderstanding of their vaguely worded terms. I got angry and asked to speak to someone else but she was just as insistent, and said I could appeal in writing and if that didn't work out then take it to the small-claims court.

I feel really aggrieved about this. Am I wrong to?

I always say "can I just NOT have an overdraft so when there's no money I can't use any?". Can I fuck.

but haha yes, that is cruelly true!

i worked in consumer banking for around 5 years. you are not telling us the whole story.

ps. overdraft protection is a scam, however, you're right about that.

what else do you need to know dude?

what kind of transfer was it? ACH, wire transfer, paypal?

-- kyle (akmonda...), January 27th, 2005.

whoops. x-post

Um, shouldn't that more properly be "i fucking hate banks"?

I am assuming online banking also uses ACH instead of "regular" wire transfer means.

(p.s. don't anyone even THINK about getting an account with Natwest, they are beyond evil)

HSBC WERE the best bank I have dealt with, from a bad bunch.

-Mojo Nixon, 1985 or so

alternately:

but do you hate fucking mojo nixon?

yes.

a) Charge you for going over the overdraft
b) charge you for the letter telling you about it
c) take those charges out of your account right away
d) CHARGE YOU FOR BEING OVER YOUR OVERDRAFT WHEN THEY TOOK THE MONEY OUT!

If I owe someone money, they don't get to take it when I don't have it; they send me an invoice. Banks, however, take money you don't have then charge you for spending money you don't have. If they weren't such thieves, they'd bill you for it and wait till you could pay it. They're cunts, and refusal to acknowledge such is why I told him I hoped he would crash on the drive home and something dreadful would happen to him before he died.

a) You have direct debits that fuck up on their end and take double their amount, and will only refund you that, not any charges incurred
or
b) you put the money in to cover it, three days previous like they say and then they TAKE OUT THE DEBITS MINUTES BEFORE PUTTING IN THE CREDITS
or
c) you, y'know, slip up

all of which have happened to me. banks fucking suck.

no bones i don't understand what you're saying

She's also been thru at least one holdup so far now. Dunno why she still does it.

"When would you like to come in to do that?"
"Um, now?"
"Oh, you'll have to schedule a time for that."
"I see, well let's just close this one then."

account closed

Calvin Coolidge once said "A banker is a fellow who will lend you his umbrella only to ask for it back when it's raining."

I can't believe I spent 15 yrs of my life in this bloodsucking industry. Yeesh!

i havent had any problems with hsbc.

im thinking about moving my savings account from bradford & bingley, to nationwide.

Um, shouldn't that more properly be "i fucking hate banks"?

Shouldn't that be "I hate getting fucked by banks"?

Anyway, I bank with Smile, and I think they're actually rather good - mind you I never get overdrawn so don't get any problems with charges... YMMV

Quoted for truth. Though I joined them because they had market-leading interest rates - they don't seem to bother with that now. However, they are a joy to deal with compared to any high street bank - I can't think of any reason why anyone wouldn't just have an interweb account these days.

FUCK 1 BANK.

-- phantasy bear (adamr...), January 26th, 2006.

phantasy bear OTM

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1141050760,24632

So wrong...but then again I suppose we each know the banks of our home country better, and better the heartless moneysucking devil you know, or something. I would guess that for a non-US national, US banking would be just as annoying as UK banking is for me.

One thing the US does better: daily reconciliation. I have had a debit go unpaid and a hefty fee charged when the money to cover it arrived (by international wire transfer, delayed through fault of my US bank) 5 hours after the debit was posted on the same day. It would so happen that the 5 hours is the exact time difference between 9 am local time in said transferring countries. My US bank wrote a letter to my UK one on my behalf, to no avail. This kind of situation was never a problem for me at any of the places I banked with in the US.

I'd love to stick it to my bank even just by dumping their asses for HSBC but with my visa, it's the only account (a stupidly basic one, I can't even write checks) that I'm eligible for, despite the fact that I had a current account with them years ago.

The Royal Bank of Scotland does this (or similar) as well. I have a separate account with them for paying bills because if you accidentally go over when a debit comes off, you don't get charged as long as you get the money in before 3.30 pm that same day. This has saved me £££ in bank charges since I discovered this.

- scottish hydro tried to take a 37-quid direct debit
- we didn't have cash in the joint account to cover it
- the RBS refused to make the payment ... then charged me, umm, 38 quid for the privilege of, er, not making it
- i kicked the fuck off (about a 5.2 on the grimly scale of kicking off, since you ask)
- 38 quid was refunded to my account very quickly

there was some other fannying about involving a 28-quid charge for exceeding the overdraft limit; in fairness, i think this might have been on another transaction. even so. cunts.

the OFT are apparently turning their guns on banks soon. i sincerely fucking hope so.

Doesn't RBS's online service only work with certain browsers?

My opinion of RBS is partly founded by my girlfriend having to design software for them. Nearky everyone she dealt with was both incompetent AND rude.

Northern Rock are a funny one too, they always top the ISA % charts, but don't mention that the account you join will revert to an uncompetitive rate a month after you start it, it is impossible to move onto their new high % ISA, they make it virtually impossible to transfer your ISA to a different provider, and even if you manage to get them to trasnfer your account they hold onto it for the maximum 30 days they are allowed to by law before gicing it to your new provider.

I still swear by Smile, who are the best of a bad bunch IMO, and don't invest in any unethical business's (they are part of the co-op bank).

HBOS, nae chance. Check account balance in morning, go "shit, the phone bill's come off, I'm £25 overdrawn" and, erm, you're knacked. £28 charge to follow.

(It used to be just 24 hours they gave you, but I think they realised that the wailing of their customers was going to draw too much attention to their evil)

If you or she were to work at any other bank, you'd probably say the same thing. Amazing how bank software is cobbled together on the back end.

come on, he's not as bad as collins or rutherford thank you very much ladies and gentleman my name is stan boardman geeermans goodnight

ffwd to yesterday - cash all gone but still not card has arrived! where the fuck is it? ironically my bank account is currently healthier than it's been for over a year but i CANNOT ACCESS MY OWN MONEY GRAR! i have 56p to survive on!

i'm going to go in and shout at barclays today, and also get some more emergency cash, possibly in the reverse order.

crikey! chief economist no less

(apart from East 17 at the Shepherds Bush Empire the other night?)

i had very strong words with them, it is v satisfying giving someone a piece of your mind when you know you're in the right. they were kissing ass by the end of my spiel, "so sorry sir, hope you have a good weekend sir, let me shake your hand sir", but i'm still not going to have a card for another WEEK at least.

My bank puts a five-day hold on any deposit over five thousand dollars. 4999.00, it's yours. 5001.00, YOU ARE A SUSPECTED CHECK-FORGER!!!!!! Wouldn't the check-forgers get wise?

Liverpool Victoria are legally within their rights to take the money as I did not advise them I did not wish to renew. "So how were you able to use a card number that expired two months ago?" "We were quite within our rights to take the payment."

Lloyds TSB allow insurance companies to take repeat payments "because we wouldn't want customers to be driving around uninsured if they'd forgotten to renew. It's in our terms and conditions." "Surely it's the responsibility of the person taking out the insurance to remember?" "It is in our terms and conditions, madam."

Madchen: ihe worst thing in all of this is being called Madam repeatedly (ew ew ew). But it seems to me that you told LV you were not renewing before they had a chance to remove the money, so it is clear that you refused them permission to take it because you were insured elsewhere, and I am sure that payment to new insurer also comes out of your Lloyds account too. Try again (occasionally I use the 'Er-er' noise from Family Fortunes when my banking interlocutor refuses to cooperate or gives some other kind of underling wrongness).

http://www.bankcharges.info/

crazy. but then when i got home i tried calling "B"'s telephone banking number, and managed to do it BACKWARDS and drew cash from the current account into the savings one. wtf.

I wonder how the old Brixton Hill branch of HSBC is holding up. I still have my account there.

but the main problem here is i'm looking for where to send my deposit, and the website has no such information. if anyone knows where to mail chase deposits answer or email me :((((((((

Top Ten Industry Facts

24/07/2006

The UK banking sector contributes significantly to the UK and its economy:

# Banks and financial services provide over 1m jobs

# Banks and financial services contribute £70bn to the UK's national output (6.8% of GDP)

# Banks and financial services provide 25% of total corporation tax (£8bn) to the UK Gov

# The main retail banks provide over 125m accounts, clear 7bn transactions a year and facilitate 2.3bn cash withdrawals per year from its network of over 30,000 free ATMs

# Banks provide cost-effective banking services to 95% of the UKs population

# In 2005, 24m personal customers registered to access their bank accounts online, while 42 million are registered to access their accounts by telephone

# Since April 2003, banks have opened a net total of 1.8m Post Office-accessible basic bank accounts

# Banks in the UK contribute well over £100m per year to charities and local community initiatives

# Five UK banks are in the top 15 firms listed in the DTI's recent 2006 Value Added Scoreboard of Wealth Creating Companies

# The value of foreign exchange business passed through London every day is £560bn ($1 trillion)

The UK not only enjoys one of the most competitive, efficient and secure banking systems in the world, but is one of the cheapest countries in the world to bank - with 'free if in credit' banking. At the same time, the financial sector's productivity is increasing at a rate of three times to that of the UK economy as a whole and will account for an increasing share of the UK economy and GDP growth, providing the regulatory and tax environment does not deteriorate. The UK continues to be the largest single centre for international banking.

I am tempted because I need money.

please remain on the line as we value your call

i love fucking canks

too busy valuing my call to answer it

Someone should write a cute book about all the things you can do while waiting on hold. Then we should use it as fuel to burn down banks.

i am on hold again and i think the guy forgot about me

start billing your time. you are a lawyer!

a 30 minute call for a simple question!

i called about this a month ago and got a totally different wrong answer. account was supposed to be closed 4 years ago, they didn't close it, and i didn't realize it was still linked to my amazon seller account. turns out there's money in it and it's dormant. i love that i have money i didn't know about but it's so hard to get to it!

Try pressing the HASH key when they whack you on hold, sometimes it overrides the system and gives you a human.

Sometimes I think we should draft a set of our own terms and conditions before submitting to any drawn up by banks.

yeah i usually hit 0 but most of the holding was after a guy was already "helping" me and he had to leave and go find an answer in the next town apparently

maybe he died

hey what are you selling on amazon

"to contact your representative's sherpa, press 6"

Well, you are asking an extremely complicated question, namely, "How do I withdraw all funds and then close this account?" That surely not something that your bank sees every day.

last time they told me i had to send a letter to a company in nyc that handles unclaimed funds. i did. over a month later i'm wondering, "where is my check? how come no one has even called me?" turns out the company no longer exists and when i called the renamed company's number they said call hsbc. what.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_S3Fk1v4vsCQ/Rhtv5HKxQ6I/AAAAAAAAAvU/_fqt4x-Ru7k/s400/Ernie_Banks.bmp

"let's press 2"

^^ inspirational

only oprima el dos if you want para español

need a 30 yr water tank

every time i see this thread title on new answers i find myself mentally going "well, stop fucking them, then"

Objectum-sexuals

jesus lttp here but the new model adopted by my bank (bos) for its charges is even more disgusting, but I guess lawful, than the old one. fuck them

What is the new model? Is this a United States bank?

I want to shake Obama's hand for the new overdraft laws. No longer will I be forced to use the "service" of my bank allowing debit card transactions to go through when I don't have enough money to cover them. A service which cost $35 a pop.

Also, I don't have the "service" of their posting largest debit purchases first (instead of posting sequentially) so that they can collect maximum numbers of fees.

nah uk

prev they charged you interest on your overdraft and if you went over your overdraft limit you paid a one-off £30 fee. now you pay £1 a day for your overdraft and £5 a day if you go over your limit

Bank of America was especially evil. They charged $32 for an overdraft, plus $6 per day you stayed in the red, with a max of 10 days, I think. That was some bullshit.

Also thanking Obama for the new credit card laws. No more uncertainty re payment due dates and no more charges for paying online or by phone (which were necessary when my due date made it impossible to get a check to them in time).

no maximum of 10 days for that sustained overdraft fee

i hate fucking banks

Um, shouldn't that more properly be "i fucking hate banks"?

― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, January 26, 2006 4:59 PM (4 years ago)

no. i hate having sex with piggy banks.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, January 26, 2006 4:59 PM (4 years ago)

such a poor substitute for actual pigs.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, January 26, 2006 5:00 PM

^^^this is perfect

citibank is now charging money every month if you don't maintain an account balance of at least $1,500. fuck these guys.

hey did you guys hear about this latvian neo hacker dude?

protip: if you're on the east coast, try out TD Bank which used to be Commerce Bank, their shtick is that they don't charge any unreasonable fees

The only downside to the new credit card laws is that some of them are supposedly going to start charging a monthly fee for non-use.

newfangled random call-centre wrongness designed to break down communication rather than enhance it in any way

am increasingly convinced that my bank, as well as AT&T, has a very elaborate system in place designed to just get you to give up even the most pedestrian and easily-resolved complaints. multiple disconnects w/o callbacks, unannounced transfers to pay-per-minute troubleshooting third-party services, notes placed in your "customer account" that go missing, promised rebates that don't materialize, five or six transfers between different departments during a single service call. kafka would be impressed.

fuck a giant corporation. i have a chase credit card but my actual bank accounts are both with smaller, local banks and i have had absolutely no problems whatsoever.

wells fargo. fuck a boa.

citibank is now charging money every month if you don't maintain an account balance of at least $1,500. fuck these guys.

I read somewhere banks are stepping up the obscene charges. What's up with Wells Fargo? I've been fucked by them before with BS fees and won't hesitate to switch to a credit union if they're adopting something similar.

I'm lucky because my Chase checking account is a former WaMu 100% free checking account from before the merger. It seems like Chase is required to abide by the no-fees rule. They are running a $100 promo for opening a second checking account with them, an account that does incur fees if you don't get direct deposit. I wonder if this is to get people weened off old WaMu accounts since these sorts of promos, which were everywhere a couple years ago, are now very rare.

I was cleaning out my files and I found an statement from a WaMu savings account that I closed in 2007. I couldn't believe my eyes. 7% APR on a plain old savings account.

I miss Fleet.

I'm dropping BofA this month for a local credit union, since I've found a few that can do business accounts in addition to personal ones. I had a very small overdraft on my BofA biz acct due to me forgetting about an automatic deduction - I had no problem with them charging me the $35 for that. But to inform me of it, they mailed me a postcard, 2 days after the overdraft, telling me I had 5 days to cover it or they would charge me an additional "extended overdraft fee" of $35. I got the postcard 3 days after they had already charged the 2nd fee. Now, if I could access my biz acct on-line, as I do with my personal accts, I would have seen what was up and taken care of it. As it is, 3 different "personal bankers" have utterly failed to figure out how to get me on-line access to my biz acct and have been unable to sort out how to link another acct for overdraft coverage. The last straw was when the "customer service agent" on the phone told me it was my own fault, of course they wouldn't rescind the second fee. So, good-bye BofA you fucking bank you.

BoA really is the devil - so glad to have closed my account there

Congratulations. BoA is the worst of the worst. They make Chase look like a charity.

k i hate banks as much as everyone else, in fact i wrote a real sarcastic note to Citi a few weeks ago....but speaking as a former call center calltaker, if you told someone you hoped they died and got off with just being banned from calling them, you got off easy.

if anybody ever told me they hoped I died, I'd copy down their address, drive to their house, dismember their entire body, swallow their motherfucking soul, and then send footage of it to TMZ. Please belie' dat.

I had no problem with them charging me the $35 for that. But to inform me of it, they mailed me a postcard, 2 days after the overdraft, telling me I had 5 days to cover it or they would charge me an additional "extended overdraft fee" of $35

there was a good exposé of these practices on frontline recently. basically by not categorizing overdrafts as "loans," the banks are free to hand their customers any kinds of ridiculous fees/"service charges" without revealing their policies in any detail. interviews with some us senators and congressmen who wanted to reform this aspect of banking.

the basic idea behind their policies, as your experience suggests, is to charge folks multiple times for the privilege of "permitting" overdrafts. and they charge you in such a way as when you finally realize what's been happening it's too late.

suntrust did that to me quite often. it's sorta like I found out so late about the first one that of course it got presented again and I got dinged again.

everybody who's not a descendent of JP Morgan or doesn't have a deluxe home in the Hamptons is scheduled to be raped on a daily basis by financial institutions, so bend over and inhale....:(

Every time I think bad thoughts about my UK bank (and I do) I just need to read this thread and realise how much worse American banks are

I gotta go into a branch today and convince them I am who I am, though, so if that goes badly maybe I'll be back on here

i hate chase and would take all my money out of the bank and put it in a nice credit union somewhere but they give me miles, sweet, sweet miles

f anybody ever told me they hoped I died, I'd copy down their address, drive to their house, dismember their entire body, swallow their motherfucking soul, and then send footage of it to TMZ. Please belie' dat.

― Ballistic, Thursday, March 4, 2010 12:32 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

my new favorite poster

i've gotta learn not to post after drinking...

Ballistic is a sock, right?

no

Jaq, it might be worth pointing out to the bank that when time-sensitive charges are placed on an account it is on the bank to notify the account holder in the most timely fashion. A postal notification is just not good enough if you have empowered them to contact you via email. Feel free to point out that repeated requests to fix the problem have gone unmet, that admin charges are difficult to justify when an institution is indulging in avoidable maladministration and simply refuse any subsequent charges relating to the matter until a dedicated customer service rep contacts you to resolve it. Send a registered letter and if you haven't heard from them in 5 working days, contact the bank's press office.

In 2008 I overdrew my Wachovia account and didn't find out about it until a week later, when I received my first notice by postcard, even though there is a branch half a mile down the street. By the time I got that notice, of course, it had been a week so it had overdrafted enough times (on a handful of sub-$5 charges) I was already in the red $300.

I can't help not reading this thread title in a lewd way

suzy, I'd go that route if I were planning on staying with them as a bank, but there are too many other issues where it's been made clear that "this is our policy" and they are not customer service oriented enough to care about the practical impact on actual people. For instance, every month I write my landlord a check and when he deposits it (at a different bank in another state), BofA places a hold on my account for double the amount of the check. They also phone me to verify that I wrote the check and that the amount is correct. Every month for a year, I contacted various levels of customer service about this, asking that a note be put on my account - the landlord's name and the amount are always the same - but "this is our policy" and I gave up 6 months ago and started sending him cashier's checks instead (at $7 each - $4 at the credit union btw). My list of grievances is long and for my equanimity, I just need to make the switch to a smaller, local institution.

Oh yeah, this is important if you use Wachovia/Wells Fargo. During the time I was getting hit with overdraft fees w/o knowing, I was also getting hit with a fee for not having $500 in my account. And of course that counts as a charge so I got an overdraft fee on top of that fee as well.

This was weird because when I started the account I started it as a free account. Then I realized that when my checkcard was stolen and I had them cancel the account & restart it, they signed me up for a non-free account without telling me. Eventually I discovered all this at a bank branch when dealing with my fees and asked them what the charge was for switching to a free account. "Nothing". Okay, are there any other differences? "No".

The only reason the fee-incurring account exists is to screw over people that don't constantly question everything. Working with banks is like walking down the street with people constantly trying to pickpocket you and you have to smack their hands away and be paranoid about it if you don't want to lose money.

there was a good exposé of these practices on frontline recently. basically by not categorizing overdrafts as "loans," the banks are free to hand their customers any kinds of ridiculous fees/"service charges" without revealing their policies in any detail. interviews with some us senators and congressmen who wanted to reform this aspect of banking.

― by another name (amateurist), Thursday, March 4, 2010 7:02 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark

lots of good research here (full disclosure: i wrote five or six of the papers between 05-08) check em out!

I really, really miss UK banks. I never thought I'd say that.
I wanted to print out a statement from my US Wells Fargo account, so, not wanting to bother the bank staff I just went to the ATM, which told me it "might charge" me a dollar or so for the privelege.

So I just went in the branch and got them to print it out for me on a proper printer. Oh and they said "might charge" did mean "will charge". Wtf.

Every time I think bad thoughts about my UK bank (and I do) I just need to read this thread and realise how much worse American banks are

I gotta go into a branch today and convince them I am who I am, though, so if that goes badly maybe I'll be back on here

― falling while carrying an owl (a passing spacecadet), Thursday, March 4, 2010 12:53 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

truth bomb. american banks are super cunty, by this thread's account

Last year, my bf's bank was offering him credit cards galore based on his salary & the amounts of money going in and out of his account; now they won't give him anything except a secured credit account b/c his credit history is all in Europe.

He didn't get one when he COULD have, and now we can't move without one. Fuck the entire cunting credit system that requires you to play a game that fucks you over just to be allowed to exist in the eyes of all financial institutions.

Slightly related: I bought a new car in 2000 when I had stellar credit. The salesman assured me that I could get 0% Honda Credit and pay less than $200/month. That wasn't correct, but they found a finance company that would work with me. I signed the papers and gave them my trade-in.

Three days later, they called me and there was a problem and the finance company reneged based on "additional information." Even so, I was still at around $200/month.

I wound up paying over $425/month, which in those days, in North Carolina, for a student was basically a direct road to bankruptcy.

american banks are cunty presumably because there aren't enough legislated consumer protections.

Last year, my bf's bank was offering him credit cards galore based on his salary & the amounts of money going in and out of his account; now they won't give him anything except a secured credit account b/c his credit history is all in Europe.

He didn't get one when he COULD have, and now we can't move without one. Fuck the entire cunting credit system that requires you to play a game that fucks you over just to be allowed to exist in the eyes of all financial institutions.

― The other side of genetic power today (Laurel), Thursday, March 4, 2010 8:37 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark

same thing happened to me, laurel. even though i had a direct depost and good banking relationship with BofA for like six years, they would only give me a secured credit card. i thought i was being wise by waiting till i graduated college and had a job to get a credit card. companies will give any college student a credit card, because they hedge on the student accumulating lots of fee-income and being a low-risk for default, as theyre presumed to still be tied to their parents' purse-strings. after college, with no guaranteed payback, and a lesser chance of wanton card-use, there's less incentive for the bank to extend credit. so fucked up.

I still don't have any credit cards -- when a woman at Citibank heard me say that a couple of weeks ago, she assumed I was foreign and asked how long I'd "been here". Because clearly no self-respecting American woman wouldn't have any open lines of credit. I MEAN HOW WILL SHE EVER BUY SHOES

in fairness, with the cost of shoes these days you can see how she'd make that assumption

Jeez, I've never had any problems with my bank (TD) but all's I do is get my paycheck deposited and spend it with a debit card. Sometimes I put some in an Ally savings account I have. But that's pretty much it.

They're also really good with replacing debit cards I've lost

Trying to GIS something humorous for "fucking banks" was NAGL. I was previously unaware of a porn star named Briana Banks, but now I think I've seen a good sampling of her talents.

word Stevie D - all PA/DE/NJ people should switch to TD.

my friend uses ING Direct, and he says they're pretty decent w/r/t customer service and not fucking you over.

yeah, when i left BofA, i got an ING checking/savings account.

bank of america has stolen so much money from me from overdrafting

I'm unnaturally in love w. ING. I suspect it's all the orange balls everywhere.

Capitol One is offering a one-time payout of $200 CASH TO YOUR ACCOUNT and 4000 air miles for opening a checking acct with them and utilizing direct deposit. The checking account is no-fee and no-minimum-balance. There are also air miles & rewards for every credit or debit purchase, and for using checks and making cash withdrawals.

Basically it sounds like an amazing deal with no downside. WHAT AM I MISSING?? Someone tell me if I shouldn't switch to CapOne basically immediately. NB: I already have a small line of credit w them so maybe that's why I got this offer??

Also I would take pretty much any good opportunity to get away from BoA, whom I use now and have for over 12 years (when they were Fleet, RIP).

There has to be a catch. Read the contract/tiny letters very attentively - maybe your rates will go up astronomically the millisecond you pay one of their bills too late, maybe it's a mandatory 10-year contract (with only the first year at an attractive rate), etc

Even more likely: your credit limit goes up automatically every so often until it's suddenly a Premium account, which costs $$$/month.

Hahah my payments on my line of credit are kind of delinquent right now so I doubt that! But I've been sort of looking for an alternate to BoA and hadn't quite made up my mind to switch to an internet-only bank yet...maybe CapOne is the happy medium?

wife applied for a cap one credit card before going to europe, as their conversion fees were lower than that of other cards. a few days later cap one *called her brother* -- whose name had obviously not been supplied on the application -- asking background questions.

maybe that was an aberration, but . . .

i would highly recommend usaa if you have an in.

I had a capital one credit card, it sucked a caribou's ass. HOwever I think we had a thread on this and couldn't come up with any options that didn't. (That said PNC gives me the stress free experience that neither Citi nor RBS could)

I just got a capital one card to use overseas. no experience with their banks.

I use TD Bank (formerly Commerce) since they seem to have good customer service and good conditions for their checking accounts (i.e. very low minimum balance, no fees, etc). I've also heard good things about ING Direct checking accounts.

ING direct's electric orange acct is great, but requires a credit check, since their (good and universally-underwritten to account-holders) overdraft coverage is a line-of-credit.

just walked over to the bank to get some fees they charged me for not proving that i was a full-time student before semester started removed, they initially refused but i got into a p heated argument with the manager whom i accused of exploitation ([bank] made 1.5B$ profits last year, u really need to snake someone with under $1200 to his name??) then i threatened to cancel my account and she tried to bluff for like a second but then folded & with one click of a button dropped the fees. feeling a mix of feelings right now: proud to have fought & won against an evil & unjust institution, embarassed to have had an argument in a public place, and surprise at the arrogance of the people who represent this institution. i guess i kind of expected them to be super apologetic & corporate-nice about it, but i was greeted pretty viciously

left my passport in the bank, my local bank, when i was opening a business account with them, and they didn't even phone me to tell me. i noticed it gone last night and called in this morning as i'm flying tomorrow.

which leads me to... what is the fucking point of banks? like if they can't even do the most basic piece of service for a customer with two accounts? like literally they are a vault you put your money in.

faaabulous job, Eric Holder

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/too-big-jail-hsbc-escaped-money-laundering-charges-because-market-meltdown-fears-1570150

lmao. finally get the first of my two IRS checks that I've been waiting for five months, decide to deposit it with the bank I have that didn't recently sue me, and they decide to put an extended five day hold on a check from the US Treasury because of "inconsistent information" on the check (their words).

money is a racket. keep your money in your pillowcase or your butt