My oldest daughter (in her forties, so definitely old enough to know better!) and her husband overdrew their checking account. They now have an additional $66 in overdraft charges.
Why?
Because both of them were withdrawing $20 at a time from ATM's that did not service their bank.
So, maybe they use an obscure bank that doesn't have a lot of ATM's?
Nope. They bank with Bank of America.
They got lazy and just headed for the nearest ATM. Worse, they did not pay attention to the $2 "foreign ATM" fee. $2? No big deal, right? Well, not when it overdraws one's account! Not when subsequent checks bounce and incur more fees.
My poor daughter is getting no sympathy from me.
Only once in my life have I ever used a "foreign" ATM, and that was a really, really foreign one in Japan. It still made me unhappy to pay the fee. (Not to mention the additional $3 "foreign currency" fee my bank also tacked on.)
There are some minor expenses I am constitutionally unable to stomach--ATM fees being one of them. I will go out of my way to find an ATM that doesn't charge me extra or is connected to my bank.
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9 comments:
Ah, those expensive lessons--definitely teachable moments! Think they learned from it?
When you read the fine print, it sucks.. they charge that "foreign fee", then your bank charges you for using an out of network fee! It never ends. If l can't use my ATM card to pay for things (I am one of the last people who refuses to carry the debit card!), l just wait till l can go to my bank's ATM. I so resent giving even more money to the banks!
I tend to avoid the national banks (e.g. BofA, Citi, Chase) which seem to have nickel and dime fees that I find irritating. In our area, there are local banks that don't charge foreign ATM fees and some even refund fees charged by foreign ATMs.
I love my Fidelity account. I can use any ATM (even those sketchy convenience store of casino ones for free) and Fidelity will refund all of their fees.
I have accounts at 2 different credit unions. (One is in the area we will retire to and I want to be established creditwise there but it doesn't have any branches in the big city. The other is in the city and has a chequing account with no fees.)
The thing about all these credit unions is that you can use any credit union ATM (not just your own credit union ones) and there are no fees. As they say in the commercials, "You're ding free!"
I have an account at Firstib.com and they refund $6 per month of fees. Others (USAA, Fidelity, Schwab, more) will do more. When I opened my account that was a new a novel feature. I never got around to changing since I have everything all set up, and I like that little bank. But I NEVER just pull $20.
"My poor daughter is getting no sympathy from me."
I can't blame you. Sometimes, tough love is really the only way to enforce discipline - regardless of how old your kids are.
I just opened an account at a bank that does not charge ATM fees and will refund upto $10 in other banks fees.
I'm old school. I don't use ATM's so never worry about the money grubbing bank fees.
See Ya
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