On the up side there have been some recent changes that have reduced some of the bullshit banks can do to fuck people over. It's still far from great though.
Senj: if you do need to get an American bank account, go with a local credit union. They're much nicer to deal with.
The big national banks like Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, Comerica, etc. are poison.
for convenience at the moment I am opening a account in the US with the american subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Canada
Suggestion: for any transaction over $100, use a credit card instead of a debit card. Keep a small ($500-ish) buffer in your checking account at all times.
Here's what Washington Mutual would do to me all the time when I was doing a lot of consulting and didn't have a full-time job:
Monday: Check balance: $100. Deposit personal check from client, $200.
Tuesday: Check balance online. $100. Client check hasn't come through yet. I buy dinner for $20 and gas for $50.
Wednesday: Check balance online. $100. No transactions from the last three days have been posted yet. Buy dinner for $20.
Thursday: Check balance online. $300. Deposit from Monday has been posted, but no withdrawals have been posted yet. I buy groceries totaling $190.
Friday: Check balance online. Negative one hundred dollars. The deposit that was posted on Thursday is now listed as being posted on Friday despite showing up the day before. All withdrawals are posted in the following order: $190, $50, $20, $20, and all are posted with Thursday's date. Overdraft fees on all four transactions.
I don't see how that was remotely possible without human intervention.
BTW, Washington Mutual is now Chase. I'm firing them, finally, after all these years. I just got my debit card from my local credit union today.
What the fuck.
Yeah, my plan is to use credit to cover big things and then pay it down after returning home.
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SarksusATTACK AND DETHRONE GODRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
I like my credit union, they're much faster than Bank of America.
The fundamental American malaise seems to be that a large section of the population has taken it as tautology that they are the best at everything instead of actually looking at what the rest of the world is doing and then striving to be better.
America's problem is just that all these foreigners keep coveting their freedoms. There aren't enough to go round!
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Here's what Washington Mutual would do to me all the time when I was doing a lot of consulting and didn't have a full-time job:
Monday: Check balance: $100. Deposit personal check from client, $200.
Tuesday: Check balance online. $100. Client check hasn't come through yet. I buy dinner for $20 and gas for $50.
Wednesday: Check balance online. $100. No transactions from the last three days have been posted yet. Buy dinner for $20.
Thursday: Check balance online. $300. Deposit from Monday has been posted, but no withdrawals have been posted yet. I buy groceries totaling $190.
Friday: Check balance online. Negative one hundred dollars. The deposit that was posted on Thursday is now listed as being posted on Friday despite showing up the day before. All withdrawals are posted in the following order: $190, $50, $20, $20, and all are posted with Thursday's date. Overdraft fees on all four transactions.
I don't see how that was remotely possible without human intervention.
Wow.
Honk on
PSN: Honkalot
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SarksusATTACK AND DETHRONE GODRegistered Userregular
(Vernon Hill founded Commerce Bancorp, he's apparently now opening Metro Bank branches in the UK)
Most of the things he's "eliminating" aren't actually problems with High street banks in the UK. At least, they aren't with mine, with the exception of the Sunday opening. Having said that, I haven't had to actually enter a bank branch since I had to do a fund transfer to buy my house.
Yeah, that hasn't happened to me recently because I'm not broke any more, thank god.
I mean, I haven't been charged overdraft fees. The holds they place on transactions and the order in which they process them and the dates they show up on my account are still, as you say, some quantum mechanics bullshit. It's just now I bank on the macro level rather than the micro level. :P
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Here's what Washington Mutual would do to me all the time when I was doing a lot of consulting and didn't have a full-time job:
Monday: Check balance: $100. Deposit personal check from client, $200.
Tuesday: Check balance online. $100. Client check hasn't come through yet. I buy dinner for $20 and gas for $50.
Wednesday: Check balance online. $100. No transactions from the last three days have been posted yet. Buy dinner for $20.
Thursday: Check balance online. $300. Deposit from Monday has been posted, but no withdrawals have been posted yet. I buy groceries totaling $190.
Friday: Check balance online. Negative one hundred dollars. The deposit that was posted on Thursday is now listed as being posted on Friday despite showing up the day before. All withdrawals are posted in the following order: $190, $50, $20, $20, and all are posted with Thursday's date. Overdraft fees on all four transactions.
I don't see how that was remotely possible without human intervention.
Wow.
yeah. it's why an important skill is balancing ones checkbook.
Here's what Washington Mutual would do to me all the time when I was doing a lot of consulting and didn't have a full-time job:
Monday: Check balance: $100. Deposit personal check from client, $200.
Tuesday: Check balance online. $100. Client check hasn't come through yet. I buy dinner for $20 and gas for $50.
Wednesday: Check balance online. $100. No transactions from the last three days have been posted yet. Buy dinner for $20.
Thursday: Check balance online. $300. Deposit from Monday has been posted, but no withdrawals have been posted yet. I buy groceries totaling $190.
Friday: Check balance online. Negative one hundred dollars. The deposit that was posted on Thursday is now listed as being posted on Friday despite showing up the day before. All withdrawals are posted in the following order: $190, $50, $20, $20, and all are posted with Thursday's date. Overdraft fees on all four transactions.
I don't see how that was remotely possible without human intervention.
Wow.
yeah. it's why an important skill is balancing ones checkbook.
At no time was my checking account ever actually negative in the above example.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
edited May 2010
Hrm, that's odd. Chase posts both Debit and Credit transactions with in a few minutes for me.
Hrm, that's odd. Chase posts both Debit and Credit transactions with in a few minutes for me.
For me they now generally post within 24 hours. Sometimes longer. But they show as "pending" and the date they actually end up hitting my account can vary between 1-3 days.
I just keep a few extra hundred dollars in my checking account at all times.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Navy Federal Credit Union is fantastic. Massive too. I'm waiting for them to change the latest metric on who can be a customer to "Anyone whose name contains a vowel."
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Here's what Washington Mutual would do to me all the time when I was doing a lot of consulting and didn't have a full-time job:
Monday: Check balance: $100. Deposit personal check from client, $200.
Tuesday: Check balance online. $100. Client check hasn't come through yet. I buy dinner for $20 and gas for $50.
Wednesday: Check balance online. $100. No transactions from the last three days have been posted yet. Buy dinner for $20.
Thursday: Check balance online. $300. Deposit from Monday has been posted, but no withdrawals have been posted yet. I buy groceries totaling $190.
Friday: Check balance online. Negative one hundred dollars. The deposit that was posted on Thursday is now listed as being posted on Friday despite showing up the day before. All withdrawals are posted in the following order: $190, $50, $20, $20, and all are posted with Thursday's date. Overdraft fees on all four transactions.
I don't see how that was remotely possible without human intervention.
Wow.
yeah. it's why an important skill is balancing ones checkbook.
That's like saying an important skill is re-shoeing a horse.
Here it would be
Wednesday: $100 in account. Use debit card to buy dinner for $20. The same millisecond the debit terminal reports the charge as authorized, my bank account has $80 in it.
My cousin was in the US for a while and told me that ATMs have crazy withdrawal fees.
She made some random 20 dollar withdrawals a couple of times a week... and then saw the withdrawal fees.
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SarksusATTACK AND DETHRONE GODRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
I very rarely use checks. In fact I lost them because I never use them and I had to buy checks where you write in your account information. They were like a dollar each.
Except the printer fucked up the account number so I couldn't use them when I went to the store.
Stupid checks.
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Donkey KongPutting Nintendo out of business with AI nipsRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
I've had bullshit like that WaMu story happen.
Then I moved everything to a small credit union in my parents home town. They obviously can't fix everything wrong with the system, but they do their damnedest.
Debit transactions post immediately, as do checks running directly through them. All transactions are given a full week to resolve before any overdraft fees are calculated. Their website keeps two numbers running: their best live estimate of your funds and the actual, current, completed transaction balance.
Donkey Kong on
Thousands of hot, local singles are waiting to play at bubbulon.com.
Hrm, that's odd. Chase posts both Debit and Credit transactions with in a few minutes for me.
For me they now generally post within 24 hours. Sometimes longer. But they show as "pending" and the date they actually end up hitting my account can vary between 1-3 days.
I just keep a few extra hundred dollars in my checking account at all times.
Chase is the worst offender of these shenanigans. They are a ginormous institution and the 2nd biggest employer in New York (I believe), or at least they were when I worked there, but fuck if they don't do piddling little shit to screw with the consumer.
The cynic in me makes me think that they do this specifically because they hate dealing with consumers that basically live hand to mouth. They don't really get anything from these consumers, so they have policies and systems like this in place that are, essentially, harassment.
Drez on
Switch: SW-7690-2320-9238Steam/PSN/Xbox: Drezdar
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SarksusATTACK AND DETHRONE GODRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
My debit card transactions will be deducted almost instantly but it doesn't post to the account immediately. I don't know what would happen if I kept using it and overdrew.
Feral, are overdraft fees challengeable against some kind of fair trading act over there? I've seen people succeed in getting them reversed here on the grounds of them being manifestly excessive, among other things. Although the last one I read about was a credit card company and a late payment fee.
Hrm, that's odd. Chase posts both Debit and Credit transactions with in a few minutes for me.
For me they now generally post within 24 hours. Sometimes longer. But they show as "pending" and the date they actually end up hitting my account can vary between 1-3 days.
I just keep a few extra hundred dollars in my checking account at all times.
Mine is literally with in minutes. Like I went to the Pharmacy and checked when I got home within 10 minutes and it's been posted. I've actually been fairly pleasant surprised with Chase. Deposits show up immediately as well. The online banking has an actual and pending listing for my accounts and they don't seem to ever not be in sync.
My cousin was in the US for a while and told me that ATMs have crazy withdrawal fees.
She made some random 20 dollar withdrawals a couple of times a week... and then saw the withdrawal fees.
There are a few ATMs that have withdrawal fees here, though it's a relatively recent thing.
After the initial howls of protest, they now, by law, have to notify you that there is a fee for withdrawals as soon as you insert your card, and they have to advise you of the fee and obtain your acknowledgement before performing any transaction.
Then I moved everything to a small credit union in my parents home town. They obviously can't fix everything wrong with the system, but they do their damnedest.
Debit transactions post immediately, as do checks running directly through them. All transactions are given a full week to resolve before any overdraft fees are calculated. Their website keeps two numbers running: their best live estimate of your funds and the actual, current, completed transaction balance.
I will look into switching my banking to one of these once I stop needing cross-border teller services from a local branch
At no time was my checking account ever actually negative in the above example.
it's just a nice thing to be able to do, but yeah. banks are so quick to debit overdraft fees but when it comes to crediting your account they take their fucking sweet time.
The bad news, however, is that there are still a number of exceptions that allow banks to put a hold on part or all of the deposit, often for at least five business days. Any deposit over $5,000 is automatically suspect. If your account has been overdrawn at least six days in the last six months, then the bank can delay all deposits to your account. If your account is less than 30 days old, then your bank gets the extra time there, too (plenty of fraud happens in new accounts).
My cousin was in the US for a while and told me that ATMs have crazy withdrawal fees.
She made some random 20 dollar withdrawals a couple of times a week... and then saw the withdrawal fees.
Yep. Unless your using your bank's ATM (and sometimes even) then they charge you a fee for everything imaginable.
I'm pretty sure my bank charges you a $1 just to print out your current balance from an ATM. At least it did before they were bought out by another slightly better bank and thankfully they stopped charging me a monthly fee for the privilege of having a checking account with them.
Wasn't there a thread in D&D about that "show me your papers" type law that got passed recently? Or is going to.. or something..
I had a friend blowing my ear up about it and usually D&D has the sane outlook on things (not that this law sounds sane)
I haven't seen a thread and have been reluctant to start one because I really don't care to read a bunch of mouth-breathers talk about it being cool to hassle brown people because...something
How do you guys lose something important like a checkbook? Even if you don't use it, throw it in a folder with your finances and never touch it.
That seems like a really, really worrying thing to lose.
Well, they're all somewhere in my house, I just have no idea where.
Who even accepts cheques anyway? You can't use them in shops or anything, and any large cheque will pretty much instantly lock your account down as suspected fraud.
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
edited May 2010
Oh god...converting my Charger to AWD dropped it's 0-60 time down to ~2.7 seconds with a max top speed of 206 mph. I am now cackling like a mad scientist.
Posts
Transactions show up almost instantly and that kind of fucked up nonsense hasn't happened to my wife and I.
What the fuck.
Yeah, my plan is to use credit to cover big things and then pay it down after returning home.
America's problem is just that all these foreigners keep coveting their freedoms. There aren't enough to go round!
Wow.
I found this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/7279848/Metro-Bank-well-put-an-end-to-stupid-rules.html
(Vernon Hill founded Commerce Bancorp, he's apparently now opening Metro Bank branches in the UK)
Most of the things he's "eliminating" aren't actually problems with High street banks in the UK. At least, they aren't with mine, with the exception of the Sunday opening. Having said that, I haven't had to actually enter a bank branch since I had to do a fund transfer to buy my house.
I mean, I haven't been charged overdraft fees. The holds they place on transactions and the order in which they process them and the dates they show up on my account are still, as you say, some quantum mechanics bullshit. It's just now I bank on the macro level rather than the micro level. :P
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
At no time was my checking account ever actually negative in the above example.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
For me they now generally post within 24 hours. Sometimes longer. But they show as "pending" and the date they actually end up hitting my account can vary between 1-3 days.
I just keep a few extra hundred dollars in my checking account at all times.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I have written precisely three cheques in my life. They all required me to request a chequebook from my bank that I subsequently lost.
That's like saying an important skill is re-shoeing a horse.
Here it would be
Wednesday: $100 in account. Use debit card to buy dinner for $20. The same millisecond the debit terminal reports the charge as authorized, my bank account has $80 in it.
She made some random 20 dollar withdrawals a couple of times a week... and then saw the withdrawal fees.
Except the printer fucked up the account number so I couldn't use them when I went to the store.
Stupid checks.
Then I moved everything to a small credit union in my parents home town. They obviously can't fix everything wrong with the system, but they do their damnedest.
Debit transactions post immediately, as do checks running directly through them. All transactions are given a full week to resolve before any overdraft fees are calculated. Their website keeps two numbers running: their best live estimate of your funds and the actual, current, completed transaction balance.
Chase is the worst offender of these shenanigans. They are a ginormous institution and the 2nd biggest employer in New York (I believe), or at least they were when I worked there, but fuck if they don't do piddling little shit to screw with the consumer.
The cynic in me makes me think that they do this specifically because they hate dealing with consumers that basically live hand to mouth. They don't really get anything from these consumers, so they have policies and systems like this in place that are, essentially, harassment.
Depending on where you are it's $1.50 to $3.00 usually. Unless it's your bank then it's free.
But then most people also don't make just a bunch of 20 dollar withdrawals.
Isn't that also because you'd be using a furrin card? Because everywhere I've been one withdrawal costs between $1-$5.
I had a friend blowing my ear up about it and usually D&D has the sane outlook on things (not that this law sounds sane)
That seems like a really, really worrying thing to lose.
Mine is literally with in minutes. Like I went to the Pharmacy and checked when I got home within 10 minutes and it's been posted. I've actually been fairly pleasant surprised with Chase. Deposits show up immediately as well. The online banking has an actual and pending listing for my accounts and they don't seem to ever not be in sync.
There are a few ATMs that have withdrawal fees here, though it's a relatively recent thing.
After the initial howls of protest, they now, by law, have to notify you that there is a fee for withdrawals as soon as you insert your card, and they have to advise you of the fee and obtain your acknowledgement before performing any transaction.
I will look into switching my banking to one of these once I stop needing cross-border teller services from a local branch
Yeah, there's an Arizona law thread somewhere. It went about how you would expect.
It's just buried under a bunch of shit in my house.
it's just a nice thing to be able to do, but yeah. banks are so quick to debit overdraft fees but when it comes to crediting your account they take their fucking sweet time.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/19/your-money/19money.html
This is totally what we just ordered checks for.
Yep. Unless your using your bank's ATM (and sometimes even) then they charge you a fee for everything imaginable.
I'm pretty sure my bank charges you a $1 just to print out your current balance from an ATM. At least it did before they were bought out by another slightly better bank and thankfully they stopped charging me a monthly fee for the privilege of having a checking account with them.
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=117724&page=42
I haven't seen a thread and have been reluctant to start one because I really don't care to read a bunch of mouth-breathers talk about it being cool to hassle brown people because...something
Well, they're all somewhere in my house, I just have no idea where.
Who even accepts cheques anyway? You can't use them in shops or anything, and any large cheque will pretty much instantly lock your account down as suspected fraud.