Bank of America ends overdraft fees

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/c...kills-overdraft-fees-on-debit-cards/19391039/

The most beloved bank in the world...the one with a history of doing right by the people...has decide to not let you spend below what you have in your account using your debit card.

I never knew it was any other way. And I don`t see why they would cover a hand written check either.

If you try to use your card with lack of funds there should be a reject fee of $1.00. Same with a written check...$1.00. Same with going into the bank and asking to withdraw $$$ that you don`t have...$1.00.

It's about time!

:twothumbs:twothumbs

Now you can't spend more than you have. Wow, what a novel concept!

Badbeams3 said:

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/c...kills-overdraft-fees-on-debit-cards/19391039/
The most beloved bank in the world...the one with a history of doing right by the people...

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Funniest thing I've read today...

I'm on Citibank, but I wouldn't mind either way. I've only had overdraw protection kick in once before...accidentally funded my new stove from Ebay with checking instead of credit card, and I don't keep my money in checking because interest rate is low. Ended up getting a refund and paying again, so I guess not having overdraw protection might've saved me the hassle, as I wasn't exactly going to pass up on the 2% dividend on such a large amount. :thumbsup:

"Beloved" and "bank" definitely don't go in the same sentence.. :sick2:

I fully expect more banks to follow suit, I would, the fed can print money out of thin air yet they say a bank can't collect overdraft fess.................
PEOPLE NEED TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR AFFAIRS IF YOU AIN'T GOT IT DON'T ATTEMPT TO MAKE OTHERS COVER YOU!

At BOA, it used to be that you needed to subscribe to overdraft protection, and the credit card account became an extention of the checking account. Without overdraft subscription the chek just bounced.

It's only in the last 15 years or so that they have PAID overdrawn checks and then charged high fees as they bounced all the rest of the checks.

It's a pain if something gets screwed up and a credit card payment doesn't go through. Then it's $39 for late payment on the cc AND $30 for the overdraft on my bank account. Lose lose all around. I can usually call to get the fees reversed, but not having them in the first place would be nice...

Oh gotta love the naive. Latest I heard, this does not apply to check or credit card overdraft fees, and if you try to withdraw cash from an ATM, they will still charge the $35 fee, but you must give consent when getting the money you don't have.

Now what will this lead to? Less profits for those evil banks? Hardly.

They will simply replace the income generated by the financially irresponsible with new checking account fees just to have an account. Or to customers who attempt an overdraft with their ATM card for a purchase will have the card cancelled unless they agree to pay a maintenance fee for the privilege of having a bank card going forward. Also talk of charging a fee to process each transaction, and no more free checking. The Midas rule will always win.

I'm sure they'll try to make it up in other areas. However, if banks want to increase their profits, I can think of a couple of good ways without thinking of more ways to get fees. In the end charging fees for checking, or per transaction, will only shift customers to banks which don't charge for those things. Just judging by the sheer number of lightly patronized branches I see in super high rent places like Manhattan, I think the banks could greatly cut their expenses by just closing half of them, if not more. I also think it's funny how in the past banks made their profit solely on the spread in interest rates between what they paid to depositors and what they charged to creditors. Now they pay next to nothing to depositors, charge many creditors over 20%, yet still cry because they're not making "enough". Maybe they should look to reign in expenses. Close superfluous branches. Evaluate customers better before loaning them money. Stop offshoring customer service. Most importantly treat those who choose to bank with them as they would want to be treated, not as marks to be fleeced.

jtr1962 said:

I'm sure they'll try to make it up in other areas. However, if banks want to increase their profits, I can think of a couple of good ways without thinking of more ways to get fees. In the end charging fees for checking, or per transaction, will only shift customers to banks which don't charge for those things. Just judging by the sheer number of lightly patronized branches I see in super high rent places like Manhattan, I think the banks could greatly cut their expenses by just closing half of them, if not more. I also think it's funny how in the past banks made their profit solely on the spread in interest rates between what they paid to depositors and what they charged to creditors. Now they pay next to nothing to depositors, charge many creditors over 20%, yet still cry because they're not making "enough". Maybe they should look to reign in expenses. Close superfluous branches. Evaluate customers better before loaning them money. Stop offshoring customer service. Most importantly treat those who choose to bank with them as they would want to be treated, not as marks to be fleeced.

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Those are all good and logical suggestions. However, they fit a time when a bank was a local community leader, and had limited expenses. Moving to national/international sizes, buying out competitors, consolidating central operations results in much higher expenses and a less efficient, less customer responsive operations. More layers of bureaucracy results in additional expenses. Eliminated competition results in nimble companies becoming bulls in china shops. Superfluous branches are there as turf benchmarks, not to follow a logical profit model. Starbucks on nearly every corner was a strategy to drive out all other coffee suppliers, knowing afterwards they would need to close some once the goal achieved.

You can never expect any large company to behave as they did as a fledgling small company in the good old days. Large banks will never be "kind" to consumers, but most of the consumer problems are self imposed by irresponsible behavior--like writing checks before you know and have confirmed your actual available funds.

My new bank:

Welcome to CPF Bank & Trust, please stack bills neatly..

LOL StarHalo, I prefer silver over paper.

LuxLuthor said:

You can never expect any large company to behave as they did as a fledgling small company in the good old days. Large banks will never be "kind" to consumers, but most of the consumer problems are self imposed by irresponsible behavior--like writing checks before you know and have confirmed your actual available funds.

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"Large" is really the crux of the issues you outlined. I don't trust large anything, whether it be private institutions or public ones. I've learned that up to some point, scaling up gives certain efficiencies. Past that, the opposite occurs. Also, you get too much complexity and too little transparency. The only way to fix the problem is for large numbers of customers to switch to smaller community-based banks ( but not so many to the same bank or you're back to square one ), so that the large banks are no longer large. Yes, wishful thinking I know.

Better yet, if more people followed your simple suggestion of personal responsibility, then banks might actually return to doing mostly what they once did, namely making large loans to good prospects for large purchases such as homes, not covering frivolous purchases of consumer goods by people with questionable means of paying back the money. I can't say how many offers I've had to go into debt from my bank over the years. I feel like I have two heads when I say I really don't like living life owing out money to everyone for things I really don't need.

I heard a rumor the Fed was going to include the word "Charmin" on every new bill...just in case...always have some value

Robin24k said:

I'm on Citibank, but I wouldn't mind either way. I've only had overdraw protection kick in once before...accidentally funded my new stove from Ebay with checking instead of credit card, and I don't keep my money in checking because interest rate is low. Ended up getting a refund and paying again, so I guess not having overdraw protection might've saved me the hassle, as I wasn't exactly going to pass up on the 2% dividend on such a large amount. :thumbsup:

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citibank upset me the other day, I had to cancel a credit card that I have had for 10 years because they notified me there was going to be a $60 annual fee attached to it unless you charged $200 a month on the card. I use the card once a year for about 200 or 300 buying a big item purchase but never that much. I cannot see any reason why I should pay to have a piece of plastic in my pocket $5 a month when there are still cards with no annual fee.

Lynx_Arc said:

I cannot see any reason why I should pay to have a piece of plastic in my pocket $5 a month when there are still cards with no annual fee.

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That makes two of us. Given that I have IRAs and savings deposits of five figures with my bank, if they pull a stunt like that I'm taking my business elsewhere, all of it. Truth is once we have the electronic equivalent of cash, meaning some system of magnetic or RFID cards which can be loaded and spent just like cash without involving banks at all, I can't see that I would even need a credit card. I never use mine in the credit sense. I just use it because of a lack of any other way to make many types of online purchases ( Paypal is OK for sending money too, but unfortunately the recipient pays a fee ). It's not like I can scan my cash and email them a copy. I hope soon there will be a way I can do that. Perhaps a card reader attached to my PC which reads my "cash card", deducts the amount of my purchase, and then protocols which send and credit the recipient's cash card. Obviously it would need to be very secure and as hack proof as possible to keep people from adding to their cards themselves. Maybe in a few years.....

For what it's worth, the March 2010 issue of Money Magazine (Cover: The 20 Best Money Websites & Ones You Should Avoid) has some good information on many topics.

• www.nerdwallet.com combs through 400 credit cards to find the best for you. Lets you sort based on your FICO score, APR's, rewards, fees, etc. Wonderful site.

• www.billshrink.com is a site recommended in several categories.

• Don't use www.freecreditreport.com (Experian owned) and automatically signs you up for a $14.95/mo charge. Use www.annualcreditreport.com instead which is actually free. Get all three reports, don't order any extras, look at every entry carefully, and dispute anything incorrect. If you are married, get one for both. Amazing how 8 bad accounts from my mother-in-law got put on my wife's report (but not mine). After having them removed, her FICO went from 645 to 824 !!!!!
  

• www.pricegrabber.com for best electronics/appliance pricing. If you didn't already know that, I feel bad about the money you already have lost.

All kinds of other useful information and good/bad websites. Few more good ones:

• www.mint.com

• www.credit.com

• www.truecar.com

• www.edmunds.com (true market tool)

• www.charitynavigator.org (evaluates them)

Is there any way to get your FICO score for free, and without signing up for anything? It annoys me no end that something which is so important nowadays shouldn't be made freely available.

If I recall correctly, the only "real" free credit info is the credit report from https://www.annualcreditreport.com. The score can be gotten for free, but usually some sort of enrollment in a paid program's free trial is required to get it, and that is shady business.