Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

banksimple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 182 posts

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#121

Post by eru »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #45
steve8918 wrote: post #13

In the book "The Big Short", Michael Lewis mentions how one CEO admitted to an audience that free checking accounts were simply a way of screwing over poor people for all these additional fees, like overdraft, etc. It's really because people with less money need to spend more time managing their money because they are closer to drawing down the account, and the banks are betting on this. It's basically predatory bank…

It's true that this is predatory. It's also notable that if banks don't reach out to poor people with free checking and the like, the federal government gets on their case for being "discriminatory". This isn't to absolve any banks, but rather to mock the federal government and their chronic flailing about while trying to control the financial sector(+). It's shades of the same mindset which led to subprime mortgages…

> It's true that this is predatory. It's also notable that if banks don't reach out to poor people with free checking and the like, the federal government gets on their case for being "discriminatory".

In a sense, yes. But you should rather compare it to the good examples mentioned in Europe, which also have free accounts for poor people. I wonder what those banks do different.

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#122

Post by eru »

dkokelley wrote: post #55
ww520 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there an easy way to get into USAA for non-military people?

USAA banking is available to everyone. Some nicer services (deposit by phone, insurance) are for service members only. For what it's worth, my brother (Air Force) sold me on USAA after he signed up with them. I worked at Wells Fargo at the time, so I had the best accounts. I'm happy I made the switch. Also, their web interface and iOS apps are excellent. By far the best I've seen.

How does deposit by phone work?

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#123

Post by eru »

Retric wrote: post #78
jcampbell1 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't by default, but they can completely close an account. When they politely refuse, tell them your debit card and checks have been lost and need to be canceled. The bank is on the hook for charges to a debit card that has been reported lost, so it solves the problem of recurring charges to the debit card.

I had reported the card lost which is why it was canceled for 2 months before I closed the account. However, reoccurring charges setup before that point are transitioned into direct bank drafts and continue after that point. As to closing the account, they teller said "it's closed" what are the magic words to say after that?

> As to closing the account, they teller said "it's closed" what are the magic words to say after that?

"Could you write that down for me, sign and stamp it, please?"

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#124

Post by eru »

fletchowns wrote: post #69
ars wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need a cashiers check, you can write an ordinary check. If you have bill pay setup then you have to copy all those accounts to the new account. You have to keep track of which checks you have outstanding, and especially if you have some people who take their time to cash them you may have to wait 6 months before you can close the account.

You are just making my point more. Not only are you missing a bunch of other things that would need to be done (What about my HSA? What about all my other recurring payments not setup through the bank? What about my direct deposits?), it would take a substantial amount of time to take care of that. Why would I want to waste a day doing all that crap? I would definitely forget some things too. Yes, it's possible, but…

In the UK (and some other countries) your new bank often offers to take on all that hassle with your old bank, as an incentive to switching.

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#125

Post by ramchip »

davidw wrote: post #118
Confusion wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, the reason I doubted it is because it is very easy for anyone to open an account in a neighbouring country and profit from the better arrangements there. I know people living in Germany who haven't bothered to open a local account, because their Dutch account works just fine.

Not all of Europe is quite so 'small scale'. It'd take me a couple of hours to drive to Slovenia, and 3 for Austria.

Where I come from in Canada, people make day trips of over two hours and a half each way to go to the shopping mall... heck, my commuting was two hours each way in Montreal, every day.

But I do admit that if I were living in eg. Napoli, I wouldn't want to go to the Netherlands or wherever just to open a bank account.

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#126

Post by eru »

Tsagadai wrote: post #84
kstenerud wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why you shouldn't be using such a dangerous service when living check to check. Go to a bank machine, inquire about your current balance, and then extract cash to make your purchases with. Banks may be predatory with fees, but really it's your own responsibility to avoid this trap, and it's not even that hard to do. You can also join a credit union.

What about the banks that charge a fee for checking your balance (yes, they exist) to screw over customers like this. I have a friend who got an overdraft fee for checking his account balance once.

He should probably switch banks.

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#127

Post by eru »

gujk wrote: post #72
jeffool wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why people are downvoting you... I get what you're saying and don't completely disagree. But I think it's worth noting, because I'm not sure if I got the point across: I was intending to overdraft on the final, large fee. The insane overdraft fees only affected me in an unexpected way because they go out of their was to also screw people on the order of withdrawals.

Isn't "intending to overdraft on the big charge" analogous to "intentionally reading from freed memory because you think it hasn't been reallocated yet"? relying on undefined system behavior is dangerous.

Your bank should have public documentation about those procedures. So it's not exactly undefined.

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#128

Post by wccrawford »

eru wrote: post #122
dkokelley wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USAA banking is available to everyone. Some nicer services (deposit by phone, insurance) are for service members only. For what it's worth, my brother (Air Force) sold me on USAA after he signed up with them. I worked at Wells Fargo at the time, so I had the best accounts. I'm happy I made the switch. Also, their web interface and iOS apps are excellent. By far the best I've seen.

How does deposit by phone work?

Take a picture, send it in. (I think it requires a special app.)

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#130

Post by caw »

Confusion wrote: post #115
younata wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is precisely why I have USAA as my bank. I was originally going to get a Wells Fargo account, but that changed when I decided to go to uni in Florida - before the wachovia merger happened. My father decided that not being able to keep tabs on my account was a dealbreaker, so I ended up getting a USAA account. Worked out for the best, because USAA has some of the best customer service in the industry.

You're going to uni, but your father keeps tabs on your account? I don't know whether it's you or him, but really, you should both be able to trust you to take good financial care of yourself. It's an ability everyone needs and that you can't learn early enough.

I wouldn't say that's completely unheard of when I went to college. If he's watching it because he doesn't trust you to manage your own money that's one thing, but there are other reasons for being able to manage an account.

For instance, if the father wasn't a custodial on the account he can't deposit money in the event he needs it. My parents would have to mail me a check or pay a $25 bank transfer fee because they bank elsewhere. With student privacy laws, the father can't directly see school bills. Those have to go to the student, even if the parents are paying. My school also had a student account where you could pay for food, vending, and laundry. This is a separate account that requires replenishing, so the guys I knew would sometimes call their folks asking them to deposit some money for expenditures (freshman/sophomore year, everyone pretty much had some side income by then).

Post reply on HN