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Walmart's effort to get customers to build up their savings accounts

theatlantic.com

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Re: Walmart's effort to get customers to build up their savings accounts

#121

Post by peteretep »

panzer_wyrm wrote: post #106

Slighlty offtopic - but why are not debit cards popular in US. A card in which you put money and withdraw/pay untill they ran out. No overdraft/credit/direct debit bullshit to be concerned with. They are perfect solutions for the poor and underbanked... whatever that means. Small fees, small charges, impossible to rack gazzilion dollars in penalty fees.

    > No overdraft/credit/direct debit bullshit
    > to be concerned with
I admire your faith in the altruism of banks, but my UK bank used to happily let me go overdrawn using my debit card, and then hit me with an unarranged overdraft fee.

Re: Walmart's effort to get customers to build up their savings accounts

#122

Post by stephen_g »

panzer_wyrm wrote: post #106

Slighlty offtopic - but why are not debit cards popular in US. A card in which you put money and withdraw/pay untill they ran out. No overdraft/credit/direct debit bullshit to be concerned with. They are perfect solutions for the poor and underbanked... whatever that means. Small fees, small charges, impossible to rack gazzilion dollars in penalty fees.

The whole idea of being 'unbanked' or 'underbanked' is so foreign to me (as an Australian). The whole state of banking just seems so antiquated in the US...

I'm 26, and I've never written a cheque. Public schools over here have (or at least had, not sure how it works today) programs where every student would get a bank account in the first grade with no fees (until they finished study). You'd actually bring in your bank book and deposit money (you did have to visit the branch to withdraw with a parent to sign for it). Once you reached 13 years, you could get a debit card (this was 2003 for me), and then I got Internet banking when it started getting popular in 2006 (I was in the 10th grade). Internet transfers have pretty much always been free and are usually overnight (or immediate if it's to another account at the same bank).

By the time I graduated University, and would have had to start paying fees, the state of bank competition meant that it was pretty rare for any personal banking to charge fees. I now have three personal transaction ('checking') accounts and two savings accounts across two different banks, and none of them charge fees (My company account is the exception, at $10 a month).

Pretty much everybody here has bank accounts, so cheques are pretty much unheard of (mostly used by people over 60), everybody is paid into bank accounts, you pay taxes and bills electronically, etc... Surely it's similar in Europe? The US just seems like a different world.

Re: Walmart's effort to get customers to build up their savings accounts

#123

Post by Pseudosudowoodo »

ryanhuff wrote: post #104
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try opening a CU account without credit.

No credit, or bad credit?

I can confirm at least for my union, they had no issue with my very bad credit. They were more concerned with recent debts and rent, things like that.

Background: For the record, it was due to defaulting on a student loan. It's taken care of now, but back then I couldn't afford the 10% interest rate.

Re: Walmart's effort to get customers to build up their savings accounts

#124

Post by adrr »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #102
nxc18 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skip the bank. Credit Unions are where its at: nation-wide shared branches, fee-free checking, sane overdraft policies, no minimum balances, reasonable interest payments, and in my experience, not a single instance of them blatantly trying to screw customers. I just checked and my CU has a $30 overdraft fee, which can be disabled if you're willing to let things bounce.

Try opening a CU account without credit.

Most small and medium size banks don't pull your credit report. Its Chex Systems to see if you have any deposit accounts in bad standing. Some also pull fraud scores from experian or equifax as well to see if you information has been used in identity theft recently.

Re: Walmart's effort to get customers to build up their savings accounts

#125

Post by ErrantX »

bpodgursky wrote: post #36
asafira wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "It is $5/mo for accounts with less than $1000, but you're not going to get better than that at a bank."? Aren't there lots of banks that charge nothing even if you only have <$1000?

There aren't many anymore. Banks mostly eliminated or heavily restricted free checking accounts when overdraft fees got capped. You may be able to find a couple credit unions that do this, but you still have minimum account balances and other hurdles that make it difficult to open an account if you have bad credit and little money (not to mention time or financial savvy).

> There aren't many any more...

...in the US.

In the UK its the opposite; the majority of checking accounts are free, some premium accounts charge a fee but generally come with rewards.

Overdrafts; there are fees for unarranged overdrafts, but its reasonably trivial to arrange a limit and this is generally fee-less (naturally you pay interest; mine is 1.2% calculated daily)

ATMs are largely free regardless of who your bank is.

Re: Walmart's effort to get customers to build up their savings accounts

#127

Post by r00fus »

bpodgursky wrote: post #24
fefesafaea wrote: post #13

Kind of fucked up that the article doesn't mention the fees associated with these cards until like 3/4 of the way into the article. These cards charge 5 bucks a month, plus like 3 dollars to deposit cash, 3 dollars to withdraw cash, in addition to the 5-10 dollars up front for the card itself. Because of this, a person using this type of card can easily spend $100+ a year on fees. Not exactly a great way to save mone…

Just read the article. It's $1 for the card and free cash withdrawal at a Wal-Mart banking center. It is $5/mo for accounts with less than $1000, but you're not going to get better than that at a bank. More importantly, they aren't pulling the overdraft scams that banks are. The example right here is that the customer in question pulled $100 in overdraft fees over a $4 purchase, with a traditional bank card.

Technically true, many banks charge a monthly fee, but most/all credit unions do not.

What's the benefit of personal banking through an actual bank over a credit union? I see none currently except it's a bit more difficult to send/receive money internationally through mine (I'm fairly sure it isn't all CU's that have this issue).

Re: Walmart's effort to get customers to build up their savings accounts

#128

Post by shawn-butler »

snuxoll wrote: post #47
ricardonunez wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of banks got rid of their free or low cost checking accounts. Hard to find anything less than $12 per month when the balance is below $1500.

I wouldn't say it's hard, Wells Fargo has free checking for anyone with over $500/mo in direct deposits or makes 10+ debit card transactions per month. Even someone making part-time minimum wage can probably make the debit card requirements without an issue. Every credit union in my area offers free draft accounts as well, just put the $25-100 member balance into savings and you're done.

You can't be seriously recommending Wells Fargo to any consumer are you?

They have proven to be a criminally fraudulent organization time and time again.

Re: Walmart's effort to get customers to build up their savings accounts

#129

Post by SyneRyder »

stephen_g wrote: post #122
panzer_wyrm wrote: post #106

Slighlty offtopic - but why are not debit cards popular in US. A card in which you put money and withdraw/pay untill they ran out. No overdraft/credit/direct debit bullshit to be concerned with. They are perfect solutions for the poor and underbanked... whatever that means. Small fees, small charges, impossible to rack gazzilion dollars in penalty fees.

The whole idea of being 'unbanked' or 'underbanked' is so foreign to me (as an Australian). The whole state of banking just seems so antiquated in the US... I'm 26, and I've never written a cheque. Public schools over here have (or at least had, not sure how it works today) programs where every student would get a bank account in the first grade with no fees (until they finished study). You'd actually bring in your b…

> Public schools over here have... programs where every student would get a bank account in the first grade with no fees

I think those are actually promotional programs run by the banks (but I agree they're a good thing). I'm 10 years older, but we were all given Commonwealth Bank Dollarmites accounts. There's more info on the Dollarmites program here, apparently schools get affiliate fees & commissions for every deposit the children make ($5 for every account opened, 5% commission on every deposit):

https://www.commbank.com.au/personal/kids/school-banking.htm...

> the state of bank competition meant that it was pretty rare for any personal banking to charge fees

That might have changed, last time I checked the major Australian banks all (except NAB) charged a $5 monthly fee, unless you agreed to setup an automatic monthly deposit of at least $2000. You used to be able to get fee-free accounts so long as you maintained a minimum balance level.

Re: Walmart's effort to get customers to build up their savings accounts

#130

Post by flukus »

SyneRyder wrote: post #129
stephen_g wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole idea of being 'unbanked' or 'underbanked' is so foreign to me (as an Australian). The whole state of banking just seems so antiquated in the US... I'm 26, and I've never written a cheque. Public schools over here have (or at least had, not sure how it works today) programs where every student would get a bank account in the first grade with no fees (until they finished study). You'd actually bring in your b…

> Public schools over here have... programs where every student would get a bank account in the first grade with no fees I think those are actually promotional programs run by the banks (but I agree they're a good thing). I'm 10 years older, but we were all given Commonwealth Bank Dollarmites accounts. There's more info on the Dollarmites program here, apparently schools get affiliate fees & commissions for every dep…

> I think those are actually promotional programs run by the banks (but I agree they're a good thing)

Commonwealth bank was government owned at the time.

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