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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

#171

Post by coredog64 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #146
orf wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But withdrawing and depositing money is a service that costs the banks money to do doesn't it? It's literally their job. It's their function. Why am I reimbursing them? I'm giving them my money essentially to invest, why am I also paying them to support basic business functions on my money , with my money , while they make money using my money ? It's easy to say "hurr durr why are you paying them for a service they…

> I'm giving them my money essentially to invest But what about those people who aren't giving the bank any meaningful capital to invest? What is the bank getting in return in that case? Or are you arguing that banks should be forced to provide it as a kind of social service even if they don't earn anything? I can understand that kind of point of view.

In many countries, this limited bank runs out of the post office. TBH, that isn't a terrible idea for the US. It would shore up the USPS, which primarily makes money by delivering junk mail, and it provides lower cost banking for those who would wind up paying check cashing fees.

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

#172

Post by coredog64 »

nxc18 wrote: post #99
bpodgursky wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

CU member, and I'll mention one downside. Unless your credit union has a local branch, you will need to get used to all kinds of weird restrictions on what your satellite branch can do for you.

I just bought a car, and the satellite branch could only give me $1000 in cash. I had to beg the seller to take a cashier's check for the balance.

Sometimes the systems don't integrate well and so they have a hard time figuring out which account is which.

Finally, even though my spouse is listed as a co-owner of the account, there is very little she can do at a satellite branch (or even over the telephone to the main office).

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

#173

Post by dmurray »

stult wrote: post #159
orf wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But withdrawing and depositing money is a service that costs the banks money to do doesn't it? It's literally their job. It's their function. Why am I reimbursing them? I'm giving them my money essentially to invest, why am I also paying them to support basic business functions on my money , with my money , while they make money using my money ? It's easy to say "hurr durr why are you paying them for a service they…

Historically, retail banks made their money off of the spread between their loan interest rate and the rate they pay out on deposits. So they borrow from your deposits at 2% and loan it out at 5%, pocketing the 3% difference. Over the past 20 or 30 years, extremely low interest rates and competition with money market funds and other more complex savings vehicles have reduced depository interest to essentially nothing…

> So they borrow from your deposits at 2% and loan it out at 5%, pocketing the 3% difference. Over the past 20 or 30 years, extremely low interest rates and competition with money market funds and other more complex savings vehicles have reduced depository interest to essentially nothing, which sets a ceiling for the spread.

It sets a floor for the spread, not a ceiling. All else being equal, the bank should make more money when the amount of interest it has to pay its customers drops.

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

#174

Post by kefka »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #111
kefka wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose you're in the wrong income bracket to have considered services from them. Yes, they do charge fees at the register, regardless your link. When I went and deposited the $200 check from Wal-mart at a register, and $197 goes in... yeah. You can link URL's all you want. But 3$ disappeared in that transaction for "reasons". I know because I've used the plans that people here are talking about. Unlike the rest of…

Withdrawing cash != cashing a check. Stop accusing people of not being familiar with these products just because they aren't conflating different services the way you are.

Ah, another silver-spoon apologist who has never seen or used these plans.

No shit the act of depositing and withdrawing are different. But they still get their $3 cut for each of these. How about you go spend 3 packets of $200 on this and report back your results instead?

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

#175

Post by moftz »

Symbiote wrote: post #157
theklub wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is the norm. Only time I've paid fees is at the ATM.

ATM fees are unusual in the UK, as the parent post said, though we use the term "cash machine". Using a cash machine is free, for the majority of cases — those in banks, supermarkets, shopping centres, railway stations and so on are run by one of the banks and are free for customers of all banks to use. It doesn't matter if the machine or customer is with/is a major bank or a small one, they're all on the same networ…

The fee isn't a huge deal the times I've needed an ATM and my bank didn't have any of theirs nearby. It's a couple bucks which isn't too bad.

Free would be nice but I can understand why banks would charge non-customers fees. If your ATM is in a very high traffic and convenient place, you are going to be servicing and refilling the machine more often which costs more money. If you can control the usage a bit by charging non-customers a fee then you can reduce service costs.

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

#176

Post by rtkwe »

orf wrote: post #140
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…

As someone from the UK I always find it astounding that Americans are used to paying money to.. withdraw or deposit their money. How did this become the norm? I find it a bit disgusting actually. The only cash machines that charge over here that I've seen are rented ones at packed events (clubs, concerts etc).

One reason I think is that a lot of the time you're not withdrawing money from your bank's ATM or one associated with any bank at all, partially because of sheer land mass, so the operator has to have some way of recooping the expenses of operating those machines. A lot of banks provide free withdraws from their own ATMs and some even just the fees for their customers like my bank.

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

#178

Post by moftz »

orf wrote: post #167
chrisseaton wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't understand this point of view. Food isn't optional, and you still have to pay for that. Why should banking be free?

You don't order food from a restaurant and have the restaurant take/withhold a portion of your meal off you to cover the cost for bringing it from the kitchen to your table.

But they do charge you more than what it costs to make the food. I know what a USDA Choice ribeye costs and it sure isn't what the steakhouse down the street charges me. You could also say that your restaurant bill is covering all the food they have to throw away at the end of the night. Not to mention tip, there's another 20% add on.

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

#179

Post by sithadmin »

bane wrote: post #61
_m8fo wrote: post #4

tricking people to save paltry sums of money meanwhile using the gains in interest to fund your company's most recent marketing campaign to trick people into buying more useless garbage they don't really need . what's wrong with this picture? in any case, i suppose this is good -- in the same way a slave owner providing food and shelter is good for the slave. you even have to pay to deposit and withdraw money.

I really hate arguments that derive from what a person "needs". Humans need amazingly little. Even when I was living below the poverty line I was bathed in the riches of my civilization, had high-speed internet, ate plentiful food, was clothed and had sheltered. I've also worked in conditions where I lived in a 1/4th of a trailer with a half-height locker and whatever I could keep in my top bunk with me -- I shared t…

Your model of human needs isn't adequate for life in anything resembling a functional society, let alone a developed society.

Defining 'human needs' as 'the minimum set of requirements not to die' isn't just laughable in that it's archaic to the point of being absurd, but it's also undermined by your narratives. Take your blinders off, and in each of your examples given here, you'll find that you were in all situations deeply dependent upon social goods (infrastructures and supply chains) that you've glossed over.

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

#180

Post by moftz »

coredog64 wrote: post #172
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.

CU member, and I'll mention one downside. Unless your credit union has a local branch, you will need to get used to all kinds of weird restrictions on what your satellite branch can do for you. I just bought a car, and the satellite branch could only give me $1000 in cash. I had to beg the seller to take a cashier's check for the balance. Sometimes the systems don't integrate well and so they have a hard time figurin…

Why don't you just close your account your CU and open up an account at the one closest to you? I have no loyalty to my bank. If I move and there's no branches around me, I'll just move to someone else that is local.
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