211–220 of 222 posts
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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?
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If at all possible, people in this sort of situation would be much better served by joining a credit union. I was under the impression that most people using these cards were using them because: a) They distrusted banks because of a prior history of being screwed by them, or b) They were unbankable because of a ChexSystems report preventing them from being able to open a traditional bank account. Is this not the case…
Regarding point "a", credit unions are specifically not banks. They have a separate legal structure.
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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 chargi…
I assume this averages out amongst the large banks, who probably each have their fair share of convenient places. The small banks pay for their customers' convenience; presumably a very worthwhile cost for some of the new banks or Internet-only banks.
"living paycheck to paycheck is now a commonplace middle-class experience" Gaslighting. They're in the poverty class but that sounds bad to people propagandized to believe they're middle class. You're not poor, you're just a temporarily inconvenienced millionaire and you should base all your political decisions and worldview on that rather peculiar belief. They're middle class, the same way I'm upper class nobility b…
I have a very hard time believing that anybody believes this
I know we're all pretty wealthy here on HN and only a very small fraction of us like myself were ever poor (I was dirt poor in my uni years, where to park the Ferrari while I was in the luxury dorms was not a problem for me, LOL). The point I'm making is has anyone here, anyone, used this? Because I have some questions. At my employer they get a commission for signing up which comes out of the fees and my employer li…
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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.
>It is $5/mo for accounts with less than $1000, but you're not going to get better than that at a bank. That might be true of the big national banks with a branch in every town small and big alike but it's not true of the smaller local banks and credit unions. My checking account at my credit union is free as long as I maintain a balance of at least 5 dollars. It has branches in the area with decent hours, it has an…
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> 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 you…
In France they sure aren't free. Banks even charge a monthly fee for a debit card in addition to a monthly account maintenance fee. Of course banking in the France is stuck in the 1980s with many banking transactions requiring an actual visit to your specific bank branch and a consultation with your personal banker.
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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 situatio…
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…