Banksters about to shake down their customers again

The nation's biggest banks are increasing many of their fees, adding new ones, eliminating debit card rewards programs and making it harder for customers to avoid paying monthly charges for checking accounts.

On May 24, Bank of America will raise the monthly fee on its most popular checking account by a third to $12. On June 27, it will start charging customers a $35 fee if they overdraw their account by less than $10. And next year, the bank plans to replace its basic checking account with a new “essentials” account that comes with a monthly fee that cannot be avoided.

At Chase Bank, fees have increased for overdraft transfers, outgoing wire transfers and stopped payments. New customers that sign up for a basic checking account face a $12 monthly charge, double the old fee.

Experts warn consumers to expect more of these and other moves by large banks to boost revenue. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20110513/BUSINESS/305130027/Big-banks-raising-fees-adding-new-ones

Looks like it's only the larger banks will be doing this.

Go with a small local bank or Credit Union. They really treat their customers so much better than that.

The cost of each check is low; the most expensive, my rent check for $1300, costs about three dollars, and I only pay that once a month. I still have a bank account to receive checks, but I take out the cash as soon as the funds are available and pay cash everywhere. Even though I'm relatively poor, I feel richer since I have cash on hand and I see it going into and out of my own wallet. I'm more aware of my cash flow and the banks have no chance to get me for overages or late fees or ATM fees or whatever other scam they can come up with.

As for all the credit card companies that I owed money to.... try seizing that account! Good luck to you if there's ever more than 30 bucks in it!

If that's what they want, why shouldn't we oblige them? I did some 20 yrs ago.

Message to banks: I don't pay to let you use my money....ever! A bank without customers is just a piece of real estate.

Let's kill all big banks. Then we can mourn for a couple of minutes, then laugh our fucking asses off that the banksters are out of a job. OMG! Some of them might fall back into a tax bracket where they have to pay higher taxes. Oh, the pain!

I can't go on. Excuse me while I try to control my weeping.

Maybe that is the way to go?

members do not bounce checks if they go over what is in their accounts. They will takes the money out of your revolving credit if your checking account doesn't have enough.I had it happen once a couple of years ago.

They call it courtesy cash.

I have yet to use it.....

But awesome that they do it.

Funny cause chase practically forced me to go to the credit union after taking over Wamu.

Be assured that the more of your money the bank has the less fees are charged. Maintain a balance of a couple hundred dollars and expect fees on almost everything but if you have six figures in an account the fees disappear. And that also doesn't take into account the ludicrious fees on credit cards or the obscene interest charges. But the fix has long been in...the banking lobby feathers a lot of nests inside the beltway.

Now I'm earning four times the interest.

I wanted my so-called rewards.
Spent half an hour online trying to get them. No luck.
Called.
Spent another half hour on the phone.
Learned rewards had been arbitrarily cut in half.
My $150 was now $75.
Could not get cash.
Went through a list of stores where I wanted to use my rewards.
None on the list.
I ended up with $75 worth of socks and underwear from Macy's after piling up 15,000 points over several years.

What a pile of BS.
I dropped the whole thing and got a basic debit card (before they start adding a fee!)

Government regulation is the reason that the fees are going up. This isn't a political statement, it's a fact.

Last year congress passed a law that virtually eliminated overdraft fee income for banks. Consumers must opt-in now to have POS transactions paid, with a fee of course. These overdraft fees were the biggest source of income for banks, and now they must make the revenue in other ways. Basically everyone must pay now to protect a small percentage that couldn't balance their check book.

Another piece of legislation that is in the works that banks are preparing for is the Durbin Interchange Amendment. This will eliminate the revenue generated by POS transactions, and actually start costing the banks money every time you swipe your card. The idea is that the savings with be passed on to the consumer, be we all know that merchants are not going to lower prices.

These two combined have forced banks to increase fees in other areas to stay viable. The era of free banking is over as we knew it.

These two legislative items have taken billions of profits away form banks. That is why they are creating new fees.

To those that say "just go to your local credit union, it's all still free there", if it is today it won't be tomorrow, or they won't be in business any more.

Bankster Master.........really, what lies!

To say that "overdraft fees were the biggest source of income for banks" is just ridiculous. Absolutely, fucking ridiculous. Go back to FreeRepublic where they're gullible enough to believe your bullshit about government regulation as a bogeyman.