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i got my statement , saw i am now charged 8.95 a month... cancelled it.

It happened to a friend of mine as well! He is pissed and going to move his money but it looks like most banks are now going to charge a fee to have checking with them

You either need a minimum balance or use automatic deposit of your paycheck to avoid fees at the banks I have accounts with. Considering how low interest rates are, I'm not missing out much by keeping balances in zero interest rate checking accounts vs. a money market account that makes a quarter of a percent. Ive been setting up multiple accounts trying to get access to more pennies.

Me to, had to put a chunk of money into the account to stop the possiblities of fees. Not what I wanted to do but it keeps them off my back when I come in to get pennies. Inflationhawk is right, it wasnt making much of anything in my savings account so I just look at it as my savings spread out between several banks. Good luck!

well at this point i have not worked for 10 years. no retirement , no savings left. hence no 1,500 min balance, no 300 per month direct deposit.

bad enough that another place makes me use the debit 6 times a month. another 10 transactions --dep, atm etc

cwgii wrote:well at this point i have not worked for 10 years. no retirement , no savings left. hence no 1,500 min balance, no 300 per month direct deposit.

bad enough that another place makes me use the debit 6 times a month. another 10 transactions --dep, atm etc

Pretty soon the banking rules will be as convoluted as trying to decipher the income tax code!

Good Luck!!!

Bank fees on the rise

Average fees collected by banks in 2010:

ATM transaction: $2.33

Change from 2009: +5 percent

Monthly checking account fee: $2.49

Change from 2009: +40 percent

Minimum balance to avoid checking account fees: $249.50

Change from 2009: +34 percent

Monthly fee for not maintaining minimum balance: $13.04

Change from 2009: +4 percent

Source: Bankrate.com

I have three banks. I have free checking with all three. One I have had for almost 20 years, the other two I signed up with this year.

My main bank has no minimum requirements (non-interest bearing checking account).
My two new banks accounts (one is a penny source, the other is a dump) also have no minimum requirements and both are non-interest bearing.

This is in the Western part of the country (not California).

Two accounts are with very small local banks. I am thinking of cancelling the one account with the major bank, since I really dont need it when I can pickup and dump with just the other two.

Has anyone ever withdrawn all their money through the ATM and let the account close itself?

involuntary tentacle wrote:
Has anyone ever withdrawn all their money through the ATM and let the account close itself?

I havent but Im sure they will ding you with fees and give you a negative account balance. I withdrew all my money from one bank noticed a statement in the mail saying I owed them money for recieving my final statement.

Working in the financial industry for 14 years, I have seen many people try and close their acct by either writing a check against the balance or using the ATM..

The proper way to close the acct is to close the acct.

You will avoid any and all fees they want to assess against your $0 balance.

You may also get an advertisement from them to come back with some sort of promo offer..

IMO you can avoid a lot of headaches in the future by just closing the acct.