Bank of America Corp., pressured by U.S. regulations limiting debit-card and overdraft fees, is set to give its retail customers a choice: do more financial transactions through the company, or pay a monthly fee.
The biggest U.S. lender by assets is introducing four new accounts where users pay fees unless they keep minimum balances, make regular deposits, use credit cards or take advantage of online services, said Joe Price, head of the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company’s consumer-banking operations.
I’m not much of a boycotter, but the one thing that I’ve done recently that I encourage all of you to do is to move your money out of a major bank. USAA, credit unions and community banks aren’t out whining and crying about their inability to make money now that a few long-cherished ways to fuck customers have been taken off the table. Perhaps that’s because, unlike BoA,, their business doesn’t depend on their ability to stick their pus-encrusted, syphilitic peni straight into the asses of the unsuspecting, ever-gullible American consumer.
My guess is that BoA is just talking smack, and that any customer a major bank wants to keep won’t see higher fees. They’re probably just trying to justify fucking over low margin (i.e., poor) customers by adding fees and other bullshit. But why wait and find out whether you’re an undesirable? Get the fuck out now.
Phyllis
USAA and my local bank all the way. Can’t beat USAA for customer service.
Tata
I left Wachovia and moved everything to my university’s credit union. Alumni, students and employees should look into credit unions at their schools – especially for mortgages and loans. Can’t beat ’em.
Wilson Heath
Chase went the same way. I’m not in danger of incurring their fees until I yank my direct deposit and redirect it to my credit union. Still can’t fully divorce them — the muppet huggers bought my mortgage.
El Cid
I use a major regional bank, and interestingly enough, they don’t do any of this unless you don’t have a minimum checking balance. They never needed bailout assistance, and during that entire post-collapse period were ranked among the most stable. So even a real, corporate, multi-state bank is capable of being run like a business instead of a pawn shop / check cashing booth by the side of the highway.
Uloborus
I’m using a local bank as well. Actually, I specifically got away from Bank of America because of their reputation as the most predatory of predatory banks, and behold – they screwed me out of 50 bucks in the process! And I mean screwed. They slapped a 10 buck fee on me (I’d never had such fees before) as I was emptying the account and preparing to close it, which took me 50 cents below 0, which meant two 25 dollar overdraft charges.
I’m less afraid of the prospect above. Thanks to the new regulations they have to tell customers about these charges up front, and people are likely to go shopping for a better deal. Faced with choices like this in getting my new account, I did.
dk
Banks have been making money by giving free accounts and making it up by charging lots on fees and interest on debt.
The result was high income people got everything for free while poorer people, who are the ones who have balances and overdrafts, paid a lot.
This is becoming harder to do so banks are being forced to charge for service provided. Now high income people are going to be more likely to have to pay something and lower income people will face lower fees.
This is a good thing.
Comrade Javamanphil
BoA spokecritter on Marketplace last night described the changes as a way to offer more choices to their customers. I hope she didn’t kiss anybody later with that shite-filled mouth.
OT: But I also heard last night that Paul Ryan plans to remove the full employment requirement from the Fed charter meaning the Fed only has to control inflation. Surprised Atrios isn’t all over this. Wonder if any reporters will notice that the GOP could care less if the middle and lower class have jobs (HAHAHAHAHAHA! I slay me.)
Michael
OT – but here’s a music video that screams for front page treatment from the powers that be.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLJf9qJHR3E
Xjmueller
I’m a BOA customer and they’ve changed my acct contitions at least three times in eight, years. I’ve been paying $20 per month for checking for a while now. Since I use the auto banking (bill pay, transfers) extensively I don’t mind the fee so much. What I don’t like is the way they change conditions and announce it in three pages of 8 pt print. I’m not surprised by this. I will not use their credit card as the interest is stupid.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
When me and the missus got out of college, we both ended up working for the Navy and joined the Navy Federal Credit Union. Largest and bestest, hell, they even financed our first home.
We have an account in a small local bank here in East Bumblefuck to make things a bit easier because of our B&B bidness.
Why anybody would bank with one of the big boys is beyond me.
WereBear
My bank is multi-state, but locally based, and seems to play fair.
We are also looking into a credit union; our first attempt went badly… and they have since experienced a financial crisis.
But I’m sure they are the exception, since I used to bank with CitiBank. If I was going to burn a Citi to the ground and sow the earth with salt, it would be them.
El Cid
Sorry, I saw this by accident: Bobo’s mad at how terrible the new health care law is and its implementation, and how soon it will face an existential threat. The answer might be vouchers.
Bobo mentions a blogger, two magazine authors, and an AEI rep. I’d like to know which Republicans — i.e., elected officials — “would say that the federal government has a role in subsidizing health insurance”.
I mean, the health insurance of people other than themselves.
Well, hopefully we’re all mature people and we’ll be able to protect the recent health care reform from its terribleness and find a good compromise point with Republicans as they attack it.
[And no, that’s the end of the article, at no point does Bobo actually explain how any of the changes he’s suggesting does anything to ‘control costs’. But that’s just because he’s one of the nation’s premier pop-sociologists.]
WereBear
I always think of credit unions and It’s a Wonderful Life.
MattF
The main piece of advice I’d give people is to diversify. If most of your retirement accounts are in FundFamily A, then your other personal investments should be with FundFamily B. If your checking/savings accounts are with Bank C, then your most-used credit card should be with Bank D. It’s fine to go with smaller and more local institutions, but the benefits that other people earn from your assets should be widely portioned out.
JRon
I assume the bad press and loss of business is considered by BoA in their calculations on whether to screw customers. I remember back in the 90s when First Union bought Core States, the line at my CS branch in Philly stretched around the corner. It was a chatty crowd and Everyone I spoke to was there to close their account. I read later that even though they lost 60% of CS accountholders, the onerous fees on the remaining accounts still made the purchase profitable for FU for several years.
I’d bet it’s still more profitable for banks to treat customers like crap.
Rommie
Bailed out of BoA a few months ago – I’m DDing to a credit union, and finally yoinked my balance out of the bank. Only took one cattle-prodding to get it done. BoA was the 4th owner of that account over the years, because of mergers.
I’m not totally happy with my CU, but there’s bunches of them around here so I can move along if I have to. Funny how that makes my CU receptive to goodwill towards its customers.
stuckinred
We bailed on BOA about 2 years ago, local bank and USAA fer us.
PeakVT
@Xjmueller: $20/mo. is ricockulous. Switch.
rageahol
I’d move to USAA (my school’s credit union really sucks), except that they have “automobile” in their name, and i am morally opposed to car use.
so for the moment it just stays in my mattress.
General Stuck
The unemployment rate fell from 9.8 % to 9.4 % in December, and 103,000 non farm new jobs were created.
AdamK
Penes.
August J. Pollak
I’ve had BoA for about two years now since moving to Atlanta and having no access to my “local” bank back in DC. And except for a screwup in the first month or so (they decided to start me with a savings account that charged a fee for having below a $10,000 balance, which they corrected after I immediately threatened to cancel my entire account) I haven’t had to pay them a dime yet.
Of course the counter is that I have to have at least $1,500 in both my savings and checking account and do an e-transfer from each one at least once a month. Oh, and despite a four-figure balance in my savings, I get about 22 cents a month in interest. I’ve made more money in the last year on eTrade and I’ve put money in Irish banks.
August J. Pollak
Adding- hardest thing I EVER had to do at BoA was try to buy a savings bond as a gift for a new parent… because honestly I think the biggest cost-cutting measure that bank is doing is reducing any access to person-to-person transactions.
cathyx
At my credit union, you can be a member simply by living in this county. I don’t understand why anyone would bank at a large for profit bank. I don’t need a minimum balance for free checking and saving, and I get free online bill pay. I can even get my change counted for free in the machine.
Wil
Back in the early-mid 90’s banks charged these fees. ATMs were new then, and they were trying to get the less-desirable customers to use them exclusively…and charging to see a teller.
Back from a trip, working my long-time job to save money for another trip, I knew I would work until I had about 5K, and then take off for unknown parts again. I had to open a bank account somewhere, deposit my paychecks into it for 6-8 months, and then leave.
There was an intersection that had a different major bank branch on each corner. One day I took a long lunch and visited each of them.
Banks tended to charge for checking accounts back then, unless you had enough money to be a ‘preferred customer’.
So I went into each branch, explained my situation, and asked the account manager, “How much is your poor-person charge?”
They’d look slightly flustered, and ask what I meant.
“Well, you charge poor people to hold their money, but people with X number of dollars don’t get charged. So you are charging people money for BEING POOR. I’m not likely to get above that amount before I leave for another trip, SO I’D LIKE TO KNOW HOW MUCH YOUR POOR-PERSON CHARGE IS.”
Then they got really flustered.
Of course, I had to eventually just accept it and pick one in the end, since they all charged about the same amount.
Cat Lady
BofA has me and mine by the short hairs. Their online banking allows all of the accounts in the family to be linked together easily which was great with kids in college and even now, with overdraft protections and easy interfacing with online bill paying. There are BofA ATMs everywhere, and the local branch has responsive and helpful staff. To pull out and open similar accounts in another financial institution requires a physical presence with everyone in the family at the same time on a work day. Na ga happen. I blame somebody.
catclub
Do a search on Kasasa Checking.
Primarily credit unions, 3.56% interest paid if you qualify – not hard.
Only limit is 3.56% is paid only UP to $25k balance
Steve
I bank with BOA and I don’t like the way they screw me all the time, but I travel a lot nationally so a local credit union is not useful. I don’t want to pay ATM fees or spend a lot of time looking for the right ATM to use.
Ekim
I refinanced my house and paid off several credit cards including one with Chase in November. I had a credit left with Chase and when they did not send it to me automatically, I wrote them and requested it on Dec. 3. They said they would send it by Jan. 6. In my January 1 statement I was charged $1.50 minimum charge for a closed account in which they owed me money! I looked up their policy and they wouldn’t have sent a refund for six months unless it was specifically requested! It is Jan. 7 and I haven’t yet received the refund by the way.
Oh and the plural of penis is penes.
dan
NEFCU – Nassau Educators Federal Credit Union. Just need to reside or even just do business in Nassau. Also work with USAA.
Steaming Pile
@Wilson Heath: So refi with your credit union. Yeah, sure, ours reserves the right to sell it, but they probably won’t…right now. If you haven’t already done it, rates are about the lowest you’ll ever see in your lifetime.
Sir Nose'D
In addition to having no fees at my credit union, they just took $4 million of their profits from 2010 and distributed as a dividend to their members. My share was $61. So I think credit unions are just like bank of america, except in the opposite sense.
gene108
Banks have been having minimum deposit requirements for ages. When I opened my first bank account 20 years ago, when I was in high school, in order to get free checking I had to maintain a few hundred dollars in a savings account.
I don’t get the outrage that banks are reshifting their fee structure because of new laws.
Free checking, with no minimum balance, is a pretty new product and was probably subsidized by the ATM and overdraft fees.
I’m not sure what people expect banks to do, with regards to trying offset lost revenues.
djork
Be warned. Some credit unions are beginning to follow BoA’s example. My credit union has recently instituted “poor person fees” as Wil astutely called them. It’s only $10 a month, but still the principle behind it galls me. Chances are the CU already makes out like bandit in overdraft charges and “negative balance charges*” from poor customers. This CU fellates itself in its advertising as being the community bank and then turns around and starts charging its poorest members to bank there. The first time my account dipped below the thereshold and I was hit with it, I sent them a nasty e-mail asking them if they were proud to be emulating BoA. I never heard back. I’m seriously looking into USAA right now.
*The negative balance charge is my favorite. In leaner times (not that they’re particularly fat now, just better), I was forced to overdraft my account a few times to eat, pay bills and other essential activitites. I was charged the overdraft fees, which are onerous, but I at least understand the principle, expected them as a consequence of overdrafting and had, in fact, budgeted them into my calculations. However, the CU began charging me $5 a day in “negative balance fees.” To add insult to injury, they sent me their standard overdraft letter, which contains language to the effect of “If you are having financial trouble, call us and we can refer to counseling, blah blah blah.” The nasty e-mail I sent in response to this said something to the effect of “I know why I overdrafted and all the counseling in the world isn’t going to get me a raise or more money. If you’d just stop sucking money from my account, that would be a hell of a lot more helpful than counseling.” Fuckers.
FlyingToaster
I cancelled my BoA credit card last friday; HerrDoktor (the spousal unit) will be cancelling his card and closing his account as soon as he gets the local bank account open.
When asked, I stuck to the “just got your reminder about the annual fee; I am cancelling ANY card with an annual fee” thing, instead of mortgage fraud and Wikileaks and etcetera.
For the time being, we’ll keep my account; I use it for cash when traveling (and the advantage of being able to get cash from an ATM in SYDNEY really can’t be beat); but I may move the money over to savings and just leave the account semi-dormant and bank with the lower bank myself.
New Yorker
I never understood why people have checking or savings accounts with BoA or Chase or Citi. They’re just going to fuck you sideways with absurd fees and balance requirements.
As far as I can tell, the only downside to being in a smaller bank without all the fees is you’ll be more likely to use an out-of-network ATM and pay a transaction fee there. That still won’t cost anywhere near what it costs to have your money with BoA.
burnspbesq
Lot of short memories around here, it seems. If you are of a certain age, you remember when fees of this type were the norm.
The more disturbing thing? The potential demise of the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/opinion/06mclean.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=bethany%20mclean&st=cse
This is silly. I want the stability and predictability associated with a fixed-rate mortgage, and I’m willing to pay a reasonable amount to have somebody else bear interest rate risk. Why should I have to take a variable-rate mortgage and synthetically convert it to fixed-rate by buying an interest-rate swap?
Jonathan
I use BOA, and I want out… I’m just waiting for Wikileaks to release their information so I can close my account on that day, and tell my branch rep what a bunch of scumbags he/she works for, and be sure she moves that up the chain.
It’s one thing to cancel your account, but it’s even more fun when they know their actions have consequences. I know 5 other people that are going to do the same thing with me.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@gene108:
New product? The wife and I got a free checking account (no savings or minimum balance) with Pacific First Federal in Spokane when we were married in 1986. They were bought out by WaMu a few years later, who continued the free checking on the same terms. Chase picked up WaMu and starting this month they are pulling the same shit that BoA is with fees.
Their only ‘new’ product is getting rid of the old product so they can charge for their ‘new’ product. One way or the other, they are going to get their hands on others money, it’s the way they work.
The daughter is moving to the local credit union and the wife and I are looking to do the same.
rikyrah
I’ve had 3 people at work tell me that they’re about to bounce from BoA.
Nellcote
I moved my savings/checking from Wells Fargo to the local credit union 5 or 6 years ago and I’m still amazed that they don’t seem to charge fees for anything. Other than a $25 min. balance on the savings account and a 650+ credit score for a Visa/atm/debit card, they just don’t ask for anything else.
parenthetical
Just an FYI – “Poor” customers are usually not low-margin ones. They rack up a lot of NSF fees and the like. Some very high net worth individuals, those who roll over their CDs and Money Markets into the highest available promo rate every few months (or who can negotiate rate exceptions because bankers erroneously assume that high balances = profitablilty) are actually very unprofitable for banks. This is aimed at the broad middle, I would think—people with enough cash to not get overdrawn, but not enough to make lots of money for the bank on margin alone (there’s really very little margin in this rate environment right now). The bank is trying to “deepen” relationships and to make it harder for *their* bank to not be the customer’s primary bank. A checking account with a $5,000 balance is one thing, but the same account that uses debit cards, online baking and bill pay, signs up for electronic statements, etc. is much more profitable because this activity either saves or actually makes the bank extra money with each transaction.
Bill H.
“credit unions and community banks aren’t out whining and crying about their inability to make money”
Oh hell yes they are; all day every day. It’s just that, since they are small banks instead of large ones, the media isn’t covering and airing their bitching. I work in a business that serves those credit unions and community banks, and I have to listen to their bitching and complaining about their losses and inability to make a profit all day long. All I hear is how their profits are in the basement, how they have to cut back on the services they are buying from me and how they are having to dream up new ways to chisel money out of their clients.
They are squeezing and browbeating their employees harder and harder every day to produce earnings, as well, to the point that an employee can be penalized for saying that a client will “earn more interest” instead of saying they will “make more money.”
catclub
@parenthetical: “(there’s really very little margin in this rate environment right now)”
I am not so sure about this. Isn’t it still the case that banks can borrow at negative interest rates from the FED window and then loan out to their customers?
Maybe not high margin, but awfully nice to make money on both sides of the transaction.
Note that I quoted something by parenthetical that is in parentheses.
artem1s
have had KeyBank for about 10-12 years now. not only no fees, i have total access to online banking (haven’t written a check in years), paperless statements, overdraft protection, interest bearing checking, and just about the lowest interest rate loans one can find. It took a couple of years of working with them to get all the perks but the only issue I ever have is the lack of ATMs in some parts of the country. but I can still get cash at out of network ATMs. They are a larger bank but behave more like a community lender.
I am about a year away from dumping my Chase and Citi cc’s completely. cannot wait for that day. It pays to Discover baby.
rumpole
Such language. Preach it.
Robert Volk
Joined the military, switched to USAA and was simply dumbfounded that a bank would actually give me money back for using another ATM. That’s about 20$ back a month I get.
Then, a couple of years ago, they started sending me this letter once a year, saying “Hey, we had a great financial year! How about we deposit 50-75$ in your checking account as a dividend because we made butloads of money this past year!” And I thought holy crap why are people still with BoA?
RalfW
Call me crazy, but I think it’s way more transparent and fair to charge a predictable low-balance fee or put up with a minimum balance, etc, than to have played the very damaging $35/whack overdraft fee game that they banksters have played for a generation.
That said, I totally agree that moving money to community banks is still the right thing to do.
TCF bank here in the Minneapolis-St Paul area is crying a river (and suing) because their debit card fees are in danger. They’ve built a business model on screwing low income people who need financial services. The taps are being turned back some, and they’ve admitted (on local public radio) that they don;t know how to make money in an honest way. Huh, maybe they should fail then!
Left Coast Tom
I left B of A for a community bank back in late 2007 as a protest against the economic shit that was, even then, obviously going to hit the fan.
Some community banks did as much (proportionately) to create the Great Shitpile as B of A, they’re the ones failing. I checked “Safe and Sound” ratings here before switching: Bankrate.Com
IrishGirl
I had my home and car insurance with USAA for years. I quit banking with Wells Fargo about two years ago and started banking with USAA and I couldn’t be happier. I highly recommend changing to anyone who already hasn’t.
Davis X. Machina
@Ekim:
It’s a third declension noun — cut from the same bolt of Latin cloth as ‘index’ and ‘vertex’ — so it has -es as a plural formant. Or ‘penises’ — it’s been a fully naturalized English citizen for a while now. But never, never ‘peni’.
I have never completely forgiven Sid Meyers’ Civilization I and II for doing the same thing to “Elvis”….and since ‘octopus’ is Greek third declension, its plurals are ‘octopuses’ or ‘octipodes’ but not ‘octopi’. My Latin dictionary doesn’t have ‘octopus’ at all….
liberty60
On this note, I am looking for a place to roll over my IRA where it is invested with more progressive-friendly institutions.
I seem to recall that there were soem, but I haven’t found them;
Anyone know of any?
djork
To clarify my ealier post, my problem with my CU starting these fees isn’t so much that they’re charging them, but that I signed up for a free account, was a member in mostly good standing for years (except for the lean times I mentioned earlier, which they still profited from) and then they just changed the rules and starting assessing fees with no warning or discussion. (Remember, its a CU, so I’m supposedly an “owner” as well as member.) I think it totally sucks to screw your poor custmers by changing the rules to assess fees on what were advertised as “free accounts.”
liberty60
@RalfW: but I think it’s way more transparent and fair to charge a predictable low-balance fee or put up with a minimum balance, etc, than to have played the very damaging $35/whack overdraft fee game that they banksters have played for a generation.
negative 1
@RalfW: OK, you’re crazy. How do minimum balance fees make any sense at all? When you deposit, you’re lending the banks money, and they’re going to charge you for not lending enough? At least with overdraft fees they can claim they’ve taken on some risk on your behalf.
I’ve worked in the central offices of two fortune 5 banks, and I can honestly tell you it’s only about “revenue maximization”. They’ll charge more because they know most people are too financially illiterate or lazy to care. It has nothing to do with any other reason.
parenthetical
@catclub: I was speaking primarily of deposit account margins. Even though interest rates are at historic lows, so are the LIBOR rates that the margins are usually pegged to. So, if you have a 12-month CD promo offer at 1.00% (which is pushing the upper limits in many places), the 12-month LIBOR is currently at just under .80%, giving a margin of just 20 basis points (banks like margins much more in the 100 basis point–or 1%–range).
Margins are always better for the banks on interest checking and better still on savings accounts (which is why big moeny folks keep their money in CDs and Money Market accounts, where the rates are more competitive). Loans are where the real money is for banks. (And the real losses.)
negative 1
@liberty60: Maybe in the 30s it took some amount of time or effort to keep a ledger account with all outstanding deposits on it. Now it doesn’t. It’s on a computer and keeping track of totals involves not touching it. I know they claim it somehow costs them to keep track of your balance, but it’s full of ****. They lay off back office staff monthly, and operational accountants pretty much only book deals for salespeople. The IT system runs reports and compiles financials, it costs the bank next to nothing.
They charge the minimum balance fees because in general those with less money in the account are less educated and more disenfranchised and less likely to put up a fight when it is done to them. They generally don’t even close the account. If your business had a $30mm loan with any bank and your personal account dipped below the threshold, they wouldn’t hesitate to waive that fee the second you picked up the phone. The irony? That would take an operational accountant and that would actually cost them in overhead.
Lurker
I opened a Bank of America account when I moved to California because I honestly didn’t know any better. I wised up after years of monthly checking account charges and lackluster interest on savings and moved my money to other financial institutions.
For brick-and-mortar institutions, I have no complaints about First Entertainment Credit Union. They offer free checking and give 7% interest on the first $500 of savings if a few easy conditions are met. The staff is good and friendly, too. Anyone living in the Los Angeles area can join.
That said, I currently keep the bulk of my savings with Alliant Credit Union, an institution that does most of its business online. They have good interest rates for savings and HSAs, and their free checking earns almost as much interest if some conditions are met. They also offer 24/7 customer service over the phone and a surcharge-free network of 80,000 ATMs.
Anyone who donates $10 to the Orphan Foundation of America can join Alliant Credit Union. If you use Alliant’s mail-in application to join, though, Alliant will pay this $10 for you if you mark a checkbox for them to do so.
Svensker
@Cat Lady:
ditto
Lurker
@liberty60
As an investment institution, Vanguard is structured to serve its clients. If you buy a Vanguard mutual fund, you become a Vanguard shareholder. Because it is in Vanguard’s interest to serve its shareholders, Vanguard’s profits get passed along to its clients/shareholders in the form of lower expense ratios and absence of fees. As an institution, I can’t recommend Vanguard highly enough.
If you are interested in social investing specifically, Vanguard has a “Vanguard FTSE Social Index Fund” (VFTSX) . It tracks the “FTSE4Good US Select Index.”
You may or may not agree with the FTSE’s criteria for “socially responsible” companies, though. Comparing it to a “regular” index fund like VTSMX, VFTSX shuns companies like Exxon Mobile and AT&T, but it includes institutions like Bank of America and McDonalds.
El Cruzado
My mortgage was bought by Countrywide which then was bought by Bank of America, which very nearly placed me in foreclosure watch despite me paying religiously every month due to them changing payment term limits under my feet with no warning whatsoever. It took a lot of screaming at the phone for them to make right.
When the time came to take advantage of last year’s low interest rates and refinance, I knew who was going to lose my business, and I knew who was going to get it. NWFCU all the way.
The NWFCU guys, BTW, sent me (and, I think, pretty much every customer) $125 for Christmas. Profit sharing they call it. I can live with that.
Suzan
One reason the credit unions are more profitable and hence charge you less is because they don’t pay taxes. Aren’t we supporting “tax cheats” by using credit unions? And wouldn’t we hate them as much if they had to charge us more to pay taxes?
Antonius
I closed a very large B of A account and moved it to a community bank. I told them I couldn’t loan my money to an organized crime syndicate any longer.
Lurker
@Suzan
This is not true. Credit unions pay taxes.
From http://www.cuna.org/gov_affairs/legislative/cu_difference.html
JRon
@August J. Pollak: SunTrust has free checking and savings accts, and branches all over atlanta. lots of my coworkers use LGFCU (Lockheed), though, and love it. They even have ATM’s in midtown and downtown. I had a low-interest car loan with them recently, and have considered switching everything over there based on that experience, but I have no major complaints with SunTrust yet.
Suzan
Lurker, I’m assuming you’re snarking here with the “credit unions do pay taxes” line but in case you are not, read on…in your link:
I’m sure they pay gasoline taxes too :)
NineInchNachos
Dump too big to fail! Print out a bunch of these, write the bank of your hatred on it, and distribute to their customers entering and leaving. Yes We Can!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/learn2draw/3256639987/
RosiesDad
We left PNC for PA State Employees Credit Union ten or twelve years ago. They’ve financed a few of our cars, a home improvement loan, all at competitive interest rates with no hidden fees or other bullshit. Wouldn’t bank anywhere else.
Lurker
@Suzan
Nope, I was serious. :) You claimed credit unions paid no taxes. I pointed out that they do pay taxes. I did read the entire page in my link, but I narrowed it down to the relevant information that contradicted your statement that credit unions paid no taxes.
I’m cool with not-for-profit credit unions being exempt from federal and most state taxes. It’s not like credit unions keep any of the profits that they make — their profits wind up in my savings account in the form of fully-taxable interest.
Suzan
@Lurker: I should have been more precise but didn’t think I needed to be. I would argue that since credit unions don’t pay as much in taxes as banks do, the difference has to be made up some other way. It is no different from saying “I shouldn’t pay taxes but I don’t want cuts to things that benefit me.”
Calouste
@Suzan:
Well yeah, businesses are mostly taxed on profits, so a non-profit credit union tends not to pay a lot of tax there. Other non-profit businesses, say like GM and Chrysler, also don’t pay a lot in tax.
gex
I don’t see what the problem is here.
The banking/credit industry changed their business model from transaction fees to late fees and penalties. People with good credit/good finances were getting services for free while poor people kept paying through the nose and falling further and further behind. All they are doing here is trying to make it so the costs of services are paid by all customers, not just the ones that they can no longer gouge.
gex
@Odie Hugh Manatee: “New” relative to finance, not “new” relative to your personal experience, I think.
gex
@RalfW: They shouldn’t spend so much money on stadia if they are hurting.
ornery curmudgeon
@Suzan:
I would argue that since credit unions don’t pay as much in taxes as banks do, the difference has to be made up some other way.
Ugh. And I could argue you sound like a paid astroturfer for ‘for-profit’ banks. Here’s a few whys:
1) You’re skipping the ‘non’ part of non-profit. Credit Unions don’t have to pay taxes because non-profits don’t make a, yes, PROFIT.
2) It’s addled thinking to call a tax-exempt organization a tax “cheat.” Cheating is when you owe the taxes and don’t pay.
3) Oddly, somehow you are missing the multi-billions having been and being stuffed into bank vaults by the Treasury. Not credit unions.
I can’t believe anyone truly paying attention would be defending commercial banking at this juncture in our history, unless making money from doing so.
Still and all, fairly good shilling … somewhat. Now respond with vitriol or ignore these facts, since that’s what a good shill would do.
NCSteve
Back when I was a student at UNC in the 80s, before Bank of America was BancAmerica or Nationsbank, it was known as North Carolina National Bank, or NCNB. UNC students had a cute name for every bank in Chapel Hill based largely on how they treated students:
First Union was, inevitably “First Onion.” Big, not overly competent, but not overly ugly to students either not a big dopey St. Bernard, but what passes for one among the members of the Banking Clan.
Wachovia was “Walkallovahya.” Tough, uncompromising, exploitive.
(Much later, First Union destroyed a long standing old brand with a single terribly ill-considered and inept ad campaign, bought much smaller Wachovia and then used the name of its purchase. At the time, I was a First Union customer and said my fear was that we were going to get a bank with First Union’s competence and Wachovia’s flinty heart. Which we did. The new, improved Wachovia then proceeded to gobble up mortgage backed securities like a binge eater at a cheap buffet, self-destructed and is now owned by Wells Fargo.)
NCNB we called “North Carolina’s Nastiest Bank.” And they were. NCNB’s attitude was, always has been, and is that anyone who has less than the amount insured by the FDIC in the bank was a contemptible nuisance, a miserable wretched peon to be treated so abusively that they’d take their pitiful little accounts elsewhere, if they could get the money out before NCNB drained it dry in “service” charges.
And they haven’t changed a damn bit. This move isn’t “talking smack.” This is just NCNB being NCNB.
Darkrose
@NCSteve: There’s a reason they’re called Bunch of Assholes.
Darkrose
@NCSteve: There’s a reason they’re called Bunch of Assholes.
Gemina13
My brother recently experienced this with Chase. He keeps an account there to handle his business checking, and they recently informed him that they were going to start charging him a monthly fee.
At first he was going to accept it. Then he visited an online stock forum and saw an ad for Chase offering free checking for new customers.
He called Chase and asked them to close his account. When the CSR asked why, he explained about the ad and said he no longer wanted to do business with them. The CSR’s answer? “Sorry to see you go.”
Brother’s response? “You’re going to be saying that to a lot more people in the future.”
His business account now resides at the same credit union as his regular checking account.