Ah, banking, the great American institution where other people make money off of your money. But banks are always finding new ways of making money. Often they make their extra cash on little extra fees that they hide in their contracts with people (because making anywhere from 3%-8% on their loans and giving somewhere between 0.3%-2% to their savings accounts doesn't make them enough (just as an example, on a typical house loan ($250,000) at a modest 5% they would make $12,500, giving back 2% to an equal savings account they'd give $5,000, netting $7,500 on that one loan!)) And when they make their extra money, they make them sound so nice. Here are my two favorites:
"Personal Attention": This one's great! Some banks charge you for actually talking to someone! Either at the bank or over the phone! It's free to use your bank's ATM, or automated phone service, but make sure you don't actually get a human! Or you are looking at a $5-$25 fee.
"Courtesy overdraft": This means if you accidentally charge more to your debit card than you have in your account, the back will cover the difference so that you can purchase the item instead of facing the embarrassment of being declined. Then the nice bank will demand the money they courteously gave you plus anywhere between $25-$40 for this "courtesy."
Bank of America hasn't been making enough extra cash on these nice sounding fees so they are offering some free services that encourage you to take advantage of them. Most notably the "courtesy overdraft."
Bank of America has introduced the "keep the change" program. Whenever you use your debit card to purchase anything, Bank of America nicely rounds the purchase up to the next dollar, takes the difference and moves it from your checking account to your savings account. So if you buy a cup of coffee for $1.10, your receipt says, "$1.10" but $2 has been removed from your checking account. $1.10 to Dunkin Donuts, and $0.90 to your savings account.
I can't tell you how long I've been waiting for my bank to start messing with my checking account so that my receipts don't match up with my actual balance! I guarantee they will have a surge of "courtesy overage" fees that by far out weigh the small amount of extra interest they'll be doling out to the savings accounts that have an extra $1.56 in them!
What will they think of next? People's creativity to lawfully take other's money will never cease to amaze me!
But that's just my opinion.
1 comment:
Aye, BoA has made almost $100 off of me in the past few months, and college students are already poor enough, thankyouverymuch!! ;) (Gee Marc, seems you hit a nerve?)
Post a Comment