I bank with Bank of America and their overdraft fees are $35 a pop. Any suggestions...?

Question

.... on banks that DON'T steal all your hard earned money?? What are other banks overdraft fees/protection like??

Let me go ahead and clarify this to everyone who has answered with "DON'T WRITE BAD CHECKS" so far.... I DON'T purposely write bad checks. I go to the ATM after my shift, check my balance (which tells me one thing), deposit my money and spend based on what the balance had said. So basically, the ATM will leave me under the impression that I'm up on money when in reality I have xxx amount of $35 overdraft fees coming my way, etc.

Answer 1

BoA is notorious for their bad customer service. You can ask to speak to a rep on the phone and make some excuse (they may or may not care). All credit cards/checking accounts will charge between $25-$35 bucks for late payment or overdraft.

I don't bank with BoA because they screwed me over too many times. I had free checking and 10 years later they charged me 5 bucks a month.

I also had a credit card that I never received a bill for in years and it was never put online by the company. I always estimated when the bill needed to be paid and once I came up 2 dollars short and they increased my APR to 24% and charged me as a late payment, which I didn't find out until I went to the bank 2 billing cycles later even after I asked a teller in the previous visit what the minimum payment was. I had to pay more for the minimum and didn't know it, so I got charged again.

Also, once I paid my credit card by the ATM 2 weeks before it was due with cash and BoA didn't apply the payment until a month later and I got slapped with all kind of fees. It took me 2 days of calling and I was on the phone for about 10 hours to get it straight. I was told by a manager that I should have made my payment 1 month in advance to make sure that it would have gone through (??????). They finally closed that card and never told me why. The phone reps refused to speak to me (over a course of weeks). I finally just paid it off and took my checking account elsewhere.

Answer 2

On the show "Big Spender", Larry Winget says that the fees for bad checks and overdraft is flushing money down the toilet, regardless of how much the fee is.

If this is something that is happening to you on a regular basis then you need to reevaluate your personal finances. The problem would be with you and your budget and not with the bank. It is true that some banks take advantage of the situation, however, they could not do that unless you wrote checks that bounced.

If it was an emergency that happened and this is the only time you have had to pay for overdraft then consider it an added expense to your emergency. The bank is not at fault

Answer 3

okay! well yes it's 35$ or 32$ or some upsurd about of money that they "take" from you when you overdraft!!

But i know BoA has "Overdraft Protection". Open a savings account and just add some money (just a little... 5$ or 25$ or 100$ whatever u want!) each month. You can set it up to automatically transfer the 5$ from your checking into your savings.

You'll quickly gain some extra cash in there... another way to get the dollars up in your savings is signin up for *KEEP THE CHANGE* . only BoA does it... say you use your debit card/atm card at the store and buy a soda for 1.90$ well BoA will round that amount the highest dollar ($2.00) and the difference b/t the two is sent directly to your savings account 0.10 cents!! so boom you just sent .10 cents to your savings... and so you keep doing that and your cash flow gets way up there..


so back to the over draft fees... WHICH BLOW!! Okay so BoA has this thing called "Over Draft Protection" okay and say you overdraft your checking account... well that month they will charge you 10$ and pull out of your savings account exactly what you need to cover the overdraft.... AND IT DOESNT CHARGE YOU AN OVeRDRAFT FEE!! just that $10 once that month even if you over draft 30 times that month, you just pay 10$ a month..


BUT BUT BUT!! you do NOT pay 10$ for every month.. just whenever you are about to over draft your checking account... it charges you once that particular month that you need it....


get it??

call BoA and ask them... :O) it's thier job to make it clearer then i can... lol


good luck!!

Answer 4

No matter where you go, there will be overdraft fees. But I like Washington Mutual. The fees they do charge are reasonable and their free checking account includes free checks for life and 1 free waiver of an Overdraft/Non-Sufficient Funds fee per year.

Plus their online banking is easy, so you can keep track of your money even if you are not good with your register.

Another tip - use ATM for your purchases so the money will clear automatically. When you use the credit card feature of your debit card, it can take multiple days to clear and leave you unsure of your available balance.

Answer 5

Banks and credit unions pretty much charge the same for ODs.

Simple solution, don't write bad checks and then it's a moot point as to what they charge.

They don't "steal" your hard earned money, you give it to them by breaking the rules. Rules and fees which are plainly visible and available.

If you don't like the fees associated with the bank then don't do whatever it is that incurrs said fees. Or, better yet, just deal in cash and don't have a bank account at all.

Answer 6

Well, I really don't understand why people call it stealing when they write the checks that there aren't enough funds to cover but OK...

Washington Mutual (WaMu) offers a free checking account that has no fees except overdraft charges...The allow you one free overdraft per year. When I say no fees I mean none at all...they don't charge you for using a non WaMu atm, they don't charge you for statments, no fees at all...They also give you free checks with their free checking account, they are kind of ugly, but who really cares if they are free!

Answer 7

With BofA you can set it up so that it comes from a savings account vs using bank credit. Anytime you use a banks or credit unions money instead of your own, you will pay. Other options if you do not have a savings account is to use a credit card as a back up. Again, BofA (and many other banks) will allow you to use another BofA account such as your credit card to cover overdrafts.

Answer 8

All of them are pretty much in the same ballpark. The cheapest used to be Citizen's Bank and they were $25, but they're now $30.

Be lucky they don't hit you with $50 a pop - I know of a bank that does that.

Here's another suggestion: try not to overdraft.

Answer 9

Change your thinking with banks. Credit Union is the way to go, no doubt. For personal banking, I kicked the fee based banks to the curb long ago. Look into it.

Answer 10

Try People's United Bank or any other banks with their promotion of 2-year free of any charges - Everything free of charges that is the way to. After two years, you can elect to go else where with the same or better promotions.

Best of luck investing!