Posts about USAA
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—>If you've heard us rave about USAA's stellar financial services but grown sad when you learned that it's only available for military-members and their family, have heart: you can get still get access to some of their services like banking and checking. More »
—>The "credit union on steroids" has gone to mandatory binding arbitration for all disputes, removing customers' ability to successfully sue them if things go wrong. Previously, USAA had arbitration as an option, but allowed members to opt out. Now, if you want to opt out of arbitration, you'll have to close your accounts. More »
—>The friendliest bank in the world, USAA, will soon let customers instantaneously deposit checks through its iPhone application. Here's how it works: you snap a picture of the front and back of your check, and send the picture to USAA. That's it. More »
—>Last week we raised the ire of plenty of USAA fans by posting a story about a woman's IRA that went missing for nearly a day. We were as surprised as many of you that she'd received such poor customer service from the first CSR she spoke with, considering USAA's usually stellar reputation. But the next day someone from USAA contacted Travis and his wife to find out what went wrong. Here's Travis' update. More »
—>USAA just pulled a huge mindf#@k on Travis and his wife, and now he wants to talk to someone high enough up the chain to find out what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again. His wife "went online yesterday to check on some transactions and discovered her IRA balance was $0. Six hours prior to that, her balance was $14,000." When she tried to find out what had happened, the first CSR she spoke with told her she had no IRA account, and the second CSR told her to refresh her browser. Yeah, you know how these newfangled browswers are always wiping out retirement accounts. More »
—>USAA is like a unicorn in a pack of walruses: a financial services company that truly cares about its customers and really helps them out. Not as some kind of lucky exception, but as a matter of policy. Reader "Mary Marsala With Fries'" story, about how USAA opened up several cans of whoop-ass on an Enterprise facility that was trying to screw her over on charges, is yet further proof. More »
—>I'm sick of paying ATM fees so I just finished switching to my USAA debit card for my cash money needs. They refund up to $15 of ATM fees per month and don't charge you any fees for using other people's ATMs. I'm still keeping my WaMu account but I took my WaMu debit card out of my wallet and just funded my USAA account with some money. Not that I have a problem but I think this will also help reduce petty cash spending. Plus, by using cash more often that means I'm getting more change, and all my coin change goes into my piggy bank (60% full at the moment, looking forward to the day I take it to the Commerce Bank "Penny Arcade" coin-counting machine). With the specter of a recession giving us all wet willies, are you making any changes to your personal finance system? More »
—>Banks have hesitated to adopt technology that would let us scan paper checks at home for deposit. The Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act allows banks to exchange electronic images instead of paper checks, but USAA, a credit union associated with the military, is currently the only bank to offer customers a check scanning option. Sure, it's easy enough to stand on line for a teller or wait for an ATM, but we fear sunshine and people and prefer to stay indoors, thank you. Assuming it was free, is this something you would use if it was offered by your bank? Vote in our poll, after the jump. More »
—> This morning, Mary logged onto her USAA bank account to check her balance and was surprised to find that her rent check had been cashed twice while she was asleep. She was eventually able to get through to a human and get the problem addressed, but it wasn't easy. And she may not have been the only one affected. More »
—>"A few months ago, the pipe under my front lawn which leads to the water main, as well as two of my neighbors' pipes, burst as a result of city firefighters cleaning the hydrants and shutting the water off too quickly. There was a nice little stream going down the street until the city came and shut off our water the next day, routing our service through a different (unaffected) neighbor's pipes. The Water Services Department informed us that we were financially responsible for hiring a plumber to make the repairs, and that if we failed to do so within 30 days, we would be disconnected from our neighbor's service. All of the estimates we got from plumbers came in around $1,500." More »
—>When we wrote about the glories of subletting your apartment while on vacation, we mused that renter's insurance might cover it if your guest damages or steals stuff. While talking to USAA today about our renter's insurance policy we asked them about this and they said nope, it doesn't. You're still protected from all the normal things, like fire, flood, and falling space probes, but not by the actions of someone you've invited into your home. So, we'll just continue to beware and use our best judgment and not sublet to sketchy people. Other people with lower risk tolerances will disagree, and we're okay with that. More »
USAA dropped a goose-egg in my mailbox today, a letter informing that there's a new arbitration agreement being added to my AMEX contract. Lovely, I just love being stripped of my rights to a trial with due process. More »
—>Those with option-ARM mortgages ratcheting up to a higher APR in October, take note: A well-polished piece of advice for home owners is that mortgage payments, including principal, interest, insurance, and taxes, should not be more than 28 percent of your gross monthly income, according to the August issue of the USAA member magazine. Individual situations may vary, but the basic idea is not get more house than you can afford. Around 28% gives you enough to take care of day-to-day living expenses and food and gas and going to see Transformers and whatnot. More »
—>We got a flier in our recent USAA bill announcing they're now letting customers deposit checks from home. Just sign and scan your checks and send it in through the USAA website. As far as we know, USAA is the only bank to offer this service to consumers. More »
—>In all the the various shenanigans and nightmare-drenched, neo-Kafka retellings of financial institution experiences, one company swoops to the top among Consumerist readers. More »
