fees
Sometimes a company verifies that a bank account by making a couple of small deposits in it, then asking you to report back the deposit amounts. Don't rely on that verification process to block any activity in the meantime, though. That's what Suzette did with
Ally bank, and she ended up with a $35 stop payment fee from her own bank.
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airlines
Congress is concerned about the new
fees that airlines seem to enjoy piling on their passengers. But not out of any sense of concern for consumers' wallets. The problem is the lost tax revenue that airports are missing out on when airlines increase their prices through the use of fees instead of by raising fares.
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federal reserve
The
Federal Reserve has announced a new rule requiring
overdraft fees on one-time debit card transactions and ATM withdrawals to be "opt-in." The new rule will take effect July 1, 2010. "The final overdraft rules represent an important step forward in consumer protection," said Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke in a prepared statement. "Both new and existing account holders will be able to make informed decisions about whether to sign up for an overdraft service."
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savings accounts
If you participate in an automatic savings program like
Bank of America's
Keep the Change service, where debit card purchases are rounded up and the difference is deposited into your savings account, keep an eye on
maintenance fees. James says he was hit with a $5 charge last month because he hadn't met the minimum monthly deposit requirement of $25: "It turns out that I wasn't even accruing $5 worth of change per month, so I was losing more money due to the maintenance fee than I was saving via Keep the Change!"
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airline fees
Reader Jeremy says that his attempts to be polite and have everything taken care of for someone who was doing his organization a big favor were made more difficult by a secret, unpublished "prepaid baggage fee" that
American Airlines attempted to charge him.
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fees
If you're a
Citibank customer who has one of the bank's two smaller checking account plans—the ones where the monthly fee is waived as long as you use direct deposit or their online bill payment—then maybe it's time to consider taking your business elsewhere. Starting in February,
anyone with an average balance of less than $1500 will be assessed a monthly $7.50 service fee, reports the New York Post.
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online booking
This morning, travel service
Expedia announced it will
abandon its book by phone fee, which it first implemented last May. This makes it the only major online travel agency to not ding customers with a fee for booking flights over the phone, notes consumer travel advocate Christopher Elliott.
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overlimit fees
Everett says Capital One called him up and made him an offer. If he opted out of at least one of the consumer credit protections enacted by the
CARD act, Capital One would drop the
overlimit fees from $39 to $29! Woo!
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fees
Could extra fees for using a credit card to pay become the airline industry's hot new trend?
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this is not a way to save
Wachovia has a new financial product called Way2Save that automatically moves $1 from your checking account into a high interest personal savings account every time you make an electronic bill payment. Susan tried to maximize her contributions by making a lot of little bill payments, but Wachovia cut off access to her funds without notice and triggered an avalanche of penalty fees. Now she owes over $5,000 to her credit card companies, far more than she would likely have ever earned through Wachovia's complicated savings program, and of course Wachovia is denying any responsibility.
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overdraft fees
Bank of America got so fee crazy last week that it applied a $10 overdraft fee to Christopher's account even though it wasn't overdrafted. I went back and forth with Christopher to try to figure out what BoA could have done to trigger this, but as you can see from the screen cap below, he only had two debits on the day of the event.
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memberships
The gym chain made famous on NBC's "Biggest Loser" is being sued for continuing to debit the bank accounts of customers who have canceled their memberships. The US Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, has given the green light to a
class action lawsuit that says the chain is violating both the RICO Act and the Electronic Funds Transfer Act by keeping these zombie memberships active.
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