I moved to a credit union two years ago, and I have never been happier, and I can thank the economic downturn for this happenstance.
For years I was with Bank of America, I had a basic ATM only account for years, I actually thought I was with SeaFirst, a Seattle Bank, but I wasn't really. A side note on that, as soonas they were out of the closet as owned by BofA the customer service went downhill for a time, but it did get better. With an ATM only account, I had to do all my banking through the ATM and not bother the nice people inside, or I would get charged $3, you could do things the ATM couldn't do inside if you had to do it, but it was wise to not let them close to your account number, lest you be charged for getting quarters (get a $20 from the ATM, then go inside and get quarters).
This worked fine for me, you know it's a bank what more do you want, the main reason to choose it over a different bank, is I sometimes traveled to California,and they at everywhere there, and my best friend also had an account with them, and in our poorer days we had a transfer agreement for those emergency days when you needed and extra $50 to make rent, or eat.
And everything was fine, for many years, until, they started to get greedier, and I wasn't allowed to have an ATM only account for free, now I had to have 4 direct deposits per month for free checking, if I didn't it would cost $7 a month. For the first time in my life I went in to negotiate, saying I work basically freelance, and not all of my employers have direct deposit available, BofA waived the fee for a year.
By the time a year went by I actually had an average of 4 direct deposits, so, I didn't fret that my waiver was up, but the rules had changed, now the rate was $7 a month, with a discount of $5 for have the required amount of deposits, now I could not pay a fee if I kept $10,000 in my account at all times, but seriously. Every statement would annoy me, but I felt there was nothing I could do. Then came the letter saying they needed to raise the monthly fee to $11, because of the financial crisis and economic downturn and all. Now I was infuriated. I swore a little. And I started to shop around, since obviously, they didn't want my money.
I settled on BECU, a Washington credit union, and not only did I not have to pay for checking, I earned interest on my checking, and I could open a CD online in seconds, and everyone is super helpful. Plus, with the poor choices the big bank are making, my credit union gets more convienient, and as the world increasingly runs on debit cards, it makes less and less difference.
This brings me to the point of my story, the banks we bailed out, who, to be honest have paid the government back, as I understand it, are making record profits, Record Profits, but have decreased services and laid people off, have been told by the Frank Dodd act, that the amount they were charging business for debit transactions was usurious, and that it was capping the amount at 20 cents less, this will cost all the banks some 5 billion in revenue, they say, cutting into their profit, so, to make up for that they need to charge between $3 to $5 a month if you use your debit card for any transactions, not credit cards, because they already make more than 45 cents per credit transaction. But, this fee is not for everyone, it's for the poor and middle class, and really the middle class, since most truly poor people, can't even qualify for a bank account. I say this because you dont have to pay the monthly fee if you have the magic account minimum.
To be continued
