Are my deposits safe?

As long as your bank is insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., your money is guaranteed — up to $250,000 per depositor. That’s the case even if you have an account with Bank of America, which tops the bad-bank list and needs to raise $34 billion in capital. Call 877-275-3342 to verify that your bank is covered by the FDIC, which is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. The $250,000 limit was scheduled to revert to the previous $100,000 limit after December 31, 2009, but Congress just passed a bill that extends it to 2013.

FDIC insurance covers checking accounts, savings accounts, money-market accounts, certificates of deposit and retirement accounts. You can insure substantially more than $250,000 if you arrange ownership of the accounts properly. Use the FDIC’s Electronic Deposit Insurance estimator to figure out if the total amount of your deposits is covered.
Credit-union deposits up to $250,000 are protected by the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund. The National Credit Union Administration, the government agency that oversees credit unions, provides a calculator to help you determine whether the funds deposited in your credit union are insured.

Are my savings earning enough interest?

The average interest rate on bank money-market deposit accounts is a paltry 0.40%. But you can earn significantly more by switching to a high-paying account with an online bank, such as Ally Bank (formerly known as GMAC Bank), in Utah. If you know you won’t need your money for a while, you can earn 2.20% with a six-month certificate of deposit at Corus Bank, in Illinois, or 2.8% with a 12-month CD at Ally Bank.

Will my bank lend me money?

Most lenders have tightened their standards, but money is available if you spiff up your credit. Today you’ll probably need a credit score of about 730 to qualify for the best rates on a mortgage. If you can’t come up with 20% for a down payment, you may have to pay a higher interest rate or additional closing fees. Check with your local community bank or credit union — they’re advertising their willingness to make loans and may be able to offer you a better deal than the mega-banks.

If you’re applying for a loan, prepare in advance by checking your credit report. The 2009 Consumer Financial Literacy Survey by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling showed that 144 million people had not ordered a copy of their credit report in the past year. You can order a free credit report from each of the three credit bureaus at www.annualcreditreport.com. For an additional $7.95, you can get your FICO credit score with your Equifax report. At www.myfico.com, you can see how your credit score affects your monthly payment for a home mortgage or car loan.

Am I being hit with more fees for ordinary transactions?

Financially shaky banks need to raise cash however they can. But that doesn’t mean you have to pay up. Open an account at a bank with a large ATM network so that it’s easy to find a convenient ATM and avoid the $4 fee you must pay whenever you use another bank’s ATM. Or switch to a credit union — such as Navy Federal Credit Union — that participates in a surcharge-free ATM network. Online banks, such as UFBDirect.com, don’t charge ATM fees and will reimburse you up to $4.50 a month for ATM charges from other banks.

Overdraft fees generated $17.5 billion in income for banks in 2007, according to the Center for Responsible Lending. You can limit your share if you link your checking account to a savings account so that the bank transfers your funds from one account to the other. You’ll be charged a transfer fee (typically $5) rather than an overdraft fee ($ 25 to $27 is the median at community banks and credit unions, $33 at mega-banks).

Has the bank raised the rate on my credit card?

You’re not alone. Banks that have to firm up their balance sheets are raising interest rates, lowering credit limits or canceling cards outright for customers they deem to be too risky.
If your card issuer changes the terms and conditions of your credit-card agreement, call the toll-free number on the card and ask to have the changes rescinded. If a lower credit limit means that you are using more than half of your available credit, try to pay down your balance as quickly as possible so that your credit score doesn’t drop. You can reject the new terms, but closing the account will affect your credit score, especially if you have used the card for a long time.

If you decide the new rate is onerous and want to close the account, look for a low-rate balance-transfer offer at www.lowcards.com or www.billshrink.com. Most 0% balance-transfer offers come with a fee of 3% of the amount you transfer. One exception is Pulaski Bank, which has no fee for its six-month offer. The card, which carries a fixed interest rate of 6.5%, does have a $35 annual fee. But that’s a small price to pay for its low interest rate.

Done be shock when you see this bank overdraft number, according to the CFA, as a nation, we’re spending over $17.5 billion on overdraft fees.  The average bank overdraft: $35.  At Bank of America, they limit you to 10 overdrafts a day, so if you really have a bad day, you could wind up owing them $350 in just overdraft fees. However with some banks, you can screw up in perpetuity. Fifth Third Bank, Chase, Wachovia, SunTrust, Regions Bank, PNC Bank, National City and HSBC have no limits on overdrafts.

More Bank feee on Top of Your Overdraft – Bank of America started charging a $35 overdraft fee after five business days.  This means that they will charge you a $35 for your overdraft, and if you do not put money in your bank to cover the overdrawn amount on time, within 5 days they will charge you another “extended overdraft fee”, which is $35 more.

Which Bank has the highest Overdraft? The highest overdraft is  $39 and it belongs to courtesy of Citizens Bank.

No more silly bank fee.  Avoiding overdrafts, bounced checks, should be a number one priority to all those who have checking accounts. The amount of money that you can be charged by the bank and by the merchant who takes the bounced check can be staggering. If too many of these overdrafts show up at one time, you can find yourself several hundreds of dollars (or more) in arrears just in penalties and fees. You may even have to go to court to get things back to normal, and lastly, your bank may cancel your account. There is nothing good about overdrafts.

This is how you can avoid bounced checks and overdrafts?

The answer to that is good management. If you know what funds are in your account, you are less likely to make a mistake which can cause an overdraft. The first step to preventing overdrafts is to use your checkbook register when you write a check or make an electronic transfer from your checking account. The register is the fastest way to keep track of what you have outstanding and what your current balance is in your checking account. An important issue with keeping the register up to date is to make sure that you also include any service fees that are automatically deducted from your account. This might include such things as your monthly fee for the account, if there is one.

Many of these methods result in very fast transactions with our checking accounts. In some cases, the transactions can be almost instantaneous and it is very important that we know that we have the funds in our account when we make these transactions. Electronic transactions where there is not enough money in your account can result in non-sufficient funds penalties just like written checks, and those fees can add up very quickly.

Take Advantage of New Technology
Modern technology has allowed us to use many forms of electronic money transfers and these can cause bookkeeping problems for those who do not maintain good records. Some of the electronic methods that we use that affect our checking account balance include debit cards, ATM withdrawals and deposits, online money transfers and deposits, as well as online purchases.

You may want to ask your bank about overdraft protection systems that they may offer to their customers. These allow you some leeway in the event you write a check and do not have the funds to cover it. There are usually overdraft fees that you have to pay if you write a check that is short, but these fees are less than what you would normally have to pay if you did not have the overdraft protection.

Winning The Fight With the Bank

Some banks will allow you to link your savings account to your checking account. If overdraw your checking account, the bank will automatically move money from your savings account to your checking account in order to cover the check. You should ask your bank about transfer fees for this service as this is not always a free service. Another option is to link your checking account to your credit card. Not all banks will do this, but some will. With this type of linkage, the amount of the overdraft will be covered by the bank but it will result in a cash advance off the credit card. You will normally have to pay the cash advance fees, but, again, it can keep you out of trouble by honoring the check.

Here is what you really need to know, the best advice is to always keep a close eye on your checking account balance and to make sure you account for all charges and fees that will affect your balance.

Who doesn’t hate these extra fee that the banks slap on you? If you have ever missed a payment or gone over your overdraft limit then you will know about the expensive fees that you have to pay. One late payment can trigger a fee that puts you over your overdraft limit, hence leading to another fee. If you want to avoid spending money on bank fees then here are some useful tips to help you.

1. Create a schedule
The first thing you need to do is to create a payment schedule for the bills that you need to pay each month. If you know exactly when and how much your bills are likely to be then you will be better prepared to pay them when the time comes. If there are bills that can be paid at any time of the month, then schedule a time that is most convenient for you.

2. Change bill payments
If you have a lot of bills to pay it can get confusing, especially when bills need to be paid at various times throughout the month. If possible, speak to the companies that you are paying bills with and fix a date or two where you can pay most of your bills. This will make it quicker and easier to pay your bills and mean you are less likely to forget.

3. Wisely Prepare a budget
Once you know when and how much your bills are going to be, then you should create a budget to plan how much money you require each month in order to pay your bills. If there are bills that you are unsure about the exact amount, then it is better to overestimate, as this will keep you safely within agreed monetary limits. Creating a budget will help you to spend only what you can each month so that you avoid overdraft fees.

4. Agree an overdraft
If you regularly go below the amount of money you have in your account, then try and agree an overdraft with your bank. Although agreed overdrafts still often carry interest rates, the payment amounts are much lower and you will not be charged large fees for an unauthorised overdraft. If your credit history is fairly good then you should be able to agree an overdraft level to suit your needs. If you don’t use it then great, but it will be there if you need it and will help you to avoid expensive fees.

5. Talk to your bank
If you know that there is a chance a payment will be made late, you can always speak to your bank about it. If you let your bank know the payment has been sent then they might be able to waive any late fees. Although this doesn’t always work, banks are generally more lenient if they know in advance that a payment will be late.

6. Use Online banking
Another way to pay your bills quickly and avoid late fees is to use online banking. If you have queue at your local branch to pay a bill and you are busy then you might not have the time. With banks shutting over the weekend you might find yourself being a few days late with a payment that will cost you money. To avoid this you should use online banking, as you can make payments whenever you want in just a few clicks. This will help you to make payments on time and save you a lot of money in fees.

Bank overdraft fee occurs when you exceeded your bank balance or what you called “overdrawn”.
This usually happens when you do not read fine prints when opening a bank account and you do not fully understand the things you are signing into. Overdraft fee comes from your overdraft protection. Overdraft protection is what banks offer when you are a good client and you do not always overdraw your account. This happens when, for example, you withdraw funds from your bank account like writing a check but did not review your current balance which is insufficient for the check you issued. Your bank will then supply your account with the balance so that your check won’t bounce. This should be paid back as soon as you receive the notice from the back.

However, there has been confusion about overdraft protection and courtesy overdraft. The first mentioned is granted by the bank free of charge and no daily fees but you are not sure if they will clear your overdrawn check or not. Meaning you are in their complete mercy. Courtesy overdraft however charges you an overdraft fee for every overdrawn check and charges an additional fee per day until you paid all overdraws which is, by the way, deadlier than you think but provides assured protection when needed. Bear in mind, those banks operates by rules so you should be familiar with these rules to avoid future inconveniences.

Overdraft protection is a good safety net to protect you when overdrawn.

-If you sign up for standard overdraft protection, your overdrawn check will be paid by the bank, with no charges for insufficient funds. You agree in advance to have the overdrawn amount deducted from your savings account, added to your line of credit, or charged to your credit card. You know the fees and interest charges ahead of time.

-Courtesy Overdraft or Bounce Protection–In addition to an overdraft fee of $35 to $40 for each check that exceeds your balance, many banks charge anywhere from $2 to $10 per day until you pay off the overdraft account balance. Some banks require you to pay the balance in as little as five or as many as 30 days.

-Traditional overdraft protection, banks don’t charge you a fee for insufficient funds. There may be a fee for the transfer to your checking account from your savings account or credit card, but it’s usually much lower than an insufficient funds charge. There’s also no daily fees with traditional overdraft protection, other than interest.

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Bank overdraft fee is something that you have gotten or will get it sooner or later.  The banks count on charging you with these fee because that is how they make money.  It is a fee that sometimes we neglect to look at but it could really bite you when you are unaware of it.  Minimum wage is only 7-8 dollars an hour, and we are being charge with 35 dollars.  This means we work 5 hours for free to pay the bank for this silly fee.   We have written several short articles on the site regarding this problem, but today we presents to you with the some tips straight from real people that have been in your shoe before.

Reversing Bank Overdraft Tips

1. “Talk with your branch manager and explain the situation, they’re usually good about reversing the fee once or twice, unless it become a habitual problem”

2. “Call the bank and explain the situation. If it is the bank’s error, then they will certainly reverse it. If it is not, they still may, provided you haven’t called them tons of times before asking for the same thing. Banks are usually pretty good about taking charges off if you have a good enough reason. Give it a try, and sound sad.”

3. “I ended up with overdraft charges when someone stole my debit card. I filed a report with the bank regarding the unauthorized transactions. I called to check on the status every day and ask if they could refund the overdraft fees. When the bank gave me credit for the fraudulent charges they also removed the overdraft fees. The best thing to do is to call customer service and explain the situation. If you get someone who is unresponsive, call again until you get someone who will help.”

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Bank of America has a weird system of posting your deposit.  I went to one of BOA branch today at 6:30 pm, this branch open up to 7 PM.  I deposited 300 dollars cash, after that i went to the atm machine and check my balance and it said that my money had been credited. I withdraw 260 dollars and a couple of day later i was hit with an overdraft fee.  I called up the bank’s customer service and told them about the situation, they told me that anything deposited after 6 olock is posted the next day.  I have no problem with that, but the funny thing here is this, the ATM machine showed me that it was credited to my account even it is not actually posted in the system.  This is something to think about when you are depositing and withdrawing money from your bank.

Well i learned it the hard way, they told me to they got some options for overdraft protection. Like having a credit card connected to your checking, or a saving accoung connect to your checking.

I learned this lesson from my own personal experience and it really works. There was a time in my life when I was bombarded with overdraw bank fee. At first it was 25 dollars then it went up to 35 dollars, if you keep on overdrawing your bank account.  Sometimes, I used my debit card and was charged an overdraft fee of going over the limit of 5 dollars.  It was silly and upsetting, when the bank make money off you like this.  When an overdraft occurred, I tried to put the money in right away to covere it, but i still get hit by the overdraft fee.  Don’t just do nothing about it and let them take your money.  You could get away with these overdrawn fees if you go inside the bank or call up their support number and tell them a legitimate reason why your account was over drawn. If you talk to them nicely they will waive it for you….. By doing so you can save yourself 25 or 35 dollars fees.

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