Paul
Anaheim,#2Consumer Suggestion
Thu, July 07, 2005
At first I thought it was all freaking' idiots who were being taken advantage of. But after coming here and reading all the stories, I can see that no matter what you do, the bank will find a way to trip you up and collect overdraft fees from you. You will not win. Their bank. Their rules. You will lose. You must get rid of all checking accounts. And, you must get rid of all debit and atm cards. I have one account, savings. I keep the minimum in there. I use it just to cash checks. The amount never changes. That's my only banking. That's the only way to keep from having overdraft. Otherwise, they will keep stealing from you. Simple as that.
Robert
Wallingford,#3Consumer Comment
Wed, July 06, 2005
It's not what you are doing balancing your checkbook. That comes after the fact. You are going wrong keeping a running account of your current available balance. You are, in effect, spending money you don't have and expecting US Bank to loan you money for free. It don't work that way. If your husband had used his card as a credit card, a hold still would be placed on that amount from your account. It is no longer available to spend. It doesn't matter when it posts. Pretty simple to understand. You should have gotten a Deposit Account Contract from your bank when you open your account. If you are unable to find it you can print out a copy from the bank's web site (you may have to search for it, some sites don't make it easy to find - sometimes under "opening a new account" there may be a link to it). That document spells out what fees apply, when and how much. It's very informative. You should read it. Don't wait for the movie to come out. There are several useful software programs that will help you keep track of your available balance if adding and subtracting stump you. Microsoft Money and Quicken are programs that usually come as part of a software package when you buy a computer. There are also freeware software programs that can be downloading that will do the adding and subtracting for you. Kind of like the cash registers at Walmart and McDonalds.