As far as I know for the larger banks it is universal. Smaller banks may still work the way you remember but then you lose the benefits of being able to find your bank’s ATM almost anywhere. Someone upthread suggested overdraft protection, and I just want to second it. I don’t think it costs anything, or maybe it’s really cheap, but just having even a $100 or $200 overdraft value on your account is very convenient. It also helps when you’ve budgeted pretty carefully, but your account has $19.99 in it and payday’s tomorrow. You can take out the $20 and buy dinner, and then transfer the cent you owe the bank the next day.
I use citizen’s, and you can do it all online. Very convenient, really.
Wow, that’s just horrible. I can’t believe they did that. I’d change banks for sure.
Btw, I don’t know what it’s like in the rest of the country, but Bank of America is horrible. They charge 3 dollars for an ATM withdrawal for another bank. It’s ridiculous. Also, here in New York, you’ll see ATM withdrawal fees pretty low. I’ve seen them for 99 cents in some bodegas. It’s crazy. And yet you have BOA down the street charging 3 dollars. Plus they have unintuitive menus that throw me for a loop. “Sure” instead of “Yes?”
Thanks all. The bank is now calling the house - I want to tell them you can’t get blood from a turnip, just because I like saying that. Unfortunately it’s a recording. SomeUserName’s story should get my son off his butt except now he doesn’t have the money until his next paycheck! This happened once before so he should have known better. The bank took back the charge that time after I threatened to close my account. This time he thought a deposit had cleared and didn’t check his balance - so he needs to learn the hard way.
After this experience I’m afraid my son is going to be one of those people that bury their money in the backyard. I had hoped to create a friendly relationship with a bank so he could cash checks, earn interest (HA!) and learn about saving. As it is, both of use have learned to watch our butts when dealing with banks. If you have money the relationship can be friendly - I get the “gold” package with free checks, overdraft protection, etc. plus general butt kissing when I come in. They won’t even cash a check for my son, from his grandmother, on a joint account. And the .75% interest they pay doesn’t get a young man too excited.
Well, nice to know the practice isn’t universal - we are off bank shopping this weekend.
Be sure to look into credit unions. Rules for membership eligibility vary, but don’t assume only teachers can join Yourstate Educators FCU for example. These days credit unions offer pretty much every service a bank can provide but tend to be far less mercenary.
I was going to suggest this. We use a credit union, for everything except the mortgage. I love them. They actually work to keep their members happy. The requirements for the one we belong to? Live in southern Minnesota.
As was mentioned, while it is pretty universal it is also (by regulation I believe) opt-outable. If you call or go to a branch you should be able to get the “service” turned off.
If you visit the Consumerist blog you should be able to search and find many posts on this and information on getting it turned off.
Also, as annoying as it is, all of these things really are laid out out in the account agreement booklet you get when opening an account. People who are going to be living on the edge and will really be screwed by stray fees should take the time to at least give it and the Statement of Fees, a serious scan.
Interesting that the UK dopers haven’t mentioned the fact that the situation in the OP simply can’t occur in UK banking as far as i am aware.
Banks can honour (up to what is called the shadow limit) direct debits, cheques and POS debit card transactions which may incur unauthorised overdraft fees but that is only because these transactions are not authorised online* (actually debit card transactions generally are so that’s less likely).
Any ATM does a balance check before providing cash and only transactions up to the value of your available funds (included *authorised *overdraft) can be withdrawn. Although you can go into overdraft it can only be charged at the agreed rate not the penalty fees that the OP refers to.
Basically, if you only use ATMs you can never go overdrawn without authorisation. I’m not aware of any UK bank that doesn’t work this way - correct me if i’m wrong anyone.
*For anyone not familiar, online authorisation (OLA) is the process of checking available funds and reserving them for that transaction.