Wal-Mart sinks to a new low

[zenith]

I’m no WalMart fan, but sometimes they’re actually the good guys.

Local grocery stores charge $3 to cash checks up to $150 and 2% on larger checks.

BTW, don’t overgeneralize about check-cashing places. When one of my sons couldn’t get a bank account because his last bank had blacklisted him, he started using a check-cashing place that lowers fees as you build a favorable record with them.

By the time he straightened out his issues with his old bank, he was down to WalMart’s $2 rate.

I accompanied him on a trip to the check- casher’s one day and was floored by the fact that he didn’t need ID. The company had his picture on file in its computer and IDed him that way. As he approached the teller window, he was greeted by name and asked what she could do for him today.

Years ago, my ex-wife and I were ripped off by a baby sitter who peeled a check out of the middle of a box of blank checks we unwisely left in the open. Her handwriting looked nothing like either one on the signature card and she didn’t even use the ex’s first name–just signed it “Mrs. (our last name)”, but our bank gave her $200 anyway. The check-casher’s system (which AFAIK none of the banks in my area has adopted) would have nailed her instantly.

[zenith]

@CrazyCatLady

Well, yeah. If you don’t maintain a certain balance, you get charged a monthly maintenance fee at most banks. Even if that’s only $5/month, that still $60 a year. Some banks only give you 2 in-person transactions a month free, and charge you a fee for using the teller instead of the ATM. If you ever miscalculate and overspend, which is massively easier with checks or debit cards than cash, it’s somewhere in the $35 range for the overdraft. Some banks charge you $5/day until you get the overdraft taken care of, and they generally notify you of the problem by mail rather than phone call, so it’s generally at least 2 days (and $10 of extra fees) before you even know you’re overdrawn. That’s $45 in fees, just from one check that you were a couple of bucks short on. And that’s assuming you have the amount you were short plus the extra $45 to get it all squared away the very minute you find out about the problem. If you get the letter when you get home from work that night, after the bank is closed, that brings it up to $50. And if you don’t have any more money until your next check comes in…

Another nasty that my bank has pulled on me before involves automatic utility and mortgage payments.

Everyone that I have an automatic payments agreement with goes for the money
5 days before the due date and if the bank tell them it’s not all there at that time, they make another request on the actual due date. These people charge nothing in penalties unless the money still isn’t there by the actual due date.

Despite the fact that my bank knows that I get paid by direct deposit every other
Thursday and that my mortgage lender and utilities don’t mind if they have to wait 5 days, if a first request for an auto-payment comes a day or two before payday, the bank pays right away even if this will overdraw the account and charges me $34 for an overdraft.

I hope that I’ve switched enough auto-payments from the checking account to a credit card account that I pay off in full every month to avoid any more of these.

I’d change banks if I could be absolutely sure that the next one won’t be just as petty.