After the Wall Street and banking crisis, the regulators fixed the banks, didn’t they? Seems not. They’re still stealing money from you and me. Aside from continued mortgage manipulation (again), here are 3 ways that most banks are still cheating us.
Monthly Fees
There is still no cap on monthly fees. The inept regulators capped debit card charges (a useless and ridiculous feat), but did nothing about fees that really impact us. You give your bank your hard-earned money to keep and hold. That bank earns interest on the money, uses the money, and then charges you a monthly fee for that privilege. Wow! I want that job. It’s like your employer charging you a fee for the privilege of working. Shame! Shame on us for letting them do this.
Bank Wire Transfers
The biggest scam in the banking industry. In 1975 a wire transfer took a week. Today in this modern society it takes place instantly, like an email. So why isn’t my money in my account for .. oh, 7 days? Are we in 1975? No, but the banks want to steal your money and use it for an extra 7 days. They know the average person has no clue how a bank money transfer is done, so they falsely claim they need 7 days to verify it. They use your money without compensating you. Better yet: my bank charges me $10 to receive a bank wire transfer! Incredible. The sender gets charged $25 to $50 to send a bank wire or SWIFT transfer (which costs .33 cents), and I get charged $10 to receive it. The transaction is complete that day, but they hold your funds for 7 more days. If it’s from a foreign bank, they peel a few points off the exchange rate, too. All told, they steal about $100 from every 2000 Euro bank transfer ($2500). Banks truly have a license to steal.
Banks overcharge for a penny transaction, then hold the funds an extra week. Why don’t the bank regulators or any government agency stop this? Money finds money. You read between the lines. The little guys don’t matter in the US anymore, and banks line the pockets of politicians and regulators.
ATM charges
If someone charged you $500 for a $1 product, you might not be happy, right? So why pay $2 or $4 for an ATM fee that costs the bank .02 cents? We are lazy sheep, and we allow it to happen. Go to a foreign ATM and your fee will be even higher; but after all, that one does costs them .08 cents. We get so used to being robbed, we just accept it.
Banks need our money to keep them afloat. They are already deep in the profit zone, getting rich on our bucks. So it’s particularly unfair to tax the very people who keep them in business. They don’t need these fees, but they will claim they do. One American bank said it needs these fees to stay in business, while showing a billion dollar excess on the balance sheet, and only 1% of their revenue was from retail customer fees. You know the bank’s name (or did you miss that clue).
If your bank reduces all fees to 0, it will still be in business and living on the fat of the land. Send a clear message to your bank that you’re done paying fees for these cheap services. It’s time we climbed out of the 70’s and into modern society; the banks need to evolve with the rest of the world.
See also: Why I Change Banks Every Year
The Pros and Cons of Forex Binary Options
The Perils of New Credit Cards for Bad Credit / No Credit Checks
