Ask me about (personal) banking!

For the past four years I've worked in personal banking. I started as a regular customer service representative in the call center and, after a month and a half with no previous banking experience, was promoted to supervisor.

I know my 90's dance music, I know my nasty crafts, and I know personal banking.

Ask me questions about your own personal bank account, disputes, federal regulations (I've read them/get tested on a few of them annually), issues with your bank, bank fees that seem inexplicable, etc etc. Or just general questions about the changing of the industry -- I know other bankers and we talk.

Also, I do have some experience in personal securities as well and can at least direct people to the correct location for services and further information.

US knowledge only (sorry!)

I closed my account with WAMU about a year ago when I discovered that they would hold debit charges for sometimes almost a month in order to be able to bill me a $30 overdrawnn charge for each debit.

They would wait until just before my direct deposit or right after I transferred funds to savings and start debiting a series of charges, all under $10.

I'd look at my account and see that I was charged a couple of hundred bucks and that my direct deposit had cleared the negative balance.

I fought for almost every nickel, but after hearing a "supervisor" say smugly, "we can debit your account up to 60 days after the charge if we want to", I decided to shut it down.

I'm with BOA now and haven't had any problems and my debits are all charged immediately.


Anyway, was WAMU legally in the right?

With today's very low interest rates, what is the best option to store money? This is money we don't want to invest in stocks.

What is the best method of robbing a bank? Is it like in the movie Heat?

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Originally posted by jali

I closed my account with WAMU about a year ago when I discovered that they would hold debit charges for sometimes almost a month in order to be able to bill me a $30 overdrawnn charge for each debit.

They would wait until just before my direct deposit or right after I transferred funds to savings and start debiting a series of charges, all under $10.

I'd look at my account and see that I was charged a couple of hundred bucks and that my direct deposit had cleared the negative balance.

I fought for almost every nickel, but after hearing a "supervisor" say smugly, "we can debit your account up to 60 days after the charge if we want to", I decided to shut it down.

I'm with BOA now and haven't had any problems and my debits are all charged immediately.


Anyway, was WAMU legally in the right?

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Well, what the supervisor said to you was...sort of right. See, all debit charges are regulated by Federal Reg E and there's a magic timeframe for essentially all changes, debits, etc of 60 days after the statement cutoff date that that charge was included in.

For example, if an erroneous charge appeared on your account on June 3rd, and your statement cutoff date was June 5th, you have 60 days from June 5th to dispute the charge with your financial institution. This would be the same if the charge appeared on May 27th, June 5th, the statement cutoff date, is the magical date.

So, what the supervisor probably meant was that if a debit charge was somehow mishandled and not reported to your account, then WAMU would have 60 days from the day your statement cutoff to assess it to your account. THIS IS LEGAL, as long as they report it as an adjustment and send you notification. Legally, the burden of managing one's transactions falls on the consumer, so unless they are adding add'l charges to your account and not removing them (ie, double posting happening on WAMU's side) and they're within that 60 days, they pretty much are alright.

however, if they are specifically holding charges to posit them on your account specifically to garner you fees, unless that is in some horrid clause in your PDAA (it's not), your bank is posting them when they get them. With the way banks report it would be a very difficult metric to trace to post things that way specifically to your account.

Also, be aware that credit transactions clear on a timeframe almost entirely handled by the merchant. When you swipe your debit card through as credit visa approves the transaction and provides an approval number to the servicer, this gives you the Approved! at the register. The merchant than places a hold on your account (if they place one at all -- this is technically a courtesy) and then the transaction goes into a holding pattern. The merchant then has a timeframe (I believe 60 days again!) to complete the transaction -- we call this an 'electronic capture' at my bank -- and that processing decides when a charge will show up on your account.

If you want a guarantee as to when your items will post, use your PIN whenever possible, your bank should have clearly outlined timeframes as to when these will post. Hint: It's always a business day or, if done early enough, the same day.

Also: Debit/credit charges generally clear a lot faster nowadays than they used to. This is probably due to complaints from consumers like yourself. A lot of businesses were doing things like finishing their reporting at the end of the week, or only doing them every 3-4 days, making people wait up to 5 business days on the regular for their items to post. Please also note that most banks only allow card holds on their accounts for a few business days, so if the hold disappears the transaction may still not be complete.

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Originally posted by hatesfreedom

What is the best method of robbing a bank? Is it like in the movie Heat?

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Wouldn't know, bank robbing isn't the best idea since most bank robbers are caught. You'd have a better time developing the technology for card fraud!

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Originally posted by What Exit?

With today's very low interest rates, what is the best option to store money? This is money we don't want to invest in stocks.

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Well, if you're going to invest in stocks, now's the time. Stocks are still struggling to rise and a lot of people are trying to liquidate. It's too bad my personal securities career didn't take off or I was gonna start gambling in penny stocks.

Your best option is probably a cd and with a credit institution like Capital One -- they are offering higher interest rates because they lend out your money at higher interest rates than deposit institutions usually do and your capital is more insurance for their business. Sadly, if you find anything above 2% for greater than 10-15K you're finding a great deal. With prime rate being so late institutions cannot legally have their interest rates as high as they used to be or fear really and truly breaking our financial institution.

If you're looking for the long term, especially for financing a child's education, the advice I've been hearing is to get Bonds since you know, for the most part, their value won't depreciate. Of course, the risk you run there is that inflation will overtake its growth, but that's the real risk of bonds in general.

Is the money something you might want to use for a possible retirement plan but want to keep liquid in case of emergencies? If so, I think there may be ROTH IRA options that could be suitable, but my knowledge of that area is a bit fuzzy.

Also a lot of banks are offering deals for the first 5-6 months if you open a checking and a savings account. If you really want to make the most money you'll keep moving it around as banks have special deals and picking up those cash rewards. My bank has been offering $100 cash bonuses for opening accounts with us. And there's no loss if you keep moving it around but for five or six days of interest in most cases and some of your time. So if the amount you make going to a new institution is greater than the interest you lose (hint; it probably is!) it's worth your time.

Also, if you do open a cd make sure you watch its renewal closely and what deals other banks are offering. The trick to introductory rates is taht after your first renewal (or sometimes after the first few months!) the rates go south.

I was afraid you would say CDs were my best bet. Our retirement and kids education planning are covered by 401Ks and other stock investments. So this is our money we keep on hand for things like saving for the next car and capitol improvements to the house. Basically the money that builds up above expenses.

That is good advice on the watching the CD renewals, I've been burnt a few times on them.

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Originally posted by What Exit?

I was afraid you would say CDs were my best bet. Our retirement and kids education planning are covered by 401Ks and other stock investments. So this is our money we keep on hand for things like saving for the next car and capitol improvements to the house. Basically the money that builds up above expenses.

That is good advice on the watching the CD renewals, I've been burnt a few times on them.

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If your home has equity my best advice would be to hammer everything onto anything you owe on your home. There are banks out there desperate to lend money to people with actual equity on their homes at absurdly low rates (even lower than 4%) if your credit is decent. You end up saving more money by paying down what you may owe on your home and then lending the money back out again on a home equity line of credit because of no interest in the interim. Of course, this is mostly applicable if you plan on buying a new car or paying any of those expenses in the next 3 years, because I doubt prime or any other index will be moving much in the next 3-4 years.

unfortunately nowadays a money market is little more than a statement savings with (advertised) checkwriting capability.

Thanks PS.

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Originally posted by hatesfreedom

What is the best method of robbing a bank? Is it like in the movie Heat?

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You don't rob banks, you rob the ones who are delivering their money and/or taking it away.

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Originally posted by ivan astikov

You don't rob banks, you rob the ones who are delivering their money and/or taking it away.

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Finally a reasonable answer! I shall try this new method and get back to you with the winnings.

My fee is a straight 5%* on all future earnings via said method, and with that comes my promise not to turn you in to the authorities.




* Inflation-based, it should go without saying.