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Check 'n Go: Payday Loan Fees Comparison

Have you ever wondered about varied types of fees like payday loan fees, attribution card fees and late bill fees? Discontinuance 'n Go explains these ...

Move Your Money

My College Loan Story

When I was getting ready to attend college, I needed to get a loan to pay for it. My local bank at the time was a branch of a larger bank. So I go to my branch and talked to one of the reps about college loan options.

I had been a member of the bank for many years. In fact it was my first bank. My mom had setup a kiddie savings account for me when I was like 10 years old and I had always used it for cashing pay checks and other checks.

The bank representative was nice and suggested a Guaranteed Student Loan. It was a product where the bank loaned me the money, the government paid the interest until I graduated, and if I defaulted the government would repay the bank and put me on the hook with them.

I applied and a few weeks later got a letter turning me down. I went back the branch and talked to the same woman. She said because my credit was bad I would need to have the amount of the loan IN my account before they would approve it.

Imagine that. In order to get a $2,500 loan for college I had to have $2,500 in the bank. Wow!

I ended up finding a bank in a nearby town that lent me the money and I closed my account with my bank soon after.

Check cashing problems

In college had two incidents cashing checks from other people. I had an account with another large bank since they had the bank concession at my college. One day I get a check from my Mom for spending money. I go to the branch and see a teller. She tells me if I cash it I had to deposit the full the amount and it wouldn’t be available until the check cleared since I didn’t have enough money in my account to cover the check.

“But the check is from my Mom, see the same last name…” I said.

I ended up getting $10 cash and having to wait for the rest.

A similar tune happened when my roommate wanted me to cash an American Express money order for him since he didn’t have an account. Same thing. No deal because I didn’t have the amount in my account.

“But it is an American Express money order…” It wasn’t like it was Fred’s Money Order or something dodgy like that.

Check card problem

I was at a different bank and out of school and check cards started to come on big. I had been at the bank for 6 years with checking and a savings account and hardly any issues except for an occasional bounced check but at the time I had been bounce free for about two years. I applied for a check card and a week or so later got a letter back turning me down.

I went to the branch to find out why and was told that on some occasions the card system might be down and they would honor transactions as a form of credit. Since my credit score was bad they turned me down. Six years as a customer with a decent record meant nothing for a card that was tied directly to a checking account. In fact any funny business with the card would have more legal problems since check fraud is worse than problems with credit cards not to mention the bounce fees they could make.

I even went to the manager and he put in a special request and I was still turned down. I left that bank after that for a credit union.

Bounce fee pile on

It was at the credit union that I had a bad experience after bouncing an electronic transaction.

I misfigured my account balance and missed it by $1. I then had seven consecutive transactions hit and bounce before they closed my account. I owed over $200 in fees and I was so mad they let six bounces go through I refused to pay the fees. They put me on the naughty list and I was not able to open another bank account – not even a savings account – anywhere.

After some study I would have to wait 5 years for me to drop off and then I might be able to at least open a savings account. So for 4 and 1/2 years I used check cashing places for pay checks and asked other people to give me cash or money orders rather than personal checks if they gave me money.

About six months before I would drop off the naughty list the credit union renewed my ding which started the clock all over again. UGH!

I gave up and decided to pay the fees and be done with it.

The ironic thing was when I went to pay it they had no current record of it since it had been so long. They had to add my account back into the system with the negative balance deposit the fees then close it again. Luckily they didn’t charge me a bounce fee for that.

Today

I am at another credit union now and love it. They don’t give me any flack if an occasional overdraft happens. They ding me the fee but cover the check – had it happen only twice so far. They don’t keep trying to pay it so I get multiple dings.

I once had an unauthorized withdraw. Called them. They sent me a form by fax, I signed it and faxed it back and the withdraw was put back.

I had a large check to deposit and even though it was more than my account balance they let me have $100 cash immediately.

So I agree with the Huffington Post. If you can move your money to a community based bank or credit union.

Move Your Money

Source: Doug's Views

Friday Afternoon Confessional: Precious and few

I confess that I am writing this in advance, from Kalamazoo, in the course of a weirdly self-imposed “layover” between two Amtrak trains (one covered by my regular 10-ride ticket, the other conveying me to where my sister lives, from whence she shall drive me to our parents’). My purpose in visiting Kalamazoo on this day — an idea on which I was monomaniacally fixated in a way that I don’t fully understand now — was primarily to go through the month’s worth of mail that I had told the post office to hold and that they would only consent to hold until today. I also wanted to “check in” on my apartment, having left it totally unattended for a month.

I confess that on the mail front, I was fortunate, as there was a bill rapidly coming due, for a student loan servicer that bizarrely decided to shut down their online payment system for this particular month. My apartment is completely fine, except for an intimidating accumulation of ice on the (short) outside stairway, a problem I have no immediate means of addressing with any effectiveness.

I confess, dear readers, that I am out of so many things! Paper towel, mouthwash, anything other than condiments that goes in the fridge….

I confess that I remain skeptical about Christmas and that my preparation for it tends to be half-assed at best. The last couple years, this has worked out fine, as the gift exchange has been pretty heavily cut back — I now get one small item for the random exchange and one board game, nominally for my younger cousins but really for the whole family to provide us with something to do other than get lectured (with occasional time for questions) by my uncle about politics and/or religion.

I confess that I have entirely neglected to purchase anything for the “white elephant” exchange for the other side of the family, because I believe “white elephant” exchanges to be stupid and contrived — although I am proud of having contributed to The Girlfriend’s “white elephant” exchange at work, by pointing out a “Hooked on Phonics” kit at the thrift store. My mom will likely pick up the slack for me, as she always does, because I never put forth any effort whatsoever, because I have a bad attitude about the whole holiday. Similarly, for serious gifts, I usually split the cost with my sister, with her doing virtually all the shopping. In my defense , however, I do wrap them all, and beautifully.

I confess that 2009 may have been the best year of my life so far: I’ve solidified a great relationship, gotten my first real job with an adult-sized paycheck, gotten a PhD, written a book and gotten two book contracts, etc. I confess that I’m worried it may turn out to be the best year for the next several, as I return to the penury of my grad school existence. But there were only two rejections in the mail, for the whole month of December! And no more cancelled searches! And a pretty decent handful of new job listings posted, which I can apply for and not get, because when there are so many applicants for each job, they just round down and no one gets the job (i.e., 0% of applicants instead of 0.01%).

We’re going to be quite the generation, the most well-published temps and adjuncts and insurance salesmen and welfare recipients in the history of Westen Civilization, cashing our biannual book royalty checks at the Currency Exchange so that we can treat ourselves to the nice vodka — then thinking better of it and sticking with the cheap stuff. Because do you have any idea how much ramen you can buy for $35?

And with that, on behalf of all of us at The Weblog, at least the Gentiles: Merry Christmas to all!

I went with a gas mask for my white elephant gift–it received mixed reviews, if only because, despite continuing to call it a “white elephant” gift exchange, many of my coworkers insist on buying halfway decent gifts, and get indignant when someone gets something that’s actually ridiculous.

I confess this is probably a top 5 best year for me–nothing bad at all, but more smooth sailing than lots of excellent events.

I confess that I derive a lot of joy when a song I’ve been thinking of comes up randomly as I listen to music on shuffle—joy that is only increased when it’s a song I’ve not only been thinking of but playing deliberately, subverting the shuffle regime, something that occasionally makes me feel guilty, as if I’m giving myself illicit pleasure.

I confess that I’ve stumbled across the various “who got in” messages boards and so on for philosophy for the spring. I confess that I will be neurotically checking them until I receive all of my rejections/acceptances/torture(waitlist). I confess that, judging by a lot of the responses and the fields people are interested in, I’m glad I didn’t end up at a big state school with an analytic-only presence. I confess that, even though it seems like a lot of the online-undergrad community didn’t focus on the same types of schools as I did (the ones not on the Leiter report), I still worry constantly about always coming to philosophy from an ad hoc, independent position. In a weird way I feel relieved that my no-name liberal arts school might make me stand out, but I also confess that I am pessimistic about my chances with any of the Phd programs I picked.

Thanks. I think I’ve fully realized that and accepted it, although it certainly makes it interesting to try to explain to family. I’ve basically adopted the attitude that the process has slightly more elements involved than a game of craps, so we’ll see. I feel fairly confident that I will at least have one or two MA programs to look at, but I also think I’m prepared to get 8 or 9 rejection letters.

I confess that after watching four+ seasons of Curb, I don’t find Larry to be an asshole. I think during a re-watch I’ll make a log of supposedly objectionable things Larry does that I think are defensible, reasonable, good, etc. Or maybe I don’t know what ‘asshole’ means, I guess anything’s possible.

Also, a comment bleg: if anyone knows where to purchase anything by Peter Zapffe (translated into English), I confess that I’d love to know.

Ha, alright, disregard that; I do find Larry to be an asshole. What I was thinking is that Larry is not always an asshole. Larry is in a ton of awful and self-caused situations many of which I don’t think make him an asshole (rather sympathetic and an exemplar of petite courage) and a select few which obviously do. A real seductive villain, thank you Larry David.

Source: The Weblog