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Don't Like Paying Monthly Service Fees To Your Bank? Here's How To Make 'Em Stop Charging You! Plus: How To Fight Nickel-And-Dime Fees That Are Quietly Gouging All Of Us While Padding Their Profits! And: The One Phone Call You Have To Make In Early 2004
New Year's Day, January 1, 2004
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Dear Ben: Beware your bank's tactics to get monthly maintenance fees. Four years ago I opened an account with my current bank. I recently called them to find out what I'd have to do to get their $20-per-month fee lowered-or dropped altogether-thinking I'd have to maintain a monthly balance of $500 or more (like most places).
Their customer service rep said she'd give me a "no monthly service charge/no fee" kind of account now because I'm asking for it. I asked her why no one had notified me of this before and why did they continue to bleed me for $20 per month, and she replied: "offers like this are sent out in mailings to customers, but many times the customer throws them away and never reads them." So beware! If you're paying a monthly service charge, call/visit your bank and tell them you want an account that waives this fee-and you could save yourself hundreds of dollars a year!
Also worth noting: Many of these types of accounts are limited to a small number of visits per month to what my bank refers to as their "banking center" (my bank limits the number of included/free visits to three a month). For my bank, a visit to their drive-thru or walk-in counts as against my monthly allowance-but ATMs don't-per billing period. If I exceed this limit, I'll have to pay for my own checks, but since I use my debit card and have direct deposit, I barely use checks anymore, anyway. Consumers beware...and save yourself some money!
Stacy, via e-mail
Dear Stacy: Good advice with a bigger message: "Ask and you shall receive." Dropping unnecessary monthly bank service charges should be a no-brainer, especially since there are so many banks that offer true, free monthly checking accounts with no minimum balance required. But the real lesson from your story is to challenge fees and keep more cash in your pocket. Major corporations are doing what they can to pump up their bottom lines by burying unnecessary fees in their bills. The New York Times recently referred to this form of "stealth inflation" consumers face as being camouflaged by terms like "regulatory assessments," "handling" and "re-stocking" charges, generating an estimated extra $100 million in fees for the hotel industry, $2 billion for the banks, and $11 billion for our pals at the credit card companies. Oh yeah: It also tacks-on an extra 20% to your monthly phone bill, too.
So how do you fight back? First, you've gotta get mad. You can't roll over and not take the time to call their hand and either force them to start dropping charges, or else you'll follow through on your threat and take your business elsewhere. Second? You have to identify the superfluous charges and give the provider a chance to not only remove them from your monthly bills, but credit back charges for the last 6-12 months. If they refuse, close your account and hit them where it hurts-in their sales numbers. I recently woke up and realized that I was still paying $49.95 a month (since 2000) for DSL service and in essence, being penalized for being an early-adopter of the technology (instead of being rewarded with a lower monthly rate) for being a long-time and loyal customer. Despite the fact that the customer service rep took 42 minutes to help me once they figured out what I wanted to talk about, they quickly offered to drop my monthly fee to the prevailing $26.95 deals used to lure new customers when I threatened to cancel. Again and to summarize the moral of this story: Ask! All they can ever do is say "no."
Dose of Dover For The Week: Please add a call to your automobile insurance agent to your New Year's Resolutions list, and make sure you're covered by un-insured/under-insured motorist coverage. These are coverages that protect you in the event you're in an accident with someone that's either driving without insurance or has the bare minimum/lowest coverage limits required by law. As a survivor of an accident involving someone that had minimal coverage (I've endured fourteen surgeries and hundreds of thousands of medical bills...so far), my wish for you in 2004 is to avoid unnecessary (financial) pain and suffering.
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