How NOT To Bank.

[Bird]

part of my morning routine is to check my bank and credit card activity online; I知 the one affected by any mistakes/thefts, so it痴 my responsibility.......

takes all of five minutes at best

I check my bank every day and credit cards every few days.

My bank (actually a credit union) quit mailing statements, but I go on line the first of each month, print out the statement, and "reconcile" it (haven't found anything to actually reconciles in my memory).

 

[JethroB]

If you have a credit card, use it wisely, and pay the entire balance each month, what is the point of having a debit card? Easy cash at checkout?
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[cdaigle430]

If you have a credit card, use it wisely, and pay the entire balance each month, what is the point of having a debit card? Easy cash at checkout?
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My 2 cents...


There are several points to using a credit card vs debit. Debit is riskier especially if its the same account you have your paycheck or other funds deposited to on a monthly basis. You also make bill pays and pay bills through ACH transfers from the same account your debit card is using. Something goes wrong and its hacked you can lose you paychecks or in the least will have to update the account numbers on all ACH withdrawals. When traveling most debit card bank holders charge exorbitant ATM fees and foreign Transaction fees.

If you lose your debit card you have to wait until you get a new one.

A credit card with a good rate and no foreign transaction fees is even better. I charge to it and then once a month pay it off with a transfer from my savings or checking using ACH. If it gets hacked-most if not ll of them will reimburse you and issue you another card and if necessary still allow you to use it until the new one arrives.

Beware of the easy cash at checkout, alot of them charge a fee now for cash withdrawals at the checkout.

When I travel its all on my AMEX card, and once a month i pay it off and aviod interest payments from my checking. So easy and so much more financially and security sound....even if you dont travel alot. Even smarter is if you have an AMEX card that also provides rewards and air miles, you wrack them about for a free gift or round trip ticket. I have over 100,000 air miles on mine form purchases...no interest because I paid them off monthly. My AMEX card is widely accepted where as my debit card is not. Also-had one fraud experience where AMEX took care of the 1700 dollar fraud charge and one issue where we bought a gas kitchen stove for her mom in Brazil. She didn't need it, didn't take it out of the box and we returned it under AMEX policy and policy of the appliance store. They never came back to get the stove and AMEX reimbursed her the full amount. After 6 months of hassle they decided to keep the stove...free.

Another reason is for Lowes, Home Depot and other places like Best Buy. You buy something over 300 bucks and get 0% financing for 6-12 months and or 10-15% discounts. Sometimes in addition you get another 10-15% off for opening the card with them. No way cash is king there...no way. Debit card yeah right...

 

[Fuddy1952]

A credit card is cheaper than cash using a cash back card. I've never paid penalty or interest, pay balance in full each month. Lowes card on large purchases I'll use, get the discount, then write a check right there for balance.
If I need cash I just get it from the bank...no fees.

 

[Oaktree]

Another reason is for Lowes, Home Depot and other places like Best Buy. You buy something over 300 bucks and get 0% financing for 6-12 months and or 10-15% discounts. Sometimes in addition you get another 10-15% off for opening the card with them. No way cash is king there...no way. Debit card yeah right...

Any downsides to the store credit cards? I would imagine that any "points"/bonus would have to be spent in their store, or is that not the case?

 

[Diggin It]

Yeah, they're in-store only and I don't see where they earn points. The tractor place card has some loyalty rewards after X uses.

The only gotchas I've seen are that some discount/bonus offers can't be combined while others can, so you have to pay attention to the fine print.

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[MoKelly]

Any downsides to the store credit cards? I would imagine that any "points"/bonus would have to be spent in their store, or is that not the case?

One possible downside is your credit rating. The more credit cards you have (even if you don’t use them much or at all) can impact your credit rating. So, be careful if just opening up credit cards to get discounts at checkout.

MoKelly

 

[ruffdog]

One possible downside is your credit rating. The more credit cards you have (even if you don’t use them much or at all) can impact your credit rating. So, be careful if just opening up credit cards to get discounts at checkout.

MoKelly

Hmmm.....here's $5, now give me all your personal information. No.:thumbdown:

 

[3Ts]

I like ruffdog's comment! It is quite accurate.

The credit card is used to track everything you buy at the store and use it to target advertising back at you. And, they're hoping you won't pay off the card every month so that they'll get the late fees and interest as well. I see credit cards as a convenience and necessary evil. I'm very careful how I use them and which ones I get.

 

[Jstpssng]

I was educated to the perversity of CCs a couple of years ago. All of a sudden I started getting emails from a corner store which I frequent. The only way that they could have gotten that address is from when I used a CC there at some point in time. I even tried to talk to the manager, but she just psshfted me away.

 

[tallyho8]

I do online banking with the bank I use to pay all my bills with and check my balances every time I send a payment but this has me wondering about my bank CDs. The banks I have CDs with send me a statement each quarter notifying me of how much interest I have earned and the balance but I have no way of checking the CD each month so if someone hacked it and emptied it out at the beginning of the quarter, it would be 3 months before I noticed the loss. Wondering if the bank would claim I waited too long to inform them.

I just applied for that new credit card out that pays 5% back on your purchase of any of several categories that you choose and 1 to 3% back on other categories. I am able to check my credit score anytime for free without it affecting my score and I am notified if my credit score ever changes. When I applied for this card they notified me that my credit score was lowered from 801 to 800. Nothing to worry about. But I also had a credit card with this bank about 30 years ago when they gave high rebates to lure you in and after a couple of years they drop the high rebates figuring that they have you hooked now. No problem, I just get another high rebate card from another bank.

One reason for debit cards if you are a traveler, many retailers in some countries only take debit cards and not credit cards because they have to pay a larger fee on the credit card receipts. Last year when I was in Copenhagen at the fall festival in Tivoli Gardens I was refused my credit card when I went to pay for a large meal and had to resort to my debit card that I hide in the secret compartment of my wallet as I never use it. After 15 minutes trying to remember what my pin # was I was about to go ballistic when after the last sip of my cocktail the number popped into my mind and I was able to pay and leave.

When you have good credit you get many offers from credit card companies offering you $200 to $500 to take out their card and use it to charge $1000 to $5000 in the next 90 days. Every few years I will take them up on one of the higher offers to make a little easy cash but make sure not to overdo it and affect my credit score. And I pay my bill each month on time in full never paying interest or fees.

 

[Jstpssng]

I have no way of checking the CD each month so if someone hacked it and emptied it out at the beginning of the quarter, it would be 3 months before I noticed the loss.

You should still have the ability to access your bank at will, to ensure that all of your accounts are as expected. I access my CU at least every other day to make sure everything is OK. Call me paranoid, but first read what I wrote in post #17.
A few years back I checked my CC account after a trip to my parent's house... I had made just one stop that day to get gas, yet somebody got my numbers and bought a $90 gift card to Macys. I often wonder how many times that happens and people don't notice, pay the bill and the thief just keeps charging small amounts for months.

 

[two_bit_score]

Banks have algorithms to find these things, they probably knew and did not care.
Same bank who Escheated (yes a real term for stealing by the State), also gave my wife's money to another person since they put her account number instead of hers (off by one digit).
They did not catch the error, they did not check the signatures (or name, since I doubt the male they gave the money too had a female name).
They also did not apologize and made it difficult to get the money back and fought us on the bounced check charges.
This was the "most convenient" bank to give your money to someone else and then walk away instead of helping when they made the mistakes.

It’s not stealing. It actually protects your right to recover the money.

Like a Texas most every state Comptroller will have an Unclaimed Property registry where anyone can look up at anytime to see if unclaimed checks have escheated to the state or dormant accounts have been surrendered. Many times it’s things like where someone had a utility deposit with the light company and moved without collecting the deposit and no forwarding address was available. Those funds can roll into the Unclsimed Property fund and be reclaimed by the proper owner at any time.

Every time I look at the Texas list there are several people I know on it with unclaimed funds. I’ve even found some in my name from time to time. If say an insurance company sends you a claim check and it gets returned to them it’s possible that money will, eventually, wind up in Unclaimed Property. Better that you get it late than never at all just because you forgot about it.

 

[Jstpssng]

^^^^
I've found money for relatives on that site several times. Once it was my nephew's last paycheck from his summer job at a drug store, complete with name and address. By then he was going to school across the country working and never did collect it. I never have understood why they didn't jut mail it to him...

 

[two_bit_score]

^^^^
I've found money for relatives on that site several times. Once it was my nephew's last paycheck from his summer job at a drug store, complete with name and address. By then he was going to school across the country working and never did collect it. I never have understood why they didn't jut mail it to him...

He may have actually received the check in the mail........then “lost” it and never cashed it. That would cause a check to escheat to the state.


One caution I would give is do not let a third party collect the escheated money for you. You do not need to pay them a commission for filling out a simple form for you.

Understanding Escheat regulations for unclaimed wa...

 

[PILOON]

Once I worked for a firm that would only pay by direct deposit to the branch they used forcing me to open an account there.
One pay day all my checks bounced.
That bank had another client with same name and I was blamed for their error.
I'm Robert M.------- and he was (no M) Robert-------
The bank refused to accept any responsibility so I shut down that account and insisted my firm pay by check. They did.
Fortunately I never suffered any credit problems over that episode, that I was aware of.

What I do these days is have my bank automatically debit my acct every CC due date so that I don't ever now go past any 'due date'.
The only on line 'banking' I ever do is to check a balance.

I have 2 CC's.
One for daily use and the other is dedicated to online purchases and 3 automatic monthly bills.

Works 4 me.

 

[JethroB]

It’s not stealing. It actually protects your right to recover the money.

Like a Texas most every state Comptroller will have an Unclaimed Property registry where anyone can look up at anytime to see if unclaimed checks have escheated to the state or dormant accounts have been surrendered. Many times it’s things like where someone had a utility deposit with the light company and moved without collecting the deposit and no forwarding address was available. Those funds can roll into the Unclsimed Property fund and be reclaimed by the proper owner at any time.

Every time I look at the Texas list there are several people I know on it with unclaimed funds. I’ve even found some in my name from time to time. If say an insurance company sends you a claim check and it gets returned to them it’s possible that money will, eventually, wind up in Unclaimed Property. Better that you get it late than never at all just because you forgot about it.

Good post. :thumbsup: It reminded me to check my states list again and I found two items possibly related to my deceased brother. I passed the information along to his wife/widow to investigate.

 

[two_bit_score]

Good post. :thumbsup: It reminded me to check my states list again and I found two items possibly related to my deceased brother. I passed the information along to his wife/widow to investigate.

Glad it helped you!

A lot of people don't understand how escheat works and why it's necessary. I check the Texas list routinely about once a year. This thread was a good reminder to check it again.


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[grsthegreat]

I found over $23,000 due my wife from her mothers Calif estate by checking these online accounts a few years back. The state knew all the pertinent info, they just never wanted to send the money. Took awhile but they finally paid it off.

 

[two_bit_score]

I found over $23,000 due my wife from her mothers Calif estate by checking these online accounts a few years back. The state knew all the pertinent info, they just never wanted to send the money. Took awhile but they finally paid it off.

It's not uncommon to see as much as $100,000+ on the list in Texas. One I recall seeing recently was a life insurance payment that was escheated. It's not the state's responsibility to track down the owners. They put the information out there for people to check and the redemption does not expire. Of course they will closely verify any claim to the money, as they should. So check often, claim your money and be happy that there is a way for it to be preserved until it could be legally claimed.


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