SO, I’ve had a bit of a rough go with the debit card the past few days. For me, it started on Friday, when a purchase I was trying to make with the debit card was rejected. First thing I did when I got home (after using one of my husband’s credit cards for the purchase; I don’t carry credit cards with me normally) was check my online account balance. Everything appeared to be in order.
I should have looked deeper.
I went to the bank Saturday morning to talk to someone about this. They looked at my account history and found …read more

Bank fees and credit card fees are on the rise. As financial institutions feel the squeeze from the credit markets, they are in turn squeezing customers — raising fees for a variety of services. The cost of making late payments is about to go up as well. And some banks are starting to include service charges on accounts that:

see “too many” transactions
don’t meet “minimum” transaction rules
fall below a certain balance.

You can always switch banks if you do not like the fees. After all, there are plenty of banks out there that do not charge fees for accounts. (Of course, the …read more