Bank With No Overdraft Fees
USA Today published an article recently that dove into current bank practices and fee hikes to cover losses. The article can be found here. This article is a prime example of why I, and some other investors, decided to create an opportunity for people to have a real checking account without having to pay overdraft fees and sky high interest rates. We realized that people were getting sick and tired of being treated poorly by their financial institution because of a slip up on a purchase worth less that $20. Take a look at our website and help yourself avoid overdraft fees for the rest of your life. You can find information and open an account at www.probityfinancialservices.com. To the best of my knowledge we are currently the only true checking account in existence that doesn’t charge overdraft fees. Give us feedback and let us know what you think. We look forward to your comments.
I wonder if your new company will be lenient towards people in bad credit situations who are having difficulty securing a new checking account? One of the reasons why I haven't simply left Chase is because of financial hardship: my hand-to-mouth existence of late is the reason why I was racking up overdraft fees: not enough of a "cushion" in my account. What I didn't realize was that the bank was authorizing transactions up to $400 over my account balance without my permission, meaning that I kept getting all kinds of overdraft fees.
Of course, this leads to the inevitable situation of not being able to get a checking account at another institution, because of my credit, and a previous bad mark on ChexSystems (another black mark in the finanical system). This means that I have no leverage.
What say you?
Steve,
Probity Financial Services does try to be lenient to people in bad credit situations. We understand that it is a tough economy and many people are stretched financially right now. Probity does access credit information during the online application session and will not open accounts for those who have been suspected of fraudulent activity or have an excessive history of checking account abuse (for example, charge-offs at many different financial institutions or very large charge-offs). But just having “bad credit” is not something that will automatically disqualify you.
I would recommend going to http://www.probityfinancialservices.com and clicking “Apply Now” and give us a chance.
Thanks.
Steve,
Once again, thanks for your post and your questions. You are correct, Probity does not charge any fees for using ATMs, but the owners of the ATMs may charge fees. We have researched surcharge-free ATM networks and would like to offer them in the future, once our customer base if of the size that we can afford to do that (they are pretty expensive to join). Our hope now is that our customers will pay so much less in overdraft fees that it will make up for any fees that the ATM owners might charge them.
As to deposits…One of the things you could do is keep your account at Chase and make your paper deposits there, but use a Probity Checking account as your primary operating account simply because we won’t charge you overdraft fees. A number of our customers do that.
Thanks again for your post.
I have been with Probity almost three months and I love it! Actually, I have spoken to you a couple of times, Tim (you told me your brother lives in nearby Alameda). Your customer service has been second to none, and I can't get through to Mary at the ChexVictims board that $19.95 a month is much better than $35 a pop when the large banks pay debits in the order THEY choose, not the order they come in. You, Debbie, and Kim have been fabulous!
SC
Thank you for the kind words Sherri! They are greatly appreciated.
ING Direct Bank has practically no fees for anything – no overdraft fees, no returned deposit fees, no monthly fees, no minimum balance requirement, etc. There offer unlimited free ATM transactions at over 37,000 locations. Free bill pay and e-bills too. You even earn interest on your checking balance. About the only thing you can be charged for is if you want them to overnight a check to someone. This is a much better deal.
ING encourages you to link a savings account to your checking.
Fred,
This is true, however, savings accounts are non transaction accounts and regulations restrict action on these accounts to six transactions per month. This means that if you’ve already had a few transactions (not including those done at an ATM or through a teller) then your savings account may only save you from one or two overdrafts before hitting the transaction limit. Many times it is people’s reliance on their savings account to save them that ends up getting them the overdraft.
Hey Richard,
You should check out ING's website again. You don't pay an overdraft fee, yes. Instead, you pay interest on the money that you "borrow" when you overdraft.
The interest rate is pretty competitive, but I wonder if they would be willing to differentiate themselves from other banks by actually notifying you when you overdraw your account. If you overcharged for $100 and didn't check your account for 5 days, your overdraft cost would be about the same as traditional bank's fee. Aren't the people who could really use no overdraft fees usually in that mess because they don't check their account balances in the first place? This is doing the same thing as other banks, just under a different name.
They also charge fees for stop payments (Probity doesn't), and for foreign transactions.
I tried to open my account online today, and they said that I would have to call because they couldn't open it over the internet??? How eles would I open the account?
Josh,
This could’ve been a number of things. One of the problems with online account opening is that all of your information has to line up across the board and sometimes this is a little tricky. For example, if you’ve moved recently, it could be that your address on your credit report doesn’t match the address you gave or something along those lines. If you give our people a call they can verify the information for you and finish the account opening process.