Banks have been scrambling to find ways to boost their revenue after the government stepped in to quash overdraft abuses and cap interchange fees. Free checking accounts have already become harder to come by as banks have upped …
Banking
Online Banking Customers Demand Paper Checks
ING announced that for the first time it would make paper checkbooks available to accountholders. Odd throwback move or brilliant strategy?
This Is an Emergency Fund Emergency: 64% of Americans Don’t Have $1,000 in Savings
If you suddenly needed $1,000 to cover an unexpected expense, how would you come up with the money? In a new survey, only 36% of Americans said they’d simply turn to their trusty savings accounts. The rest would be forced to hit …
Customers Fight Back Against Overdraft Fee Tricks
A judge recently granted class-action status to a group of consumers who filed a lawsuit against Union Bank, claiming the San Francisco-based institution manipulated the order of transactions in order to maximize overdraft fees. Consumer advocates say that if the consumers prevail, it will send a strong message to other banks that they …
Do You Bank Online? You Probably Pay More for the Convenience Than You Think
Online banking has moved from the early-adopter fringe into the mainstream, and analysts say this trend is on track to continue. According to Fiserv, a financial services technology company, 80 percent of all U.S. households with …
Top 10 Consumer Complaints
What’s getting consumers up in arms lately? Check out the list that follows. Working with various state, local, and federal consumer agencies, the Consumer Federation of America has gathered and sifted through more than 252,000 …
Majority of Americans Want Better Checking Account Disclosures
Earlier this year, the Pew Charitable Trusts published the results of a study of the nation’s 10 largest banks and found that the median length of checking account disclosures is a whopping 111 pages.
10 Things That Are Actually Getting Cheaper
We live in a time when the costs of things like gas and gold have soared, just as a laundry list of everyday expenses such as coffee, rent, health care, used cars, and bacon are approaching or have already reached all-time high …
Payday Lending Has Gone Mainstream
Most of the public scorn for payday lenders is heaped on mom and pop storefront operations — and the national chains that do nothing but payday loans: publicly-traded companies like Advance America, EZ Corp, and QC Holdings. These companies make small cash loans to generally low-income consumers — and charge a fee of, perhaps, $20 for …
New CFPB Thinks Credit Scoring is Confusing, Too
Elizabeth Warren must have eaten her Wheaties Thursday morning, because the brand-new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is already busy. Bright and early this morning (we checked at 6:30 a.m. ET), a link to a new “credit card …
CFPB Will Tackle Credit Card Issues Soon, Advocates Predict
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau officially opens its doors today. Conceived in the wake of the subprime meltdown and the subsequent financial market crash, the CFPB was envisioned as a financial services version of something like the Consumer Product Safety Commission, except that instead of pulling lead-tainted toys or …
