This practice should be illegal, just like processing withdrawals before deposits is now illegal, which was also done to maximize overdraft fees (at least I'm pretty sure it's illegal now).
Our government needs to make it easier to switch to a different bank. Tons of people would leave these awful banks for credit unions and such if it was easy to do. I mean it's possible to switch banks, it's a big headache though. People just have too many other things to worry about right now to deal with headaches like that.
I was originally going to get a Wells Fargo account, but that changed when I decided to go to uni in Florida - before the wachovia merger happened. My father decided that not being able to keep tabs on my account was a dealbreaker, so I ended up getting a USAA account.
Worked out for the best, because USAA has some of the best customer service in the industry.
You're going to uni, but your father keeps tabs on your account? I don't know whether it's you or him, but really, you should both be able to trust you to take good financial care of yourself. It's an ability everyone needs and that you can't learn early enough.
I wouldn't say that's completely unheard of when I went to college. If he's watching it because he doesn't trust you to manage your own money that's one thing, but there are other reasons for being able to manage an account.
For instance, if the father wasn't a custodial on the account he can't deposit money in the event he needs it. My parents would have to mail me a check or pay a $25 bank transfer fee because they bank elsewhere. With student privacy laws, the father can't directly see school bills. Those have to go to the student, even if the parents are paying. My school also had a student account where you could pay for food, vending, and laundry. This is a separate account that requires replenishing, so the guys I knew would sometimes call their folks asking them to deposit some money for expenditures (freshman/sophomore year, everyone pretty much had some side income by then).
For instance, if the father wasn't a custodial on the account he can't deposit money in the event he needs it.
When did that start? I've deposited money many times into other people's accounts without problems; you don't even have to show ID -- just fill out a deposit slip with their account number and hand over cash.
In person? Not sure about that, but I know that recently I tried to set up payments between BofA and WellsFargo and I wasn't able to do automatic or online transfers of amounts over $1000.
When I was younger I had a joint custodial account with my father, for a similar purpose, though it wasn't my primary checking account. It's much, much easier to move money between two accounts you control.
He probably doesn't keep active tabs. I doubt he wakes up and says "I wonder what <my name> bought yesterday" (if he did, that'd many boring weeks, followed by a day where I went grocery shopping).
as caw[1] said, it's really more so that he can easily transfer money to the account in the event I need it.
That's pretty common. When I was in college, my parents wanted to keep tabs on the account they deposited working money in. It gives them peace of mind, especially considering the sums being discussed. The only time it ever came up was when I switched from take 15 hours to 22 and my burn rate shot through the roof.
If you open an investment account with them, and keep at least $1500 in there, you get a nice checking account -- refunds ATM fees, free rental car insurance, good customer service.
USAA banking is available to everyone. Some nicer services (deposit by phone, insurance) are for service members only.
For what it's worth, my brother (Air Force) sold me on USAA after he signed up with them. I worked at Wells Fargo at the time, so I had the best accounts. I'm happy I made the switch. Also, their web interface and iOS apps are excellent. By far the best I've seen.
Like others have said, there is an app. Prior to the app (and still available), you would scan both sides of the check and email the images.
They also have a deal with UPS that allows you to go to a UPS store where they swipe your ATM card, scan the check and process the deposit. It's free. I believe the UPS method is the only one available to USAA bank customers that are not eligible for the insurance products. It's not too bad. There are a lot of UPS stores and their hours are at least as good as most banks.
It's amazing. I started a new job and their paycheck provider screwed up, so I wound up with paper checks. I couldn't afford the delay in mailing them to USAA, so I tried the app deposit method. Take a pic of front, take one of back (after writing a few lines 'deposit only' yada, yada), and it was deposited instantly.
You enter the details of the check, how much it is for and the like. You take a picture of the front and back of the check. That is it. They must do some sort of OCR on the image you upload because it usually takes me more than one try before it will accept most of the checks I have tried.
Honest question, since I haven't done it in 10 years, but what is the big hassle in switching banks? Shouldn't it be as easy as signing up for a new account and taking a cashiers check out of the old one and closing it. I'm curious to know what other hurdles they put in place to keep you locked in.
Banks don't close accounts. So you can have a reoccurring charge on a canceled debit card show up on a canceled bank account get charged for it get an over draft, have a negative balance which you get charged for every day. Then once the balance is negative enough they sell your 'debt' to a third party debt collector.
PS: The first half of this happened to me costing me close to 300$ in 2 weeks and it's only me double checking that everything was fine that I got informed. At no point in this process did they attempt to contact me and they would have gladly let this grow into the thousands before contacting me for payment etc. O and the debt card had been canceled for over 3 months before that transaction happened.
They don't by default, but they can completely close an account. When they politely refuse, tell them your debit card and checks have been lost and need to be canceled. The bank is on the hook for charges to a debit card that has been reported lost, so it solves the problem of recurring charges to the debit card.
I had reported the card lost which is why it was canceled for 2 months before I closed the account. However, reoccurring charges setup before that point are transitioned into direct bank drafts and continue after that point. As to closing the account, they teller said "it's closed" what are the magic words to say after that?
Send a letter by certified mail to the bank informing them that Mr T. Eller confirmed that the account is closed and that any additional fees, costs whatever are not your responsibility any more?
In that case they either have to react or, if they dream up some fantasy fees later, you have at least something in writing (and maybe grounds for a complaint about fraud with the DAs office) ?
I'm amazed with what US banks can get away:
Selling your private data to some sleazy marketing organization, unless you opt out? A criminal offense here
Charging more the 15% annual interest on any credit granted (including cards)? A criminal offense here
Threatening you because some scumbag used your "pre-approved credit card" scamogram (for which you never asked) to defraud you? They'd be laughed out of court
While I don't believe that it should be the governments role to protect consumers from their own stupidity it should crack down hard on this sort of outright fraud. Good faith is a basis of contract law and contracts designed to defraud one party should be outright illegal (and are actually unenforceable in a lot of countries)
You don't need a cashiers check, you can write an ordinary check.
If you have bill pay setup then you have to copy all those accounts to the new account.
You have to keep track of which checks you have outstanding, and especially if you have some people who take their time to cash them you may have to wait 6 months before you can close the account.
You are just making my point more. Not only are you missing a bunch of other things that would need to be done (What about my HSA? What about all my other recurring payments not setup through the bank? What about my direct deposits?), it would take a substantial amount of time to take care of that. Why would I want to waste a day doing all that crap? I would definitely forget some things too.
Yes, it's possible, but it's a pain in the ass. I should be able to export my entire account from Bank A and login to Bank B and import it in a matter of minutes. They know that it is difficult, that's why they are doing these fee raises and getting away with it.
Our government needs to make it easier to switch to a different bank. Tons of people would leave these awful banks for credit unions and such if it was easy to do. I mean it's possible to switch banks, it's a big headache though. People just have too many other things to worry about right now to deal with headaches like that.