Regarding the Debit thing, banks can charge higher clearing rates on credit transactions vs. debit transactions. Retailers typically give you a choice, but they (and eventually we) pay the price. There was a stink about this recently and I’m not sure how it got resolved. In the end, the banks have found a way to ±3% off the entire retail economy with these fees. The strategy of the banks anymore is to force everyone to plastic so that they can collect interest and/or fees.
Regarding checking, I had an experience with Chase where, sometime in the last year they stopped providing me with copies of checks I’d written. They previously charged me $4.95/mo for this. They claim they notified me of this change, and somewhere in the 10,000 piece sh!tstorm of marketing materials they send me, they probably did.
In the past when I sat down to to taxes or reconcile medical insurance claims, I’d simply take out my statement and I could scan the check images for relevant checks and be done with it. No more.
When I noticed this a few weeks ago, I emailed them through the message system in online banking. I got a response, and queried back and forth 6 or 8 times getting increasingly contradictory messages about how to solve this, and why the change was made. Finally I called and talked first to a CSR and then to a supervisor. When I complained bitterly to the CSR and supervisor about this change— which I insisted was made without my knowledge or approval— their response was ‘you have no choice, this is our policy’.
They explained to me that most checks are presented automatically and no longer pass through the system. It’s a computerized debit/and credit on the respective accounts. Chase vaults the actual checks eventually for ‘safekeeping’.
BUT they would sell me a copy of any check I’d written for $6 per check. I pointed out to them that these were MY documents and that this policy in essence meant that they were holding my information hostage. They denied this. And then I asked them, ‘if the checks are presented electronically and never go through the system, how is it that you can sell them to me but not give them to me for a modest fee?’. They had no answer. The bottom line is that they know they have something of value and they mean to sell it to me at a high price.
We went round and round on this, with me asking them to just print my images for the last year. I simply could not believe that a high-level supervisor at the online banking center couldn’t come up with a way to print my checks and just mail them to me. She was very evasive. When I pressed her for her name, she at first declined; when I said I would complain to the CEO she gave it to me. She would not identify anyone in the organization higher than her. She did say that if I went to my local branch bank that the branch manager would print out copies of my checks free of charge.
So, the other day I went into my bank, identified myself to the CSR, and requested copies of all checks written on my two Chase checking accounts for the last year. She balked, saying that she could sell them to me for $6 each; I recounted my experience with the online people and that they said I was entitled to the checks. I told her to get her supervisor. The branch manager came out and reluctantly agreed to print the checks, but not before protesting that ‘it’s really difficult to do’ and ‘not our policy’.
I pointed out to him that it’s even harder (maybe impossible) to do on their website, and he said, ‘our system is not designed for this’. I asked him to repeat that statement, and then I said, ‘The faulty design of your database is not my concern. You’re holding my documents hostage’.
I pointed out to him that any check written on a Chase account goes into a black hole. You can make note in your register, but you can’t sort or aggregate these or prove to anyone what the memo area of the check said. Then when you get your statement, it shows how much was deducted on what check number but no record of the payee.
After much back and forth, and me asking him how I would fix this, he offered two solutions: xerox every check you write, or open a Chase Premium Checking® account with a minimum $15,000 balances on your Chase accounts.
I don’t know about anyone else, but the last place I’d park $15,000 is Chase bank.
And do they really think that xeroxing every check is a viable business model?
So, the poor CSR who had the bad luck to meet me has to dig up about 120 check images. She predicted it would take ‘days’
And I have to find a new bank.
I have my checking account with a local credit union. Among the features with this account, I can access online a printable image of the front and back of every check that has cleared. I write very few checks these days, opting instead for online bill payments.