Switching Banks

[cookingqueen123]

I decided to bite the bullet and switch banks. From Suntrust to a local credit union.
The fees they are charging at Suntrust are ridiculous. $5 to use my debit card and $4 for a savings account??
I plan on using the credit union strictly for local, check deposits and my main bank will be USAA.
I think people are hesititant to switch banks because it's a lot of hassle. When I think of all the accounts that are linked to my checking.... I am going to have to switch everything.

At this point, I just don't care. The CU is offering free everything and USAA reimburses $15 a month to use ATM machines. I can also just get cash when I shop.

 

[POOHsie]

You bring up a good point, one lots of people consider when thinking of changing banks. Personally, I have been firm about not getting into automatic billing with anyone. I pay everything online, but from my online payment account, on my schedule. It's as easy to do as automatic debits. Just create your own reminders, so you don't forget something.

In the late 1970s I had a car loan and a checking account at a certain bank. The loan gave you a small grace period, so you could time your payment with your payday and still pay on time. Back then, I was pretty much living payday to payday. The loan due date was the very end of the month. I can't tell you how many times, at least six, that I paid the loan around the 1st or 2nd of the next month (2 or 3 days after the official due date), but well within the grace period, and the bank came along and also took a payment out of my checking account without notifying me. When my account bounced checks and I had no cash to live on, I would be royally upset. They would tell me that I had paid in the next month, and so my loan was now a month late and that's why they took out the money! I finally got smart and put my checking account in another bank. That bank was ruining me!

 

[cookingqueen123]

I don't have anything on autopay but I do have all my individual, online accounts, like electric and cable, set up for me to pay on a monthly basis. So for the next month, I will have to change all that info.

 

[POOHsie]

Yeah, that's a finger exercise, but not hard. I think you have to pay a little further in advance of due date, while the new bank sends a manual check to payees, before it gets electronic transfers in place. At my bank it's officially 5 days for manual checks and 2 days for electronic transfers.

I won't go paperless, or automatic. I want my written statements, and you can't control when the money gets debited. Some payees take a long time to cancel automatic payments.

 

[BlueChariot]

We are in the middle of the same kind of switch over, except from Bank of America. We have one automatic debit, DH's Roth, that is taken out of our checking automatically. Unfortunately, the Roth was recently purchased by a new broker, and they don't yet have our information in their systems, so when we called customer service to get the bank information changed, they told us we were out of luck!!! At least until they get their system completely updated with all of the new brokerage information.

Regardless, its much easier for us to have this automatic debit rather than remembering to send a payment into the Roth each month, so its something we've just to deal with for the time being. I'm hoping they will fix the problem soon!!

 

[BubMunkeyBles]

We switched from BoA to USAA and its the best thing we've done. We have a joint checking, joint savings, personal checking and savings and savings for both our kids. I love being able to deposit checks online. The only thing I don't like is that I have no easy way to deposit cash. The fees all the other banks are starting charge is crazy, and they're jerks about it. We pay all our bills online, but I usually go directly through the bill site. Some things we have automatically debited like our car payments, but for the most part we set everything up monthly. It's too easy not to check on things otherwise for us.