So I had a free checking account with Wachovia before Wells Fargo bought them out, and apparently Wells Fargo has been charging me 7 dollars a month on grounds of being poor. I went to close my account today, since being unemployed, I don't really feel like paying for someone to hold what little money I have.

The CSM basically dared me to do it and said that there is no such thing as free checking anywhere any more. He also said (while looking over my account) that I hadn't been charged anything. I told him I had been charged 7 dollars for the past 5 months. He said, well I only see two charges. (.............) Anyways, I closed my account and looked up some free checking.

I found https://www.ally.com/, which offers free checking with the added bonus of interest.

I probably won't open up one yet, since I've got no monies to direct deposit, as it's an online bank or some such, but does anyone have any recommendations or input on this bank?

Also, what banking nonsense have you had to put up with?

Isn't Ally owned by one of the banks that [censored] everyone over?

Go with a credit union.
I get free checking with my credit union

~

https://www.scfederal.org/

Yeah, but apparently a lot of these places now charge if you don't do like 10 purchases a month, or direct deposit like 500 a month or deposit like 900, or have a balance of like 1500.

7 dollar a month?!? i changed bank back in the 90s cause my old bank was charging me whenever i used the ATM.

Credit Unions are the way to go to avoid banking fees. While they can charge some fees, if they do, they are much lower than banks.

Wells Fargo tried to ding me on fees like this once. I told them if they want to charge me a fee for having a savings account, that I would take my checking account, my credit card, and my mortgage to another place. They refunded the fees.

Banking fees really irritate me, as they charge me for all the processes that they have automated over the years so their costs of offering them have dropped to almost 0. Really, how much does it cost the bank for their computers to move some bits around in an a record array to cover an overdraft? Not $35

No fee when ONE qualifying relationship is met MONTHLY on the same member number (see below); otherwise $5/month

• Average daily balance of $1,000¹ in Simple Checking
  
• Direct Deposit² of $250 AND 10 “credit” debit card transactions
  
• Month-end loan balance³ of $10,000 or more
  
• Direct Deposit² of $250 AND Visa? Platinum Card⁴
  
• First Mortgage
  
• Requirements waived for members age 25 and younger

A soda a day at the store takes care of that problem.

I remember one conversation I had with a bank that said I was not doing enough online transactions.I was doing 5, but they wanted 8 So, I said, fine I will set up 5 automatic payments to myself for $1 each to come up with the other transactions. I wanted to have some leeway as two bills I do not pay every month. About two months later, they changed their policy.

That is just first one on a search engine...

Here be the second one...
https://www.scscu.com/page.php

Right, but that's what I'm talking about.

My bank allows me free checking because I'm a student. Obviously I won't have that privilege in a few years...

go credit unions bro
banks will screw you

USAA is an awesome bank but I am not sure how they are on non-military. I have never had to pay for my checking account with them then again it may be based off conditions I am meeting as well. I pay $5 a month and that's for their credit monitoring which is great. They also have some good tools for managing money.

Ally used to be GMAC. It was reformed / renamed during the bailout.