I was sorting through my junk snail mail the other evening when I stumbled across something that made me pause for a minute. It was a letter from Chase, no, not some 
guy named Chase, but the big mega bank that recently acquired my ex-mega bank WaMu. A number of years ago I stopped using WaMu as my main bank because I found a better alternative. I kept an account open there for reasons which I won’t bore you with. When WaMu died, I ended up with a Chase account through no fault of my own.
The cover of the letter from Chase said that I needed to make an important decision. Usually this means they want me to decide what design I want on the front of the new credit card they are offering me at only 25% interest. Against my better judgment I tore open the envelope and read the contents. It turns out Chase is eliminating overdraft protection on their checking accounts unless you specifically opt in. Lets step back for a minute, a standard service that was included with an account is being eliminated, and in its place they are implementing the same service, but only if you ask for it? Why? Reading between the lines it appears this is a way for Chase to get out of covering overage charges for a big chunk of their customers. After all, how many people are going to take the time to read the notice, let-alone respond telling Chase that they still want the service that they have always had, but never had to worry about? How can Chase lose? And the big banks wonder why no one likes them…
I’m not going to respond, I’ll let the coverage I never use, on an account I never use go away and be none the worse. Maybe I should just close that Chase account anyway…
I thought that the reason you had to specifically “opt-in” was because it costs money now? I could be wrong.
Either way, Hubby and I have been inundated with mail from them about this. I’m not joking when I say we’ve received over 10 separate letters from Chase about it. Talk about killing trees. We are likely switching banks soon.
I know that WaMu charged fees for overdrafts, I assume that when Chase acquired WaMu the fees were still in place.
You clearly haven’t been paying attention to the recent financial reform. Banks love overdraft fees, they make (made) tons of money off of them. They hate having to get rid of them. But the new law required that only people who opt in to overdraft protection could be covered by it, banks were no longer allowed to add overdraft protection automatically, they have to get permission to add it explicitly from each person for each account. That’s why you get so much mail about it, they want you to readd it. Everyone who readds it is another potential person who will overdraft and they can charge a large fee to.
I have to say overall I’ve been pretty happy with Chase since they took over WaMu. I still have free checking, checks are still free, and their online banking is pretty decent for what I need.
The average American has no idea what is going on with financial reform, they only know that their bank is hassling them about something they don’t really understand.
I’d actually guess most people at least have an inclining of an idea that there’s some sort of financial reform going on, it’s been in the news a LOT.
And if you don’t understand something, you should probably learn about it. Ignorance isn’t an excuse.
The fact that financial reform has been in the news does not mean people are paying attention.
http://people-press.org/report/319/public-knowledge-of-current-affairs-little-changed-by-news-and-information-revolutions
Ignorance may not be an excuse, but it’s a sad reality.
*inkling
http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/109931/the-new-bank-fees-how-to-fight-back;_ylt=Asuv0kPhwSxQTgDkez2Pd0pO7sMF;_ylu=X3oDMTE5amo4dm4wBHBvcwM3BHNlYwN3ZWVrZW5kRWRpdGlvbgRzbGsDbmV3YmFua2ZlZXNo?mod=bb-budgeting
yeah I’d leave chase. I’m closing my account with them this week. Becu is a better bank if you ask me
credit unions tend to be a little better than banks sometimes although there can be downsides
I would go with a credit union before I went with Chase or BofA.
who are you with then?
USAA http://www.usaa.com
i wasn’t in the military
i think chase bank is better