From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Jul 2 10:38:11 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from sydney.worldwide.lemis.com (pixpat.austin.ibm.com [192.35.232.241]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 718A937B401 for ; Mon, 2 Jul 2001 10:38:07 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from grog@sydney.worldwide.lemis.com) Received: (from grog@localhost) by sydney.worldwide.lemis.com (8.11.3/8.9.3) id f620rha00373; Sun, 1 Jul 2001 20:53:43 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from grog) Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2001 20:53:43 -0400 From: Greg Lehey To: Iain Templeton Cc: "G. Adam Stanislav" , freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: US checking accounts for non-US residents Message-ID: <20010701205343.A269@sydney.worldwide.lemis.com> References: <3.0.6.32.20010627145956.00ab4e30@mail85.pair.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: ; from iain@research.canon.com.au on Thu, Jun 28, 2001 at 09:48:52AM +1000 Organization: The FreeBSD Project Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-418-838-708 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.FreeBSD.org/ X-PGP-Fingerprint: 6B 7B C3 8C 61 CD 54 AF 13 24 52 F8 6D A4 95 EF Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Thursday, 28 June 2001 at 9:48:52 +1000, Iain Templeton wrote: > On Wed, 27 Jun 2001, G. Adam Stanislav wrote: > >> At 16:58 2001-06-27 +1000, Iain Templeton wrote: >>> Wow! A bank that doesn't charge you fees. You lucky Americans! >>> >>> Lets see, that'll be $5 for going below $500, $1.50 per other bank ATM >>> transaction. $1.something for an other bank EFTPOS transaction. Now, >>> where's my 0.25% PA interest? Lets not talk about overdrafts... >> >> Well, overdraft fees I find justifiable. The rest of them, I do not. >> Most importantly, what I meant was no minimum balance and no fees >> related to that. >> > Yes true, I tend to keep in the black, so have no problems. Even my > credit card. > >> Most banks, even in the US, do have monthly minimums and charge you >> "account maintenance fees" if you go below that. That is the fee I >> object to, and refuse to open an account in a bank that has one. >> > Yes, my bank recently upped the account maintenance fee to $2000, that > is just wrong. Hmm. I think you mean: s/account maintenance fee/minimum balance/ s/my bank/ANZ/ Agreed, that pisses me off too. >> For eaxmple, when I moved to the little town I live in now, I went >> from bank to bank looking for the right one. I explained to each one >> of them my conditions (the smart ones are willing to negotiate). >> One rep smiled and said: "You will not find that in Rhinelander." >> >> I did find it, and I came back to her to tell her so. >> > We have basically 5 banks in Australia, and a number of other smaller > groups who provide banking services (some of them are credit unions, > others are overseas banks). Generally the big 4 (+1) tend to have the > highest fees. And they're rising all the time. >> Anyway, the reason I object to this fee is that it is unfair and >> ridiculous. When you deposit money in a bank, the bank takes your >> money, invests it, and makes more money from it. They have a lot >> of nerve to charge you a fee for depositing less than $500 (or any >> amount). > > I think the one I find the hardest to comprehend is the service fees. If > I make more than 6 electronic (ie Internet, phone, EFTPOS, ATM) > transactions a month, I get charge $1.50 per excess transaction. > > I only get 2 over the counter transactions as well. Not that I need > them. Hmm. I'm beginning to wonder if this is ANZ after all. I hope not. > It's funny really, the banks make barely anything out of personal > banking, yet charge the highest fees. It looks as if they are > forcing the individual business units to make the highest profits, > rather than perhaps spreading things out across the entire business. A while back in Germany I was left with the distinct impression that the commercial banks were no longer interested in individual accounts. Maybe the same thing is happening in Australia. Greg -- See complete headers for address and phone numbers To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message