Bank's Check Cashing Fee

[A Person]

You just can't put the horse before the buggy AP no matter what weird logic you try to use.

Well, I'm sorry but that's the way it's always been done up here


But then we're not reeel smart like you suthern folk what puts the buggy in front

[fukbanks]

As a business owner you should be happy people are coming to your establishment to cash checks since it shows your company has loyal customers! you'd want to wow them with great service and try to peel them away from their banking institutions and join yours, not piss them off and leave a nasty taste in their mouths over $5. I have chase as my banking institution and don't agree with some of their practices but my account was grandfathered in from Washington mutual which was a great bank!chase constantly tries to get me to alter my account so they don't have to honor my benefits agreed upon when signing up with WM.

[me]

All you people griping of a $5 fee obviously do not understand that banks are in business to be profitable. The fee is a disincentive to non-paying-customers utilizing the banks services (which cost a lot of money to provide) for free. It is very expensive to monitor/transport/secure cash. You people are thinking of only yourself cashing a $100 check. Well, the reality is that easily happens 20 times a day per branch. If the banks didn't provide a disincentive then people would regularly do this and the bank would have a difficult time figuring out how much money to have on hand at their branches and would also have to pay to have a larger amount on hand only to give it away for free. The bottom line... if you owned a business and had mulitple people always trying to use your service for free- thus costing you money, you'd change the way you did business and figure out a way to charge them.

Im sorry but you are really a moron. Nobody is losing money here the cheque is an instrument of instruction for the release of funds it was always like this since the idea of cheques was created all banks did it in the past for customers of other banks its called reciprocity. All of this is pretty new stuff that the banks are trying to make common practice on the young ignorant generation that does not complain or protest when being taken advantage of.
i'm pretty sure charging a fee by the bank that holds the account client or not is illegal. The banks are getting away with this because they are insolvent right now and they are the ones that control the law and this country.
Cheque cashing places are a complete different story they are a third party and are taking a risk and are providing this service for people that can not get a bank account because they've been flagged by CHEX SYSTEMS.
The Patriot Act now allows banks to collect social security numbers on non interest barring accounts of any signatory, this information allows the banks to use their own version of a credit bureau called CHEX SYSTEM to filter out their client base. People that are on this system find it impossible to get off or even get a bank account to pay their basic utilities, in a sense they are royally screwed. This system in this sense is even worse than Experian, Equifax,and Trans Union. The cheque cashing fee although for most of us can be avoided by going to our bank and hope the cheque does not bounce because we get hit with a fee for that, needs to stop so that a legitamate avenue exists for certain transactions.

[BanksSuck]

This isn't about Wachovia... but similar in topic. Today, my husband and I went to a Chase bank to see about a military VA disability check that was sent to them in to a closed account. They opened my closed account that had a negative balance because of fees they imposed, deposited the check (very large), and then sent the rest to the collections dept. Now, they're sending us a CHECK (why not direct deposit, or let me have the cash when I walked in to the branch, or ?) written out of a Chase account... and here's the ringer... THEY WON'T CASH IT for us when we actually get it! They won't cash a check written by their own company... something is fishy about that!!!

[Guest]

All you people griping of a $5 fee obviously do not understand that banks are in business to be profitable. The fee is a disincentive to non-paying-customers utilizing the banks services (which cost a lot of money to provide) for free. It is very expensive to monitor/transport/secure cash. You people are thinking of only yourself cashing a $100 check. Well, the reality is that easily happens 20 times a day per branch. If the banks didn't provide a disincentive then people would regularly do this and the bank would have a difficult time figuring out how much money to have on hand at their branches and would also have to pay to have a larger amount on hand only to give it away for free. The bottom line... if you owned a business and had mulitple people always trying to use your service for free- thus costing you money, you'd change the way you did business and figure out a way to charge them.

The thing is it is not using a service for FREE. The business who banks with them and wrote the check is doing business with them and paying a fee for those services... including check-writing.

[Guest]

wachovia_five_dollar_fee.jpg

I was already aware that someone by now had found this check cashing fee illegal. My assumption was if National City, Wells Fargo, & Bank of America all were sued and found liable for this fee, then certainly they'd have discontinued it elsewhere? Right. Nope. Apparently Wachovia and the rest of these corrupt banks all continue the five dollar check cashing fee everywhere else.

It's not as simple as calling the fee illegal. Actually, California (one state) has a law that employers must provide a method for their employees to cash their checks free. The current situation with the $5 fee was causing a violation of that law. They resolved that problem by offering free direct deposit to the company, which, in turn, allowed the employees to get a free checking account--no $5 fee. Anyone who opted not to get direct deposit would still have the $5 fee as the fee was not deemed illegal... but only the failure of the employer to provide an OPTION for free cashing.

Btw, I hate this fee as much as everyone here.

[A Person]

Could be worse, Ikenna Njoku tried to cash a Chase Bank check at a Chase Bank - and was thrown in jail for being black.

But when Njoku showed up at the Chase branch near his house intending to cash the check, he was in for a nasty surprise.

The check had Njoku’s name and address on it and was issued by JP Morgan Chase. But the Chase Customer Banker who handles large checks at the Auburn branch was immediately suspicious.

“I was embarrassed,” Njoku said. “She asked me what I did for a living. Asked me where I got the check from, looked me up and down—like ‘you just bought a house in Auburn, really?’ She didn’t believe that,” he said.

The Customer Banker said the check looked fake, so she took it, along with Njoku’s driver license and credit card, and called Bank Support.

After waiting for about 15 minutes, Njoku said he got impatient and told Chase he was leaving to do an important errand. By the time he got back, the bank was closed. Njoku said he called customer service and asked them what he should do. He says they told him to go back to the bank the next day to get his money.

But when Njoku arrived, it wasn’t the money that was waiting for him.

“They just threw me in jail; they called the police and said this guy has a fraudulent check,” Njoku said.


Auburn police arrested him for forgery - a felony crime.


More ...

He lost his job and his car as a result

[Liv]

Well that's what he gets for being black.

I get that all the time....

[sLiPpY]

Life's amazing. We put our money in banks so they can rob us. We rent houses from banks at incredibly high cummulative interest rates; and we call it an investment vs. indentured servitude.

Why people continue to use banks when there are plenty of good Credit Unions available? I'll never know?

In a Credit Union you are a share owner...when using a bank one is a bend over.

[Liv]

Citi-Bank, just added a $20 charge to their free checking, which I only had open because of the AAdvantage miles attached. I tried to work with them, but they refused. So I closed the account.

The banks, feel, as the movie states "they're too big to fail", and I suspect, banking is going to get real expensive, real fast now that they're not making their money other ways.

[Free American]

I have not seen this mentioned in any previous post. Each person defending the $5 check cashing fee practice as legitimate appears completely ignorant of some fundamental concepts of banking, even if they work at one. When an account holder makes a deposit, they are LOANING the bank money, which the bank uses in other transactions to make profits using the aggregated pool of demand account balances. Notice the term "demand account"? It is categorically liquid. When the loan originator (the account holder) writes a check, they are DEMANDING those funds be made available to themselves or the named party on the check. The service of the funds being available immediately (for amounts under a "large cash transaction" threshold) is PAID FOR by the EXISTENCE of the account balance within the possession of the bank. Additional fees are both unwarranted impediments and obfuscated petty theft.

Put down your Twitter and take a class or read a book, because your lack of basic understanding while shooting your mouth off has given me a mild case of nausea. The adult table is reserved for those with basic comprehension.

[So Annoyed]

I keep reading over and over that the banks are trying to justify charging these fees to "non-customers" in order to keep them from "holding up the lines for their customers". HELLLLOOO????!!!! It was THEIR CUSTOMER that wrote the check drawn on THEIR account in the first place. The whole purpose of writing a check is for the bank to act in GOOD FAITH as a middle man of sorts. When you write a check to ANY PAYEE you are essentially giving the bank permission to draft your account and pay to the payee the sum or face value of the check. It does not say anywhere on the check, please pay to the order of John Smith, the sum of XXX Dollars + take an extra five for yourself. I say if there isn't legislation in place to stop this practice, then anyone with a checking account on a bank that implies fees like this should just pull their account and move their assets to a credit union where there are no fees imposed.