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>As someone who has cards that settle after ~48 hours and cards that reflect the state of transactions immediately I can clearly state that I heavily prefer the
by fluxquanta 11y ago
>As someone who has cards that settle after ~48 hours and cards that reflect the state of transactions immediately I can clearly state that I heavily prefer the former. The reason for this is that many transactions are not that simple and you end up with a ton of spam on your statements.
I will forever be against long settlement times for debit accounts. It reminds me of when I was in college and living paycheck to paycheck. Here in the US many banks have a scheme where they will purposely order your settled transactions from highest to lowest amount in order to charge you more fees should you run out of cash in the account.
Say you have $100 available and make 3 purchases in this order: $10, $10, $105. The bank authorizes all three transactions but orders them in decreasing value instead when the account settles. The first $105 charge hits your account causing you to be overdrawn and adding a $35 overdraft fee, then the two additional charges add an additional $35 fee each. So instead of settling the charges in order and being charged one $35 fee, they charge three $35 fees. And if you can't bring your account positive in time? Another fee, naturally.
It's been a while since I experienced this, but I feel for people who are less financially well off like I once was who still have to deal with this. I think banks now make it an option to disallow overdrafts, but by default they're allowed to "avoid embarrassment" when shopping.
- maxerickson 11y agoOverdraft protection is opt in since 2010. http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/bcreg/20091112a.htm http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/bcreg/2009111...
- fluxquanta 11y agoWell today I learned something!
- maxerickson 11y agoIt hasn't really solved the issue, but it was a positive step forward.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoCredit unions are thing as well. USAA is one of the largest, and very pro-consumer.
- maxerickson 11y agoUSAA is an insurance association that owns a bank: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAA#Legal_structure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAA#Legal_structure They do seem to have a focus on providing good service. edit: (so the members of the bank are not cooperative owners of it like they would be at a CU, they are customers).
- toomuchtodo 11y agoThanks for correcting me!
- maxerickson 11y agoThe goal is to correct the conversation (versus messageboard oneupmanship or whatever). I wasn't previously aware of the details of the legal structure of USAA, but I didn't think it was a credit union and went and looked it up. I fear such comments are tiresome, but I guess it doesn't take very many readers seeing the right information for them to be worthwhile.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoI think its always worthwhile to post correcting comments. My post you replied to was not sarcasm, for what its worth (I genuinely appreciated you correcting my mistake with factual information).
- maxerickson 11y agoI hadn't taken it that way, it just seemed like an opportunity to express the vague unease with and choice to continue with that sort of comment.