Jolita Richmond at Kash King in Temple Hills, Md., last week. Unbanked workers
typically spend hundreds of dollars a year to cash checks.
Posted on 08/17/2010 6:13:13 PM PDT by GOP_Lady
Efforts Target Households That Use High-Cost Check-Cashing Services.
Federal and local governments are trying once again to persuade some of the 17 million U.S. adults who rely on check-cashing services to open their own bank accounts.
Past efforts to lure "unbanked" consumers into the financial mainstream have fallen short. Some states require state-chartered banks to offer low-cost accounts, but banks rarely promote them. A Treasury Department initiative earlier this decade offered grants to banks and community groups to sign up consumers, but few accounts were opened.
Jolita Richmond, a nursing assistant in Laurel, Md., patronizing a Kash King check-cashing store last week, said she closed her bank account earlier this year after $300 in overdraft fees piled up without her realizing it. Her income-tax refund, deposited into her account, took care of the charges but she decided it wasn't worth the cost.
"That's when I said, 'Forget it with the banks,' " she said. "I just lost hope with them."
Ms. Richmond, 39 years old, now relies on check-cashers that take a cut of her paycheck—generally 1% to 4%—or heads to the bank where a check was drawn. When she needs plastic, she uses a prepaid debit card that charges $1 a purchase and $3 to reload.
Still, she misses having a place to sock away $30 a month for emergencies.
"I'm not really saving anything," she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Unbanked workers
A new victim class?
Funny, I have no problem with my bank.
I’ve been with them for at least 20 years, and have never had a complaint or a problem, not even a single error on my account statements.
If you don’t like fees, don’t use the services that charge fees.
Yeah, well. You have to not be worried about being tracked down by the police or by child welfare agencies before you can get a bank account. Unless they’re waving the requirement that you give a permanent address.
Unbelievable. I guess some people cannot figure out things for themselves (like their bank account balance) and need the feds to help them.
LOL.
It’s probably already in the so-called finance reform act.
From reading it appears the biggest problem is those pesky and unfair overdraft fees. The nerve!
Obama's poll numbers will go off the charts!
I can’t fathom anyone not having a bank account!
I’ve had a bank account since I was 8 years old and got my first paper route.
My dad took me down to the bank and the bank president spent a half an hour explaining the entire system to me and opened my account.
in the last 65 years i’ve never written a bad check and never had any kind of a bank charge except for the printing of checks.
I’ve also never borrowed one cent except for a mortgage on our home.
Count yourself lucky that you never had a bank error. I’ve had many. Like when I asked for over draft protection and they put it from my checking to my savings. So I wrote checks knowing I had money in my savings to cover it. They charged me over $300 in bounce check fees. I’m sorry but I don’t like the banks and the government can stick it if they want me to use a bank account. I will continue to get my refunds in the mail.
I’ve also never borrowed one cent except for a mortgage on our home.
Well I'd like to welcome you to the Chump Club. We're glad to have you as a member.
Big government at work, Obama will put a bank account in every home and probably fund it too. No need to make your own deposits.
The poor are indeed better off with the check-cashing places.
Banks today are run by greedy thieves, plain and simple.
Jolita is right, the banks will bleed their accounts dry with various punitive fees. $300 IN OVERDRAFT FEES?! How the hell can they justify that? They are shameless criminals that f*ck people over, by the millions, daily!
I detest banks, not just for these fees, but for the much more expensive scams they pull, and their collusion with government.
But the American sheep just bend over for the bankers day after day, year after year.
Banks, insurance companies and the US government — THESE ARE YOUR CRUEL MASTERS, AMERICA!
They want to force bank accounts for those who don’t have them.
The government has given themselves the right to snoop, deposit, and withdraw from your accounts via Obamacare and the new financial bill.
Here is another bank error I had. Sent a payment to the bank for my house and had a person sign for it, they put it on their desk and went on vacation. They tried to charge me $135 dollars for that. Had to call the comptroller of the currency for that one.
i’ve bought 2 condos, an airplane which cost 3 times our home, all our vehicles, etc. without borrowing, how does that make me a chump?
That’s the way I was raised, if you don’t have the cash you don’t need it!
It’s served me very well over my life.
How about this error? I got my mortgage and made my first payment and they sent it back to me said it was not required because it was to early. Two years later they sold my mortgage and low and behold I got charged late fees and two years of interest for that payment by the buying bank.
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