Posted on 02/20/2011 7:30:15 AM PST by FromLori
What if you go to use your debit card but find you have a $100 spending limit — even if you have more money in your account? Right now, the idea is a bargaining chip being used by some of the nation's biggest banks, including JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup.
The change would have a big impact on shoppers. The average family spends $122 on groceries every week, so a simple trip to the supermarket might in the future require a stop at the ATM.
It all goes back to new rules that Congress is considering aimed at limiting the fees that banks can charge retailers every time you swipe your debit card.
(Excerpt) Read more at wfaa.com ...
It's anonymous, so marketers and other "interested" parties can't track your spending habits. It's useful for personal transactions, like shopping at garage sales or paying the neighbor's kid a few bucks to roto-till the garden. It is universally accepted. It doesn't put your accounts at risk. And you always know how much you have left to spend. There are no overdrafts - if you run out of cash, you stop shopping, so you can't put yourself in debt or overdraw your account.
I don't really see any downside to using cash.
Debit cards are for those of us who hate carrying cash, hate big credit card bills at the end of the month and like easy budgeting. My debit card purchases are automatically downloaded to quicken and tracked easily.
Until there's always 30 people in front of you at the ATM machine every time you need to withdraw your grocery money.
I pay all my supplier's and everything else I buy with that card.
Because all of our income comes from taking credit cards as payment by doing this I reduce my CC processing fee down by 1 percent.
I take that 1 percent back as a cash reward and put it back into my account.
It doesn’t matter if there were adequate funds in the employer’s account. All that matters is that your employer gave you a check for a specific amount and his bank didn’t honor it.
The Obama cronies have already proposed all paychecks go directly to the IRS, and the IRS sends us a cut.
Chase allows online printing of checks, 'except checks not presented for payment or not electronically processed'. What they're doing these days is taking another banks' word for the fact that a check was presented for payment, paying it, and then letting the other bank send the 'check' to some warehouse for storage. If you want to dispute one of those checks, they're going to charge you for the privilege.
The problem with the model that Chase uses is that it's opaque: you can't search payees, you can't compare different checks, and you can't see a group of checks together. I'm not suggesting Chase do this online. Just send me a copy of my own checks and let me assure myself that Chase isn't ripping me off.
Smart phones will very soon be used to pay at checkout. You will call up your pay-app and click OK.
By "those of us" I think you mean virtually everyone in America. For this to come to pass, forcing people to go to ATMs and carry their checkbooks with them when they go shopping would be a huge step backwards. Consumers would be understandably outraged and since they can't take their outrage out on banks, they'll punish the politicians.
Anyways, I don't really see this happening. Forcing people to withdraw cash every time they want to make a purchase over $100 is going to give consumers additional time to contemplate whether this is a purchase they truly need to make. The end result will be a lot less impulse buying. Any obstacle that makes it more difficult for Americans to spend their money will obviously hurt the economy.
If you're getting your cash from your bank, fine, but ATM fees of $2.50 on each side of a withdrawal mean you're paying 2.5-5% for the privilege of taking $100 of your money out of the bank.
Not a bad deal for the banks to skim every withdrawal.
I have no ATM fees. If they started charging a fee, I'd pull my checking and savings out and move to another bank.
OK so if there aren't sufficient funds in the account then refuse to allow the transaction. Problem solved.
Guess I’ll go back to writing checks.
I wrote my mom a check to reimburse her for some things she did for me when I was on a business trip and Wells Fargo wanted to ding her 5 bucks to cash a $60 check! I complained, but they said it was standard for non account holders. Ridiculous.
Well, it is already in effect here in NJ, and apparently legal.
Unbelievable; what a disgrace. Banks deserve the horrible reputation they’ve gained over the past few years. Just think, you helped bail out banks so they could turn around and pull that crap.
Such a cap likely wouldn't effect me directly but it's the principle!
“When it is required that all paychecks become direct deposit...”
that is already so for all military and federal government paychecks, as well as social security benefits and the like. Next step is the rest of you...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.