Number 5: Chase Bank
This is disappointing for me to mention, because the Chase Sapphire Reserve is one of my favorite Credit Cards, not to mention that Chase has several of the BEST credit cards currently on the market, all with REALLY good rewards. Chase Bank ALSO holds 2 of my mortgages, and they had INSANELY good interest rate at the time I applied…plus, their Chase Private Client services and perks are phenomenal when you deposit more than $250,000 with them…however, I have to say it…I have to call them out for this, because to me… their actual bank account is just…BAD.
Let us skip to number 4 ,and that is….
4.Bank of America
Just like the one before this one, if you want to find a great credit card ,they got you covered ( cash rewards card) and they also have really great mortgage rates I were re-financed one of my properties through them and they were nothing but spectacular and one more thing I want to mention before I absolutely roast them is that their mobile app is really easy to use and their online website it’s just a phenomenal user interface that is very easy to use but for me the friendship ends there and this is where
I draw the line here- You have to really search their paperwork in order to find out the fees and cots that they will take from you ,on one hand , because ,as I said, their website is web-built and they simply love to wow you with colorful images and pictures with happy people ..in order to distract you from your goal, to find the real cost of a 12% monthly maintenance fee !
Now , of course, they will waive the fee if you:
- Have at least one qualifying direct deposit of $250+ dollars,
- If you maintain DAILY a minimum of $1500
- Are enrolled in Preferred Rewards (Keep reading)
- You are a student under 24 years old.
But let’s talk about the fees which I think what you find will haunt you in your dreams forever
You’ll find
- a $35 overdraft fee
- a $30 wire transfer fee
- a $15.00 incoming wire transfer fee
- a $15.00 cashier’s check fee unless you are a preferred rewards customer or higher
And even though they have a whole bunch of random fees on top of other random fees at
least those are waived if you become a preferred rewards customer so that makes
it just slightly better …………until you see the interest rates
Let’s start here your normal checking account, the one you’re going to be using all the time pays no interest….. sorry to be the bearer of bad news but if you want to earn some of that sweet sweet interest you’ll need to sign up for their Bank of America interest checking account but alas…something as glamorous as that does not come without a price and that price is either $25 a month or a combined balance of $10,000 or more
However I couldn’t find anything on their website about how much they actually pay an interest besides this business checking account :
That pays 0.01% on all balances!
So let’s move on to the savings accounts because this is where things get interesting the
regular savings account pays you a whopping 0.03 percent interest but then let’s say you got $20,000 to throw around then you can join their preferred rewards
(ooh!!)
And that means you could be a gold tier member that will give you 0.04 percent interest up to $50,000 and if you have more than $50,000 you could join their platinum tier which gets you 0.05 percent in interest and then if you have more than $100,000 you could join their platinum honors tier and get 0.06 percent in interest
Needless to say Bank of America is really great if you’re a student and use their credit card ,their neat and easy to navigate websites and app and also want to scream every single night and all of those excessive fees!
But in terms of the actual bank account to me it’s an absolute disaster but it still gets worse than this because that brings us to…
3.Wells Fargo !
And they certainly are no stranger to controversy over the last few years ( Just google them and Phily).
But , full transparency, Wells Fargo has been one of the only bank accounts I have ever gone out of my way to go and cancel so you typically it’s easy for me to keep $1,500 in an account just to keep it open and maintain that relationship with the bank in the event I ever want to get a mortgage with them but nope this one was just so bad that I could not keep it open let’s begin with the checking accounts and I love on their website that they advertise you can open up an account with $25…….
Seems easy right after all that is their most popular option
Except when you see that comes with the $10 monthly maintenance fee unless you make 10 or more debit transactions, have qualified direct deposits totaling $500 or keep $1,500 minimum in the account which means if you don’t read the fine print and only deposit 25 dollars that is going to be gone and two and a half months just from the fees !
And then afterwards, if you forget about it and forget to deposit more money in the account, you’re going to be hit with a $35 overdraft fee meaning you’re $25 initial deposit has now turned into a negative $30 balance by month 3!
+25 dollars – 10 $/Mo -10$/Mo-10$/Mo-35$/Mo= -$30
But on the bright side I do have to hand it to Wells Fargo they did make these fees very apparent right on the front page instead of making me scroll through the entire website trying to find it so for that Wells Fargo.
While we are on the subject, you will enjoy
- a lovely $15 wire transfer fee for incoming money
- a $30 wire transfer fee for outgoing wires
- a $10 fee for cashier’s checks and yeah a lot of other fees all without paying any interest
But now let’s say you’re too good for the regular checking account and you have $10,000 and you want to join the PREFERRED CHECKING ACCOUNT ….that means you can enjoy
No fees on cashier’s checks
a $10 discount on personal style checks
And 0.01 percent interest on all balances above $500
Yikes
But now of course I’m sure you’re asking yourself but great ,I don’t have $10,000 to join preferred checking , how can I still do this if I don’t have $10,000 ?
Well, I had some good news because you’re in luck that is only going to be costing you $15 a month you’ll even get a platinum debit card with chip technology ……..Wow
Even though that comes standard on pretty much every single debit card ever these days that’s amazing that they include that for $15 a month or $10,000 but now we’re going to be discussing the top tier of Wells Fargo the best of the best as good as it gets the PORTFOLIO CHECKING ACCOUNT
Oh, sure there’s a $30 monthly maintenance fee or you need to keep $25,000 or more in your accounts but of course like they say they do give you back……… „favorable interest rates” which I guess is open to interpretation because their idea of favorable interest rates is paying 0.05% on balances above $5,000 and of course they reserve their best features for those who keep 250,000 dollars or more in qualifying balances and that includes no overdraft protection transfer fees except I’m reading that and the first thing I could think of is does someone actually need overdraft protection if they have two hundred and fifty thousand dollars sitting in their bank account like you’re not over drafting on anything if you got a quarter million dollars sitting in your bank account unless of course your custom Ferrari had too many options and it came to two hundred and fifty one thousand dollars …..oops …stuff like that happen so maybe actually this is a pretty useful feature anyway this Bank to me takes the number three spots because the way I see it their interest rates are just absolutely horrendous but also you get a bank that’s settled five hundred and seventy million dollars for creating fake accounts but that’s none of my business
2. US Bank
Not to mention it looks like their website hasn’t really been updated for at least a decade or two now to start you have a few options if you want to bank with US Bank and that begins with this easy checking account for $6.95 a month but if you want to waive that you’ll need direct deposits totaling $1,000 or more or the usual $1,500 minimum account balance and then they love to hit you with that additional $2 a month paper statement fee which I have a feeling a lot of people might just forget to enroll in statements which would waive that fee and then just never get around to noticing that $2 monthly charge… doesn’t really sound all that easy to me no does
Now, in addition to that you’ll also have a $36 overdraft fee which is higher than anything else that I mentioned in here so far…
They’ve also got a $20 wire transfer fee for incoming wires and a $30 wire fee for outgoing wires Now in terms of the interest you’re going to get for all of these fees………No interest.
Seriously though their checking account pays nothing and to their standard savings account pays you 0.01% interest on all balances but the good news is that for $14.95 a month or if you open up a u.s. bank personal loan or credit card you can enjoy a savings account that pays you a whopping 0.04 percent all the way up to zero point zero seven percent if you have more than $500,000
okay now that’s kind of high but if you have the Platinum checking account meaning you have more than $25,000 available or pay $24.95 per month you’ll get a whopping wait ….wait a second….. it’s
still only a 0.01% in interest okay fine but at least you can open up a retirement money market savings where you can earn all the way up to 0.6% !!
I think it’s pretty safe to assume you’re never going to be retiring off of 0.6%!
1. Citibank
Citibank now this is another one I wish I did not have to mention because I’m really a fan of the city double cash rewards credit card but besides that in terms of the actual bank itself Wow …
Now let me just say this one upfront one of the many reasons why I cancelled and why I think this one is so bad is because the mobile deposit limit is $1,000 a day .
Now you might think to yourself -Dude, $1,000 is a lot of money you’re out of touch with reality well yeah I guess maybe a little bit but this is an issue when you use this bank to deposit rent checks into or any single check that is above $1,000 including a paycheck you just can’t do it you literally have to walk into a physical citibank branch location to deposit any check over $1,000 regardless of what or when it is even if you deposit only one check a month for 1,001 dollars you can’t do it from your phone so with that I was out
But it also did not stop there because if you go and open the regular checking account you’ll enjoy the typical twelve dollar monthly maintenance fee that’s waves when you keep more than $1,500 in your account you’ll also have the typical fifteen dollar incoming wire fee $35 outgoing wire fee and standard fees for a bank that’s featured in this article but here’s where Citibank takes a turn for the worst….
And this is with their interest rate with their normal checking accounts you’ll get an interest rate of….. 0.01%
And with the regular savings account you’ll enjoy an interest rate of up to 0.13% in interest when you deposit more than $500,000 but then if you have priority savings which means you have $50,000 or more between all eligible accounts you’ll get to earn 0.03 percent interest in your checking account and 0.15 percent in interest when you have more than $500,000 in their savings account but things do get better because if you’re a city gold client which means you have more than $200,000 across your bank and investment accounts you’ll get the same 0.03 percent interest in your checking account and up to the same 0.15 percent interest for $500,000 or more but on the bright side at least you’ll get financial guidance from a wealth adviser and you’ll get $2.00 and 95 cent equity trades yes I think someone should really bring them up to speed to today and tell them that free stock trading IS a thing just look at Robin Hood or even Charles Schwab like here’s no need anymore to pay 2 dollars and 95 cents but anyway if you’re that good with money that you’ve saved up two hundred thousand dollars I personally don’t really think you need financial guidance all you really need to do SHARE THIS ARTICLE AND for the search engine algorithm because this article took me forever to plan out .
So, anyway there you have it I hate to be the bearer of bad news it just gets me so upset to see all of these fees and why people are still using these banks right now is just beyond my comprehension oh sure some of these banks are convenient like I get it for people who like walking into a physical branch and Bank of America’s and Chase banks are pretty much on every street corner but in terms of actually being a financially responsible adults there are way better options out there in my opinion
Again, not financial advice like I can make another article in the future covering the top 5 best bank accounts out there and these are just a few to name some off you got a lie Bank no fees no minimums 1.7 percent interest by Goldman Sachs no fees no minimums interest and you get the idea I’m going to be covering some of these other ones in the future so anyway with that said you guys thank you so much for reading this, I really appreciate it as always if you have not already subscribed make sure to demolish the subscribe button and you will be notified when I post a new article
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