On Mar 26, 2005, at 1:28, Elizabeth Ligeti wrote:
I have a Debit Card with my bank. It works exactly like a credit card - but runs off a savings account, so it is more like writing a cheque [...]
The best part of having a debit card is that the bank pays me interest, instead of me paying them fees etc!
There is no annual fee for the card, I just can't spend more than is in the bank account.
I expect that varies not only from country to country but from bank to bank... I, too have a Debit Card on my check/savings account (no fee, they pay me interest instead, for my keeping a certain minimum there *always*). But, the only way I can use it without incurring a service charge is to get cash with it, *from one of the branch banks*. My bank and another one have merged recently, so their combined spread is now a bit bigger than it used to be, but it's still negligible (mostly South-East of US), but...
If I take cash out from an ATM "sponsored" by another bank, it's a $2.00 charge (used to be $1.50, but I agreed to the raise some 18 months ago <g>). Free-standing ATMs placed in grocery stores etc, never tell you which bank has put them there, but it always seems to be "another bank" <g> - add $2.00 to the amount you're taking out. Paying (grocery store, PO, restaurant, whatever) with the card seems to invoke the same rule; it's always "another bank", and a transaction fee of $2.00. Adding two-by-two may have worked well for Noah, but it doesn't for me :)
So, I use the Debit Card only if I want to draw cash when I'm away (Europe, another city in the US), and I make sure to draw a biggish amount, so that I don't have to do it more than once every few days; that way, the $2 fee "spreads" some... But my Credit Card doesn't care a bit where I pay with it; Lexington, San Francisco or Warsaw, there's no per-transaction charge. The charges on purchases come in only if I'm late paying and/or if I don't pay my bill in full. OTOH, if I were to draw cash with it from an ATM (which I could), even if I drew it at the issuing bank, there's not only a service fee, but the finance charge is activated immediately. And may the lord forbid I should use one of those checks they keep sending me (destroying the trees rather than lowering the penalty fees <g>) - the service fee there is over $5 per check *minimum*, and grows if the check is large...
Here in Oz, credit cards cost anything from $24 to $55 per year just to have a card,
Here it varies. The card I have from my bank (and am not using currently) is free; the card I am using, I am paying for ($50 a year). But it's also earning me frequent flier miles on several airlines. With the airlines being in trouble and beginning to be difficult about the miles' redemption, I may ditch it and revert to the old one.
then there is the interest monthly,
That's avoidable... :)
and now, the latest thing is that shops, businesses etc may pass on the % fee they are charged by the card company, onto the customer, so your goods may cost an extra 3%.
Some of our shops used to do it; sometimes for all purchases, sometimes only for small-amount purchases. But I haven't seen it done in years; people were refusing to use the credit card in their stores, but they had to pay a fee to the issuer anyway.
-- Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/ Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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