by Jennifer Moll

Created on: March 22, 2009

Financial Institutions do in fact make money off their customers by imposing penalty fees. However, if you understand your financial institution's current fee schedule, you may be able to avoid many fees and therefore save yourself money.

Financial Institutions seem not to be clear to new account holders when opening new accounts what is and is not subject to penalties. The customer's mishap can become considerable income for the Financial Institution.

To be charged $35 for an over draft, is absolutely outrageous! It is also absurd to be charging any hard working person anywhere from $1.75 $9.50, which I have been charged, to use an ATM because just because their bank doesn't have one that operates near a nearby town, so the customer had to use another bank's ATM. The bank should be able to place an ATM wherever they have branches so customers won't have to pay these fees.

Other fees that I have come across from my bank that I do not agree with are: they charge $1.00 for each copy of paid drafts then on top of that fee they charge a $15.00 per hour research fee to research the draft. For a research fee of $15.00 an hour they will also be more than happy to print off any prior monthly statement for you at $1.00 per page. How nice of them! Luckily for me, I have online banking and can do all that for myself for free as I am sure most other people do today as well, just be sure your bank doesn't charge a fee for that!

To avoid this problem, be sure you truly understand the entire penalty fee schedule, including the fine print, for your Financial Intuition. If there is something that you are unsure of and you have any questions or concerns, call and have each question and/or answered immediately until you fully understand.

The bank does value you as a customer, but their business is to make money as well and if a customer makes a mistake that is chargeable under the penalty fee schedule, the bank can and will charge the correct fee as they are justified in doing so under the law.

I understand banks do need to charge fees and I do agree they should, after all they are in charge of our money, however, I think they do need to become more customer focused and be sure to remove some of the outrageous fees that are just going to make these banks lose customers. Soon there will no longer be a need for banks as everyone will be hiding their money under their mattresses!

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