I Love My Bank, Part 2

I am happy to report that I did NOT participate in national "Bank Transfer Day", where disgruntled members of big behemoths like B of A were encouraged to make the switch to a bank or credit union where they wouldn't be gouged with fees. I don't blame them. I did the same when WaMu got bought out by Chase, and Chase began implementing a fee structure that could only be waived by 1) direct deposit (which we had) AND 2) a minimum amount for said direct deposit (which we did NOT have). We switched to Capital One, where we'd been keeping our savings-- better interest rate.

But, that was not our main bank. Our main bank is USAA, and we're sticking with them because, unlike other big banks, they really care about their customers and know HOW to take care of them.

Three years ago, I blogged about how wonderfully proactive USAA was about alerting us to potential fraudulent activity on our credit card. A year later, Allan's car was hit in our apartment parking lot by a drunk driver, and the transaction of getting the repair paid for went very smoothly. All throughout, whenever I had any questions or issues, I always encountered the friendliest of customer service. They were polite and thorough, always making sure our issue was completely resolved, and even though they did try, on occasion, to sell/upgrade us to certain products, they never pushed when I simply declined. As I said in my previous blog post, there is a reason they consistently rank in the top of Consumer Reports' "best customer service" category.

In fact, if they exceed their profit margin for the year, they give some of that money BACK to the customers! It isn't very much, but it's a nice little gesture. There are no outrageous fees, they refund ATM transaction fees, and make it really easy to take care of all kinds of financial needs all under one roof: banking, investments, credit cards, insurance.

Anyway, today's warm fuzzy about my bank comes about partly because the whole Bank Transfer Day movement made me especially appreciative of all the service that my bank provides, and partly because of my recent experience with something I have NEVER ever done in my life: an overdraft.

You see, we deposit my paycheck into savings, and Allan's into checking. So we essentially live off his paycheck alone. That worked well until a couple things happened recently. Todd came back and began at a new school, whose tuition was almost twice that of his old school. Not only that, but because payments are divided up into 10 months beginning from July, we owed about 3 months' worth of tuition all at once, when he began in September. The other thing was his karate lessons-- rather than writing a check every month, I prepaid for 6 months, earning a discount in the process. That's still a huge lump sum, though.

The end result? Before Allan's next paycheck was deposited, two smaller checks I'd written most recently managed to overdraw the account.

Now, I've never been one to think about overdraft protection. I usually manage our money well enough that it isn't necessary. But I had forgotten about the huge checks we wrote earlier in the month, since they veered so far off from our ordinary expenditures. And I'd never thought to actually *sign up* for overdraft protection.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I logged into our bank website to see how we were doing, and wondered what these "OD" deposits were into our checking account, and why they matched the exact dollar value of the last 2 checks written. I eventually figured it out, and realized that even though I'd never explicitly signed up for overdraft protection, USAA went ahead and took the money from our savings account anyway, to cover the overdrawn checks. And best of all? They did it for FREE. Most banks I know of will charge you to enroll in their overdraft protection plan. USAA not only does NOT charge for it, but they implemented it anyway, even though I hadn't signed up.

Now, if that's not taking care of your customers, I don't know what is.

So... in a climate where big banks are struggling to maintain a solid reputation and are gouging their customers, I am happy that we are with a big bank that truly has its customers' best interests at heart!