[hidenotslide]

I think outgoing wires are almost never free, maybe you are thinking of ACH transfers? The rest of the things sound unfortunate though, and potentially illegal in the case of converting to a fee account without notice.

Customer friendliness can vary a lot even within a bank/credit union depending on the customer and personal banker, since a lot of fee waivers are discretionary. E.g. if a banker has a fee waiver limit per month then they can help you at the start but not later in the month.

Part of the issue is that since rates have been so low, the traditional net interest margin of banks has been squeezed so they turn to fees to compensate.

[delinka]

The issue was indeed with ACH. My apologies.