[dreamdu5t]

What are people "fed up" with exactly?

Overdraft fees? All banks ask you to opt-in. Is that really the thing people are "fed up" with? I find it hard to believe these people have much money, and why Simple would want these idiots.

I have no issues depositing my money quickly, withdrawing my money, and accessing a transaction log. My bank even provides a mobile app to do this. I was asked to opt-in to overdraft, and all the charges were explained very clearly. I bank with Chase.

[jws]

Did Chase very clearly explain that they could, allegedly, shuffle your transactions into a fictitious sequence in order to maximize the amount of fees they could charge you?¹

My bank didn't tell me that in the event the Post Office became confused and stopped delivering my mail (commercial address, only gets the bank stuff), they would make no effort to contact me when the checks and statements started coming back. Though, when they forgot to transfer money into my new accounts they did agree to waive the penalties I had incurred, so that was sort of nice that they didn't pursue a fee which would have lost them a court case.

I think this sentence from the article sums up the motivation…

   “Banks make money by keeping customers confused,” Mr. Reich said. “There’s no incentives to make the experience better.”

Your bank no doubt has dozens of different kinds of accounts with various byzantine rules applied to each. Is there a button on your online banking page that says "Recommend the optimum account plans for me."? They know your history, they pretty much know your future. They know their own plans. They have computers… what is stopping them?

␄

¹ http://www.topclassactions.com/open/2603-chase-overdraft-fee...

[cstejerean]

The online website of most banks is confusing for mostly technical reasons, not because they are trying to screw you by opening the wrong account. Stop by a branch and your local banker will help you find the right account for you, free of charge.

[jws]

And how will I know when the "frog boiling" phase begins?

You don't screw the customer while wooing, show some patience!

But I agree on the people. I'm big on using the people in the bank. I find it usually takes longer, but is less frustrating. They also can do many things I can't, like notarize stuff (no fee), or wire money to Indonesian interests of Singaporean firms with Swiss bank accounts.

[_delirium]

My annoyance is that I signed up for "free checking for life", and now I have a checking account that has monthly fees! I signed up for Washington Mutual for that reason. At some point, Chase purchased their banking operations, and retained the legacy free-checking accounts. But some time after that, they decided to no longer continue to honor those terms, and added a monthly fee. Now they'll charge me a $10 fee in any month that I allow my balance to drop below $1500. I did not opt into that. Now I have to opt out by closing my account.

[m0th87]

It might help to try to understand the target demographic rather than handwaving them as idiots. I have a decent amount of money, and I'm most certainly fed up with my institutional bank. An increasing share of my money is making its way into my Simple account for a number of reasons:

1) Banks do have you opt-in for fees, but typically through opaque changes to terms and conditions. When my bank was acquired, I started getting fees for, e.g. using other ATMs. I'm sure they sent me something in regards to this, but who the hell actually reads legalese? Contrast that with simple. When the new year rolled in, they updated their terms and conditions with an email that explained its effects in plain english (in a manner reminiscent of Creative Commons licenses.)

2) Simple has ATMs everywhere since it's part of Allpoint.

3) Their apps are just beautiful. Dealing with financial matters is probably the thing I dread most in day-to-day endeavors. Simple completely changes that equation; it makes the process actually pleasant.

4) From a political perspective, I just find most banks (including my institutional one) deplorable. Their role in the financial crisis, and their behavior afterward deserves repercussions. Simple has an unsullied history.

Say what you will, but I'm happy to give Simple my money given the experience thus far. And clearly others are too.

[philwelch]

> Simple has ATMs everywhere since it's part of Allpoint

To be frank with you, Allpoint is pretty shit wherever I've lived. I don't want to have to go to some dilapidated 7-11 to use their ATM. I want to use any ATM I see on the street with no fee. It turns out I could get that with either USAA or, apparently, Charles Schwab.

> Their apps are just beautiful. Dealing with financial matters is probably the thing I dread most in day-to-day endeavors. Simple completely changes that equation; it makes the process actually pleasant.

Can't really comment, except USAA and ING Direct (soon to become Capital One 360) both have perfectly usable web sites, and USAA's web site is even an acceptable Mint, if that's what you want. (Personally, I use spreadsheets.)

> From a political perspective, I just find most banks (including my institutional one) deplorable. Their role in the financial crisis, and their behavior afterward deserves repercussions.

Isn't Simple backended by an institutional bank?

[m0th87]

RE: USAA, Charles Schwab, etc., this is a fair point. All of them have solid reputations. Any idea which one provides the highest interest rates?

> Isn't Simple backended by an institutional bank?

This is a good point, the answer to which I'm unsure.

[jacalata]

From the article: Simple is actually not a bank. It has deals with CBW Bank and Bancorp, federally insured banks, to hold its customers’ money.

[philwelch]

USAA membership is. You can get a USAA bank account without being a USAA member, but you don't get all the same privileges.

[alxndr]

> I want to use any ATM I see on the street with no fee.

Mechanics Bank in the SF bay area will pay you back for the fees you accrue using others' ATMs. It's only up to $15/mo (I think) but that's more than enough for me.

[philwelch]

Overdraft fees are shit. The best banks just give you a line of credit that's hooked up to your checking account that it automatically draws on in case of overdraft, leaving you with nothing to pay but a few cents interest. Or at least let you automatically hook your savings account up so it automatically throws a chunk of money into your checking account when you overdraft.

Fees in general are shit. Another example: ATM fees. Decent banks don't charge ATM fees. The best banks not only don't charge ATM fees, but if the ATM itself charges a fee, the bank refunds you the money themselves.

Also shit: minimum balances. Chase waives the minimum balance if you have a direct deposit, except I don't want to direct deposit into my checking account. I want to direct deposit into my savings account to use as a buffer. Then, every month, I can withdraw only that month's budgeted amount into my checking accounts. And since I only withdraw the budgeted amount every month, the balance should be 0 at the end of the month, which is why I don't want to worry about overdrafts.

Maybe your use case is different from mine, but the fact is, all the terms I'm asking for are available on the market already and I don't have time or patience for banks that don't accommodate me when they have competitors who will.

[sharkweek]

I'm very particular about how I do my banking -- money in a mix of a huge corporate bank and a small, local credit union; both serve unique purposes for my needs.

By far, the customer service at the credit union is infinitely better than that of the large bank. I call customer service at the big bank with small issues or questions, and I'm extremely irritated by the time I'm even speaking with a real person after a terrible mix of phone mazes and hold music. My credit union is normally on the phone after 2-3 rings and almost immediately takes care of whatever I need.

I'd much prefer to move everything to the credit union, but I just have certain convenience needs that most bigger banks just handle better due to their larger infrastructure.

[russgray]

Out of interest, what do you call customer services to do for you? I bank with a big bank, and I think I've needed to call them twice in the last decade.

[majormajor]

Wells Fargo did their best (and eventually succeeded) to drive me away from having a checking account with them. I wanted to use it as a secondary checking account (my main one is with a local credit union) with a wider reach ATM/deposit-acceptance wise, and they wanted me to first jump through hoops to avoid a monthly fee if I wasn't receiving direct deposits on that account, and then eventually even those hoops weren't enough and they put a fee on it.

[sdoowpilihp]

I suspect there may be a bit of sensationalism built into this article. That being said, their certainly are plenty of things with current banks to be less than pleased with, including a not so distant past when overdraft fees were not opt in, and even worse, were handled in a devious fashion. (I.E. applying charges to an account in order of the total amount spent as opposed to chronologically).

[prostoalex]

I bank with Schwab and Chase, and also have had very few reasons to switch. With direct deposit, automatic bill payment and credit card balance paid in full automatically I rarely have a reason to log on to the bank site or app. My HOA is the bigger annoyance factor here, as they change the fees once a year, so I need to remind myself to change the amount of automatic withdrawal.

[k3n]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis

[equalarrow]

I was waiting for someone to say something like this. After the 2008 debacle, I went credit union. My wife has Wells and while she likes them, there's all kinds of account fees hand waving for things she was supposed to get for free when she signed up. Banks suck.