Saturday, January 19, 2008

Bank Account Perks Don t Come Free

Bank Account Perks Don t Come Free Most of us have a bank account and if we look at our statements, we will notice that an amount is charged every year as bank charges. These bank charges are levied for those services offered by our banks which are separate from the regular services. This might come as a surprise to many. After all, most of us take it for granted that since we have an account with Bank X, we are eligible for a number of miscellaneous services. So it is always better to find out in advance what the free services offered are and what extra services can be availed at a cost. There are various services that might be of interest to you. These include, using of the ATM card beyond a certain limit, issuing more than the allocated number of check books, or availing of bank statements in between quarters. All these are activities that may invite additional bank charges. Small amounts could accumulate to a large amount and we might end up paying for a lot of services that we assumed we were free. When a bank account holder, draws more than the available limit on his account, it is known as the overdrawing of finances. In a case of overdrawing, a fee is levied by the bank on the extra amount that has been withdrawn. This is merely because the bank has done you a favor by providing you with funds when you did not have enough. Another example that we can look at is that of issuing a check to a third party while being unaware of insufficient funds. In such a case, the check will not be cleared. Instead, it will have to be presented once again after we have made arrangements for the necessary funds to be deposited. A charge will be levied on the cheque that has bounced and additional fees will be levied for representing the same. At the end of the day, all these charges will add up to quite a large amount if we are not careful with our finances. Similarly, if we have secured a loan and issued a post-dated check, it may be bad news if we are unable to fund it. In a case like this, we will have to pay the bank a certain amount to hold the cheque till we deposit sufficient funds into it. Any service carried out by the bank for our benefit will be outside of what we are eligible for. Thus, we should not be surprised when they cost us. When traveling, if we are in sudden need of cash, but are unable to find an ATM that belongs to our bank, we can use the ATM machine of another bank. However, a certain amount will also be debited from our account for the same purpose. Even though the ATM card served its purpose, it did not come for free. The point that we must note is that every bank has a number of paid and unpaid services. Make sure that you do not take any service for granted. Do not bear bank charges . Get bank charges refund at thriftyscot.co.uk/ .

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