Are you sick of paying big banks big fees just so they can hang onto your money for you? Most of us are pretty tired of seeing our money disappear from our checking accounts, and a big part of the problem is that those fees just add to the profits of gigantic banks that are not putting anything back into the local economy. Even if you have to pay the same fees, at least if you get a local North Dighton checking account, you know that the money stays local and will fuel the local economy. And you never know, maybe a local bank will offer free checking options that the big banks don’t offer.
Free Checking – Does it Even Exist Anymore?
Not at the big national banks, it doesn’t. It seems like getting a fee-free checking account gets more and more complicated each month. Sign up for only electronic statements and your checking account will be free! And then a couple of months later they change the policy and you also have to have direct deposit set up for your paychecks. Then it changes again, requiring that you carry a certain balance. Even if you can meet all the requirements, chances are that during the month your balance will fall below the set level or that you’ll make some other unpredictable mistake regarding your checking account rules.
Then you see the checking account fee and you call the bank to figure out why they charged the fee. Do they want to talk about how it was just a mistake and you’re really sorry? Probably not. In fact, it seems like the folks on the phone get increasingly strict about giving you a break. Asking to get a checking account fee reversed is asking to be told once again that it’s not the policy of the bank to do you any favors.
But it turns out that local banks tend to be more flexible. You can go right into your local North Dighton branch and talk to someone who is sympathetic and understands that we’re not all perfect all the time. Of course, it’s also well worth your while to find out if your local North Dighton bank has checking accounts that don’t require the stars to align perfectly each month. Find out if they have interest bearing checking accounts, which are more and more common, although they have to fit certain federal laws to be legal.
