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Comment by whalesalad | Hacker News Reader

I highly recommend Charles Schwab for a checking account in the US. https://www.schwab.com/checking

(I was a Simple customer at one point)

Alternatively, look for a local credit union. I belong to one that was originally set up for firefighters and their families but is now open to people living and working here.

Pros:

- Most credit unions cooperate on a shared ATM network, so I have zero-fee access to way more ATMs than any bank does that I know of. Also, they reimburse any other ATM network fees (but I try not to rack up too many of those because I don't want to cost my CU money).

- They also usually cooperate on physical location resources: although my CU doesn't have a branch nearby, I can walk into another CU's location around the block to make deposits and withdrawals. Try walking into Wells Fargo and depositing money in your Bank of America account.

- Their lending rates are SO good. When I wanted to buy a new vehicle, I emailed the loan manager who gave me a pre-approval for about 50% more than I needed (just in case I stumbled over an awesome offer on something more expensive that I was looking for) at a ridiculously low rate. Then they recommended a dealership to me. My wife and I went to the dealer and picked out our vehicle. The sales manager said "I know you have financing, but let me see what I can do for you. What's your APR?" I told him and he started laughing: "yeah, I'm not gonna be able to touch that. Congratulations on it!"

- They have amazing customer service. Any time I've need something, from adjusting the date my loan payment is due to asking them to please stop putting a hold on the deposits of my wife's paychecks, has been a call or email and they just do it.

Cons:

- Nothing that I can think of after being with them for 5 years.

I generally agree, aside from:

- Lending rates: some CUs don't have the best rates for certain products, especially on lines of credit. Auto loans are typically cheaper with CUs for whatever reason.

- One big con is the mobile apps - typically terrible at most CUs.

Why not BoA or Chase, for instance? Can you please highlight the key differentiating features?

One thing I like about them - no ATM fee worldwide and they would refund any ATM fee charged by the local bank.

No fees. I can go to any ATM and I will get reimbursed for the fee.

I was once behind on a payment to the State of California but due to moving multiple times in a short period of time they were unable to get the notice to me. I had no idea that I owed them such a big chunk of cash (taxes). Chase took the money out of my account on their behalf and charged me an additional fee. Smaller banks don't do it - but the big banks make a ton of profit fom things like this. Suffice to say I closed my account with Chase more or less immediately afterwards. I felt violated, frankly.

For a while I was making close to 2% return which is pretty impressive for a regular free checking account. Once interest rates went to hell that stopped, though.

Citi, Chase, Wells, BoA, USBank, they are all the worst.

BoA has had some anti-consumer habits in the past which caused me to burn almost all bridges with them. They were among the banks who would process all charges and deposits in a day starting with the largest charge and ending with the largest deposit. This let them ding you for many more insufficient balance fees (each small charge once you were below a $0 balance got you a new $25 or $50 fee; this hit a colleague and some acquaintances, I don't let my balances get that low). They also liked to tuck away account policy changes, like minimum balances, into the fine print. I had one account with them (wanted a physical bank and had moved everything else online) with the minimum $1500 balance to avoid any fees, they changed it to $1600 or 1750 and started hitting me with $25/month fees (reimbursed) because I'd failed to notice that policy change in the documents they'd sent. And the main reason, today, to avoid them is that their interest rates are terrible. Their CD rates are often below checking account rates at other banks (last checked in early 2020, not sure what their current rates are but a 10+ year history of horrible rates probably didn't change this year).

I was with BofA during this time, around 2006. On top of posting highest to lowest, they had a hidden account allowance, called a "Matrix allowance", which was basically a hidden line of credit behind every checking account. It was the maximum amount of money the bank would allow the account to become overdrawn before denying transactions. The allowance amount increased if the account became overdrawn frequency and the overdraft fees were paid.

Only annoying thing is that there's no Zelle, so you have to use the Zelle app, so if you want to send or receive payments over $500 you're screwed.

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