Any one with Commonwealth?

[callistra]

For their Transaction accounts....

Third party payments
A fee is charged for each third party payment (ie. payments or transfers to another person's account or to a non-linked account in your name) made in excess of 3 per calendar month.
This fee applies to third party payments made from 1 July 2005.

So... how many bills do people get a month? How many times do people need to pay others? And ... most important question of all.... why?? It's using a resouce which had to be set up *anyway*, there's no human contact and there's no reason why they should be charging for this. It's only half a dollar, but WTF? Every dollar counts. People have been too slack with their spending, and don't even seem to NOTICE the fees and charges any more. I know I knew, but didn't make changes to my life to avoid them. It was *normal* for me and chesh to pay $25 or more sometimes for going over our credit limit on the CC. Last month is the first time ever we havn't had to pay!

I'm going to be watching my own bank very closely.
:-(

Have I mentioned I hate banks?

Comments

But wait! There's MORE!

[callistra.livejournal.com]

Scheduling a payment will now cost too!

Scheduling
A fee is charged for each schedule (ie. payments scheduled to occur on a future date or dates) made in excess of 3 per calendar month. Additional schedules each calendar month are charged a fee.
This fee applies to all scheduled payments made from 1 July 2005.

Re: But wait! There's MORE!

[divaflip.livejournal.com]

if you think it is a serious problem, report them to the Banking Industry Ombudsman.

I don't have any fees on transactions via bpay, at least from my bank. however a number of vendors now charge an extra fee if you pay any way other than by direct debit on a credit card (Sydney Electricity and Telstra, I'm looking at you!)

Re: But wait! There's MORE!

[wildilocks.livejournal.com]

Now, is that 3 of each type, or is that combined with third party payments???

Either way - fuckers.

I have a Bendigo account and a Commonwealth one - I've been putting off closing the commonwealth one because of the hassle, but alot of changes coming up and I'll be setting up any new transactions through Bendigo, and may well cancel cbank altogether...

[mynxii.livejournal.com]

wtf?????

that's just obvious profiteering :/

[nightmancyr.livejournal.com]

*nonchalant hand wave*

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

Long known fact: The banks are there to serve their shareholders, not their customers.

The Big 4 charge whatever people will pay. The sensible customers move to other banks, while those too lazy to look elsewhere get screwed over. The problem (or good thing, for shareholders) is that more people whinge than move their accounts elsewhere.

[lilysea.livejournal.com]

*nods* Boo Hiss Cwth. Am changing accnts also.

You could check out Members Equity. They seem less fee-happy. http://www.membersequity.com.au/

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

Seems fair. I've used Bendigo Bank for many years. ... since the Bendigo Building Society days. Before that, I used various building societies, including Citicorp, Statewide and Pyramid. (They are all gone now. Disappeared when Citibank started doing more serious banking, absorbed by RESI and collapsed, respectively.) The upshot is that I've never paid any fees of any sort on any savings/debit/cheque accounts in my life.

Since I put all bills on credit cards, which get paid off automatically from a cash management account (which, of course, also charges no fees), I have maybe 3 or 4 transactions a month on my Bendigo account, which is well under their free transaction limit.

Members Equity rocks!

[lucretiae.livejournal.com]

I have a Members Equity home loan, savings account and credit card. I couldn't be happier with the service I get Can anyone with a bank say they call the customer support line, press just *ONE* menu option then get to talk to a real person who 99% of the time can answer your query there and then?? I would seriously recommend checking them out.
Savings account - only fees I pay are ATM withdrawals ($1.00 per transaction I think) but it's a cashcard so I can stick my card in just about any ATM I come across. I withdraw cash once per month and if I got properly organised I would do an EFT transaction and withdraw cash at the same time thus avoiding any fee. I think you get 15 EFT transactions per month for free. And they pay you real interest!! 0.25% on up to $3000 balance then 5.5% on balance over $3000. And they do free direct debits and credits.
Credit Card - initial year you pay a $30 fee then if you spend over $7,500 in a year they waive the fee. Interest rate is currently 10.2% but there are no fancy reward schemes or anything like that. You get 14 days interest free (so for example my billing date is 14th of the month and I pay that off on the 28th of the month).
They don't have any branches. So if you are happy dealing with internet banking, giropost deposits and phone service then these guys will walk all over what you are getting from a bank. I have been dealing with them for 4 years now and have no complaints.

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

Bendigo charge nothing (so long as you don't do too many) for ATM withdrawals from their own ATMs. While there aren't many Bendigo branches, there are more than there used to be, even one around the corner from the Emerald Hotel in Perth. (Very convenient when attending cons.)

[caitlen.livejournal.com]

yeah - this is what I was severely pissed off about the other night. And why I am seriously thinking of changing banks after 20 years with Commonwealth, to BankWest's $2.99 unlimited transaction accounts. I'm already paying $5 a month + transaction fees, which have been known to put my account in DEBIT (!!) at Commonwealth...

[callistra.livejournal.com]

My dad worked for the Commonwealth for 29 years. I had had an account with them since I was three. I was so pissed off I typed up a four page letter when i closed all my accounts, but unfortunately I didn't send it in. It was a few years ago now.
:-)

[caitlen.livejournal.com]

yeah - I've had my account since I was four. I'm going to write a letter. Maybe. *ponders*

Ditto

[amarillion.livejournal.com]

I had an account since those kiddies accounts they encouraged kids to open to *learn* to save...
Well, Just a few months ago or so I had to close that account and remove the money I had stashed in there as an emergency loot, when I discovered they were charging 'Account Keeping' fees.
I was Not told, or warned or sent Any kind of notice, since I hadn't touched the account in any way for years. I just had the balance on my Net bank and suddenly noticed one day that it was about $20 lower than it should have been. Each month for the past several months they had been taking $5 out of my account under the account keeping fees excuse!

Apparently any money that doesn't Make Commonnwealth more money is considered a loss and hence should be taxed or chraged 'fees' depsite the fact its costing them fuck all....

Re: Ditto

[callistra.livejournal.com]

The original premise of banks was that they actually use the money that's in our accounts on stock markets, money markets, and other obscure and probably occult methods to make their own money. So our money, given to them in trust, was their for use and abuse, and in return, we let them do this.

Now, they get to use and abuse the money in our accounts, and then charge us for it. And every year they go on about how much money they have made, and then turn around and bill us for looking sideways, thinking about money, and looking at our account balances.

I'm still with westpac, for two reasons -inertia on my part, and inertia on their part. They have not increased home loan interest rates yet from that increase a few months ago (Westpac is apparently one of the slowest to pass on those sorts of increases I read somewhere) and the fees have been OK for most of the past 5/6 years. I get worried though when they start charging for using their OWN ATMs, as I guess we count as "heavy" users.

I also really liked passbook accounts. It was all there in writing. Something physical to remind you and the bank that you exist. Now, however, a PC mishap and me and my savings might never have been there!

[japester.livejournal.com]

Finally. the log to break the camel's back as incentive to leave hte common welt.
the only thing that had been really holding me back was my credit card, oh and the lack of decent internet banking from unicredit (which has been fixed now)

time for a rude letter too, methinks.