Humberto Cruz: Don't let bank fees sap your account

Every weekday morning, as soon as I look through the overnight e-mails, I go to my bank’s bookmarked Web site and check that everything is in order with my checking, savings and credit card accounts.

People used to tease me about this habit, some telling me to get a life (or worse). But it turns out what I do - it took just 53 seconds this morning - is the advice now commonly given to consumers to avoid rising and irritating bank and credit card fees.

By always knowing the overall and available balances (and verifying that all deposits and debits are recorded properly and promptly), I’ve never bounced a check or incurred a bank overdraft fee or over-the-limit or late-payment credit card fee.

I’ve never paid “maintenance,” “low-balance” or automated teller machine fees. I have never paid credit card interest because I always make sure there’s enough money in the bank to pay the balance in full.

For the five minutes a week it takes me to keep track of the account balances - and a couple of times, to spot errors and have them fixed - that’s a big payoff.

Consider, for instance, that the average “non-sufficient funds” or bounced-check bank fee rose to an average of $29.58 this year, according to an annual study by Bankrate.com, a bank-tracking, consumer oriented Web site.

Ostensibly to avoid such fees, many banks offer automatic “overdraft protection” programs that temporarily cover expenditures exceeding a customer’s available balance. But such programs can be costly.

In 2008, banks and credit unions collected nearly $24 billion in overdraft fees, 35 percent more than two years earlier, according to a study by the Center for Responsible Lending, a not-for-profit, non-partisan group.

More than 50 million Americans overdraw their checking accounts at least once over a 12-month period, the Center estimates based on a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation study, and 27 million incur five or more insufficient-funds or overdraft fees.

Americans also pay dearly for access to cash. The average fee for using an automated teller machine from another bank is $2.22, up 12.6 percent from 2008, Bankrate.com found. On top of that, your own bank is also likely to ding you with fees averaging $1.32 for using somebody else’s machine.

There’s more. “Service” charges for interest-bearing checking accounts falling below a minimum balance rose to a new average high of $12.25 a month. To avoid the charge, you need to maintain an average balance of $3,372.18. And the interest? “A miserable average yield of 0.12 percent,” the Bankrate.com study said (at that rate, I calculated, your minimum balance would earn $4.05 in interest a year).

As to credit cards, late-payment and other fees have proliferated as card issuers prepare to meet requirement of federal legislation regulating interest rate increases.

I won’t get into whether banks and card issuers are gouging customers or simply trying to make an honest profit. I’ll focus on the practical, what consumers can do.

For starters, match your accounts to your needs. If it’s just simple checking, bill pay, ATM or debit card transactions, a non-interest paying but free checking account with no minimum balance and no per-check charges is best, Bankrate.com advises. Once you set up the right accounts, my suggestion is simple: Keep track of them (don’t forget debit card transactions that can cause an overdraft).

You don’t have to give up your “life” to do this. You just have to get a grip.

Send questions or comments to Humberto Cruz at AskHumberto(at)aol.com or c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Buffalo, NY. 14207.