There are certain secrets that your bank teller will not tell you which you have to know. These are some of those secrets.
Just because you deposited a cheque today doesn’t mean you can start living it up tomorrow. There are rules that bank tellers won’t tell you when it comes to banking. Below are some, according to www.rd.com.
1. Make sure you have the right loss/theft protection
If you’re using your ATM card for debit transactions, ask your bank what kind of protection it offers if the card is stolen or lost. Thousands of naira can be pulled from your current account and, in many cases, you won’t be nearly as protected as you would be with a stolen credit card.
Before you sign up for a bank-issued credit card, ask if it has a “universal default clause,”also known as “the ultimate poison clause in credit cards.” If it does, run for the nearest exit. It allows the bank to look through all your credit accounts, and if it sees that you’re late paying a bill on another card, it gets to jack up the interest rate on its card.
2. Online banking
Online banking, as it is today, is pretty safe, but it can be better, according to researchers at the University of Michigan. They studied 214 financial institution websites and found design flaws in 76 per cent of them, including banks redirecting users to less-secure sites.
3. Not everyone is allowed to do a teller’s job
Yes, we know the line is long and only one teller window is open, but no, the guy in the cubicle can’t come over to help out.
4. Call or visit in person to resolve a problem
Filling out online forms will usually get you the by-the-book reply, but a rep will often forgive a fee over the phone so we can all just get on with our lives.
5. We know you hate itemised penalties
A consumer’s brain registers an immediate “Ouch!” whenever he’s hit with an itemised penalty, such as a bounced cheque fee, so most people keep a much higher balance in their current accounts than necessary, says personal finance writer, Jason Zweig. “Banks make a tonne of money off this mental quirk since they would have to pay interest on the money if we left it in our savings accounts, where it belongs.”
6. A bank has the right to pay itself back
Any fees or overdraft loans that you owe can be deducted from your next deposit.
7. You probably don’t need to pay fees
You can get practically any fee waived if you ask, especially if you’re a long-time customer.
8. Keep receipts for every ATM transaction
And please don’t feed cash directly into the machine without first putting it into an envelope, unless you know you’re at one of the ATMs that accepts loose bills. (Yes, people actually do this.)
9. Banks don’t always promote their highest interest rate accounts
Why tell you about those when you’re already willing to sign up for an account that pays less?
