5 Sneaky Banking Fees and How to Avoid Them

Good marketers know how to nickel and dime their customers. That’s especially true of marketers who work for banks, where hidden and obscure fees are known to catch people off guard. Fortunately, there are ways to avoid those expenses.

Here are 5 sneaky banking fees and how to avoid them.

1. Closing Fees

Many banks won’t charge you to keep an account open as long you maintain a minimum balance. Fortunately, in some cases that minimum balance can be as little as $1.

However, you might get socked with a fee when you go to close the account. It might frustrate you, but chances are pretty good that you signed a document at some point in time agreeing to the fee.

If you want to avoid that fee, just leave the account open with the minimum balance. You won’t have to use the account, but as long as you leave it open you won’t get hit with the fee.

2. Fees for Paper Statements

This is a green economy. If you want to receive your bank statements in paper format, you can expect to pay at least a couple of bucks a month.

Fortunately, this is not only a green economy but it’s also the Information Age. That means you can almost always access everything you need to know about your bank account online. You can even get your monthly statements online and print them out, if you really need paper copies.

If you’re using online banking with Capital One or some other company, you probably don’t need paper statements. Just get digital statements and save money.

3. Teller Fees

Bad news: if you signed up for e-banking, you might get hit with a teller fee on that rare occasion when you decide that you need in-person banking.

For example, if you have to talk to a teller at your local bank to get something cleared up, you could face a fee of $7 – $9. Multiply that times the number of times you need to talk to a teller during the life of your account and it’s going to add up.

The way to avoid this is to understand the terms of your banking service up front and sign up for the option that’s most cost efficient. If you think you’re going to need the assistance of a teller, maybe e-banking isn’t the best choice.

4. Account Maintenance Fees

As we’ve seen, some banks will allow you to keep a checking deposit for free as long as you meet a minimum balance requirement. However, at other banks you’ll get hit with an account maintenance fee.

Maintenance fees may be assessed on a monthly or yearly basis. They’re not usually a significant amount of money, but that’s the whole point of the “nickel and dime” marketing strategy. Maintenance fees are small enough that most people just blow them off.

Sometimes, you can avoid maintenance fees by enrolling in automatic bill pay or direct deposit.

5. Returned Mail Fee

One particularly nasty fee is the returned mail fee. That’s a fee that banks charge when a letter that’s sent to you is undeliverable.

You can escape that fee by ensuring that your address is up-to-date at your local bank.

Whether you’re using Chase Business Banking or some other banking service, be sure to watch out for sneaky fees. They won’t cost you a lot, but chances are good that you can find ways to avoid them.