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Bank Fees


Zeb

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43 minutes ago, cedros said:

 

I would imagine that fee would show up on your bank statement monthly, weather a paper statement or on line?  That adds up to a bunch of money at the end of a year.  I want to know what fees I am paying.  Is there not a receipt with each withdrawal showing any fees also?

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Sigh!  Sigh! Fee! No fee! 1%... 2%... ATM fees.... Local fee at your institution etc! 

I worked for CUETS (Credit Union Electronic Transaction Services) which provided Master Card card Services to and on behalf of owner credit unions across Canada, as the Director of Card Services. As such I worked with the folks from MasterCard and Visa. I was the Canadian Credit  Representative on technical advisory committee for card services across Canada.  Did I say credit unions were the first in Canada to ffer online banking as well as debit card services!  We were!   Admittedly that is now well more than 10 years ago.

Here is what I can tell you for certain!  Banks (and in some few cases unwise credit unions) make a piss pot full of money on foreign transactions. I know, because my staff and I used to set the rates and fees involved!  Currently, for most institutions there is NO disclosure involved! Scotia bank at least gives you the option to proceed once they tell you the exchange rate involved.  That was cool!  Today Visa and MasterCard (and to a slight degree American Express and others... all take say (this is not exact) 1/10 of the total of what you pay pay for cr and dr transactions) using set the procedures and parameters involved. Credit fees are calculated and handled diffidently than debit fees) They leave it to local partner banks and credit unions to set local fees. 

Here is the bottom line... banks and others in the games play with exchange rates and fees.  Some will have a great exchange rate... but high fees for each atm transaction,  You may have seen "No Fee" advertisement at airports!  Sigh!  You hand them your card or your cash... and without knowing it... YOU probably have just lost  anywhere from 10% to 25% of the value of your total translocation.... fee or no fee, becuae the manipulate the foreign currency exchange.  Mexico is worse than many countries in this regard.  Check out Oanda.com for reasonable rates from ATMs.

 

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6 minutes ago, Zeb said:

I would imagine that fee would show up on your bank statement monthly, weather a paper statement or on line?  That adds up to a bunch of money at the end of a year.  I want to know what fees I am paying.  Is there not a receipt with each withdrawal showing any fees also?

Definitely no ATM fees for me ever and nothing else that shows up on any statements. I get a receipt with every withdrawal and there are never fees. Manipulating the foreign currency exchange is another matter but after making an ATM withdrawal I usually check the rates with an independent source.  

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1 hour ago, cedros said:

 

 

1 hour ago, cedros said:

 

Here is what I learned from talking to HSBC.  You can avoid foreign transaction fees completely by having a Premier Account.  AND you only have to maintain a $100,000 balance.  What  a bargain!!! (sarcasm).  So, they tie up a lot of your money, if you have that much, and give you no return for it, and then you don't pay the foreign transaction fees.  I really hate dealing with banks.  They make the money and give the consumer nothing, investment return wise.

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I have a Premier account and I get monthly interest from them. The interest isn't as much as it used to be but it adds up.

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The 1% foreign exchange fee is hard to escape, as I think it is charged by the card company, like Visa or MasterCard. It may show on your year-end statement.  It will not show on the receipt you get from an ATM.

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How many times do I have to post this info?  4 times???  With Capital One 360 accounts there are NO NO NO fees.  When I get home from withdrawing money from an ATM and check the bank-to-bank exchange rate with xe.com I find that my exchange rate was about .2 points difference. (18.5/18.3)  They are allowed to make money on the exchange rate they charge me from the one they pay another bank.  Where they make their money is on the float from the time I deposit funds until I'm able to withdraw those funds, usually 3 days.  Then they start paying me interest on that deposit.  AND I have no minimum balance to maintain.  No foreign transaction fee, no ATM fee.  The only money Capital One makes on a withdrawal is the diff between the exchange rates and it's almost nothing.  Certainly not 1%.  The interest on checking is .2%, savings is .75% (makes me sick when I think of what we all used to make years and years ago).  The exchange rate I got today about 3:30 was 18.8.  I think that's pretty good when I looked the exchange rate tonight and it was (day median rate) 18.75.  So obviously I took a withdrawal at the right time of the trading day.  So Jeb, have you finally got that there are banks out there that are good to deal with????????  Also, there are NO fees for their credit cards.  And since I pay the balance off every month no matter the size, I pay NO interest.  And NO yearly fees.  I'm done thrashing around with you, Jeb.  Go find yourself a bank and leave us out of it since you continue to question good advice when you get it.

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2 hours ago, Yo1 said:

How many times do I have to post this info?  4 times???  With Capital One 360 accounts there are NO NO NO fees.  When I get home from withdrawing money from an ATM and check the bank-to-bank exchange rate with xe.com I find that my exchange rate was about .2 points difference. (18.5/18.3)  They are allowed to make money on the exchange rate they charge me from the one they pay another bank.  Where they make their money is on the float from the time I deposit funds until I'm able to withdraw those funds, usually 3 days.  Then they start paying me interest on that deposit.  AND I have no minimum balance to maintain.  No foreign transaction fee, no ATM fee.  The only money Capital One makes on a withdrawal is the diff between the exchange rates and it's almost nothing.  Certainly not 1%.  The interest on checking is .2%, savings is .75% (makes me sick when I think of what we all used to make years and years ago).  The exchange rate I got today about 3:30 was 18.8.  I think that's pretty good when I looked the exchange rate tonight and it was (day median rate) 18.75.  So obviously I took a withdrawal at the right time of the trading day.  So Jeb, have you finally got that there are banks out there that are good to deal with????????  Also, there are NO fees for their credit cards.  And since I pay the balance off every month no matter the size, I pay NO interest.  And NO yearly fees.  I'm done thrashing around with you, Jeb.  Go find yourself a bank and leave us out of it since you continue to question good advice when you get it.

I tried to tell him the same thing,. but obviously he is not interested in what we know. Go figure.  Let him flounder until he gets tired of it and maybe he will reread our posts.

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20 hours ago, Yo1 said:

Google Capital One and sign up for the 360 account.  You can get savings and checking and they both pay pretty good interest (ok, not as good as the old, old days)  You can make a bank to bank transfer from your current bank to open your account.  There are NO, nada fees for anything.

Ok. I will look into this option.

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14 hours ago, Hud said:

I tried to tell him the same thing,. but obviously he is not interested in what we know. Go figure.  Let him flounder until he gets tired of it and maybe he will reread our posts.

Well, you know some of us are old and we don't always get it as fast as we would like.

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One option I did find is to deposit a US check into my Mexican bank account.  There is a $10 charge, which is still less than the 1% transaction fee or international wire transfer fee.

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I was going to use my Canadian ATM card at Bancomer's machine today to see what kind of exchange rate I would get, and the machine advised me that Bancomer would charge 81 pesos for a withdrawal! My Canadian bank doesn't charge me for foreign withdrawals because I keep a minimum balance, but I think that is an outrageous charge at this end. I asked a girl who works there if that was the best possible rate and she said it was. Are other people all paying this at Bancomer?

I also asked them to call Mexico City to see what rate they would give me at that moment for a cheque on deposit for $10,000 Canadian dollars. They quoted 13.53 pesos to the dollar.  At that moment I checked xe.com online, and they said 14.29 pesos to the Canadian dollar.  That is a difference of 7600 pesos!!  There must be a better way to get money down here. 

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Zeb, regarding the foreign transaction fee, with Schwab I don't think there is one. I find that using my ATM card at a Banamex ATM, I get an exchange rate within 1% of the posted Foreign Exchange Rate on like Yahoo Finance.  So if I went to the ATM today with the rate at 18.83 and got any amount of pesos, my exchange rate would be ~18.65, thus with Schwab maybe that's where they get a FT fee.  Either way the 30.74 peso ATM transaction fee gets returned at the end of the month. Of course this "FT fee" may have something to do with VISA's branding, all I know is it's easy method to get pesos and I use the Mobile App on my phone to deposit USD checks when needed. I write a Schwab check for my rent in USD, live on pesos from the ATM, and keep ALL my funds in Schwab. FWIW YMMV

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Zeb, Today got 18.89 when I withdrew 15,000 pesos with my CapOne 360. NO FEES( the $2.45 ATM fee will be returned to me). Try it, you'll like it ! :) 

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1 hour ago, Hud said:

Zeb, Today got 18.89 when I withdrew 15,000 pesos with my CapOne 360. NO FEES( the $2.45 ATM fee will be returned to me). Try it, you'll like it ! :) 

Very good.  I have opened an account with them.

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1 hour ago, floridaze said:

I have a Capitol 360 card. I understand they will only charge no ATM fees at Allpoint ATMs. Are there any other Allpoint ATMs in Chapala other than the OXXO by the malecon? Does the no ATM fee apply to other Banorte ATMs such as at Sorianos? Thanks

I have found that not all Banorte ATMs are free. However, usually, the fee is like 46-47 pesos (about $2.50), so I have no problem eating that fee. YMMD. (the MC exchange rate beats the Visa rate, so you still come out smelling fresher). :D

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1 hour ago, floridaze said:

I have a Capitol 360 card. I understand they will only charge no ATM fees at Allpoint ATMs. Are there any other Allpoint ATMs in Chapala other than the OXXO by the malecon? Does the no ATM fee apply to other Banorte ATMs such as at Sorianos? Thanks

In Ajijic there is a Banorte ATM in the Oxxo on the carraterra. There is also one at El Torito. No ATM fee with Cap360 card. I've never used the Soriana one, but should be free. They always say there will be a charge as you are going through the transaction, but I've never been charged the fee.

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The Banorte machine at the OXXO in Ajijic next to Intercam, El Torito, the OXXO by the Beer Garden in Chapala are the only ones that I have found with no fees.  The Banorte machine in Soriana levees a fee that Soriana receives, not either bank.  A pox on Soriana!

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I deal with Scotiabank in Canada. My 2 government pensions are deposited there as well as 2 investment deposits. I use my Scotiabank card at the ABM in Ajijic or any of the ABMs in Guadalajara. There are no charges. When I check my account on-line it shows the withdrawal in Canadian funds but I get pesos at the ABM. Every time I withdraw money I receive an email advising that my card has been used. Works well for me.

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30 minutes ago, RLuquin said:

I deal with Scotiabank in Canada. My 2 government pensions are deposited there as well as 2 investment deposits. I use my Scotiabank card at the ABM in Ajijic or any of the ABMs in Guadalajara. There are no charges. When I check my account on-line it shows the withdrawal in Canadian funds but I get pesos at the ABM. Every time I withdraw money I receive an email advising that my card has been used. Works well for me.

Where have you been for 2 months? The only Scotia ATM here is in San Antonia not Ajijic and has been basically crashed for 2 months so some of us Scotia customers have made other arrangements since even after calling the presidents office about the problem nothing is being done, They don't care if we take our business elsewhere according to that office. Only my branch in Canada seems to care but they can't do anything about it.

 

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On ‎7‎/‎25‎/‎2016 at 7:38 PM, Zeb said:

Ok. Which banks , that you know of, do not charge a conversion fee and I will check them out?

Citibank owns Banamex, so there is no fee to take money out of a Banamex ATM from Citibank.  If you have, as we do, a minimum balance of $50,000 USD in Citibank, then there is no conversion fee.  This results in no fees whatsoever.  I have done the math, and it ends up saving us the equivalent of a 2% ROI on our $50,000 USD, which is hard to duplicate with any other investment in dollars currently.  (Sad as that is to say.)

 

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BTW, I withdrew 8,000 pesos from a Banamex ATM two days ago and went on line to check the exchange rate.  It was $18.897 pesos per US dollar.  You will not get anything like that going to any institution in Ajijic or Chapala or anywhere around here.  We have had a good relationship with Banco Multiva in Ajijic for many years, and we have pesos invested with them.  But they don´t even come close to this exchange rate, available only by withdrawing money with the Citicard from a Banamex ATM.

 

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