Fees Continue to Bounce Up
Fees Continue to Bounce Up
Why would you shop more often and buy more per purchase at places where you can write a check?
% of Question Respondents
13.5% Can make bigger purchases with checks
64.9% Convenience
5.4% Acceptance/Personal Touch
59.5% Don't like to carry cash
31.1% Don't like to charge
10.8% Other
Bounce a check at a large North Carolina bank and you already pay an above-average price as punishment. And one NC bank is about to make the punishment more painful. Wachovia will become the first statewide bank to raise its bounced-check fee to $25 when the fee takes effect May 1. SC and GA customers of Wachovia will have to pay the new fee, too. Wachovia now charges $22 in the Carolinas and $24 in GA. Wachovia's fee, about 20% higher than the amount U.S. banks typically charge, will likely tempt other banks to raise their fees, said Hugo Ottolenghi of Bank Rate Monitor, a newsletter that tracks interest rates. "If they can get away with $25, you can bet that everybody else will raise theirs to $25," Ottolenghi said. NC's other large statewide banks now charge $20 to $23. Out of Reach Fewer than 7 percent of all commercial banks now offer free checking NC customers already pay some of the highest bank fees in the nation, according to studies by consumer groups. On average, U.S. banks charge $21 for a bounced check.
We remind you that if you are selling Check Guarantee, Cross-Check, Inc., remains the only Check Guarantee company reimbursing merchants for Bank Fees.
[Go Back]
