Filed under: Banking, In the News
The concept of “free checking” has always been somewhat fraught with inaccuracies. Yes, you may have an account that doesn’t have a monthly fee, but if you review your annual statements, you may discover that you have, indeed, paid for this, whether it’s an amazingly high cost for checks (does it really cost $30 to print six paper booklets?); a number of $35 overdraft fees for a transaction that may have cost the bank a few cents or fractions thereof; and those “convenience” fees for using other banks’ ATMs.
For as many years as anyone can remember, most U.S. banks have earned the vast majority of their money from fees to consumers. And for years, US Bank was behind the curve, only scoring its fees from the traditional punitive sources, with nothing regular it could count on.
Even though 
A trustee for the now-bankrupt Hollywood Video and Movie Gallery chains has agreed to repair the credit reports of millions of consumers to settle allegations of misconduct by debt collectors hired to collect on the rental chains’ accounts, according to a