Higher Charges on Checking Accounts
HARRIS: A quick check now of our top stories. The H1N1 vaccine should be available in some areas beginning next week. But will Americans line up for the shot? A new poll from Consumer Reports suggests the majority of adults are now either reluctant or simply not sure if they or their children will get vaccinated. GM is pulling the plug on Saturn. Penske Automotive has backed out of a deal to buy the brand. It says it can't find a manufacturer to make the car. Three hundred fifty Saturn dealerships will close. GM hopes to save many factory jobs by increasing production on other models. Consumer spending rises, but so does the number of first-time jobless clamss. Here's a look at some key economic reports out today. The Labor Department says first-time claims for unemployment benefits rose to 551,000 last week. That's up 17,000 from the previous week. The Commerce Department says personal income inched up jus just .2 percent in August. On a positive note here, consumer spending jumped 1.3 percent, fueled by the popular Cash for Clunkers program. Higher charges on your checking account, you can bank on that. A new study finds bank fees have reached an all-time high. Christine Romans of our CNN Money team live from New York with details. I'm going to bite my tongue just a bit here. I'm going to allow you to explain what's going on. Now, Christine, some of the big banks last week announced they were doing something about overdraft fees.</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: That's right.</s>HARRIS: Are we talking about those fees and others?</s>ROMANS: We're talking about those fees and others. And, you know, consumers and, frankly, people in Congress have been howling, howling about this. BankRate.com doing a survey of the banks, finding that, big surprise, record amounts of these fees -- let's look at what they are. For bounced checks, you're going to pay on average a fee of $29.58. Overdraft fee, it's up to $36. And Tony, if you are a repeat offender, if you have more than five or six overdrafts in one billing cycle, in a month, for example, you could see an even higher rate than that. I mean, they charge you more, the more you do this. ATM surcharge, $2.22. I'll tell you right now what I think of those ATM surcharges. You are giving your money away. Do not go to an ATM machine of a bank that is not your bank, period. You're just giving money away when you do that. Service fees, about $12.55. How to avoid them? Greg McBride at Bank Rate says, look, you've got to take back control. You have got to take back control. You cannot be bouncing checks. You've got to check out the differences between your accounts and realize that there are fees attached to some of these accounts. You've got to read the fine print and start looking around. You've got to set up overdraft protection so that, for example, they take some money out of a savings account if you're overdrawn on your bank account. But remember, they could still charge you a fee for that, but it's likely less of a fee. And use your bank's ATM. You can also just call your bank and say, look, if I don't have money in my act, don't let me keep charging. It's almost like you're set up to fail here. Like, they can charge you numerous times in a single day. They can also reorder your charges so that you can get hit with an overdraft charge four or five or six times right in a row. That being said, this is an interesting statistic. According to the FDIC, 75 percent of people with bank accounts do not pay these fees, Tony. Seventy-five percent of us are not paying these fees because we're not overcharging. It's a quarter of the people are racking up tens of billions of dollars of these charges, either because they're living so close to the edge because they have to, or because for 15 or 20 years, credit was so cheap and easy, people just always thought there was going to be money there at the other end, even if it wasn't their money, it was borrowed money. Remember, when you're overdrawn on your account, you're getting an emergency loan to help you pay, and then the bank is charging you a fortune. I mean, the interest on a $20 overcharge, Tony, $20 overcharge, you pay it two weeks later. You've got a $27 fine on it. That interest is about 3,500 percent.</s>HARRIS: Force me, Christine, to opt in for overdraft protection. Don't force me to opt out. I don't even know that I have it.</s>ROMANS: Yes. Almost everybody has it. That's why I say call your bank and say, look, I don't want you to help me out if I'm overdrawn. I want that card to be -- I want it to be rejected right there. And you can do that. You can call and say, I don't want you to give me that emergency loan at 3,500 percent interest. And I think that people in Congress are going to make sure that that's -- I honestly think that that's going to end up happening over the next weeks and months.</s>HARRIS: You just described the opting out scenario. I want to start a new account at a new bank, and I want to be forced to ask for it.</s>ROMANS: Yes. And I think that's what Congress is going to make them do. But there's two ways to look at this. You're either being robbed, or you're giving your money away. Think about that.</s>HARRIS: Yes. All right, Christine. Appreciate it. Thank you.</s>ROMANS: Right.</s>HARRIS: The rich are getting poorer. Forbes' new list of the 400 wealthiest Americans is out, and even the people with the fattest wallets are taking a hit in this recession.</s>HARRIS: Are you tired of paying Uncle Sam? Well, listen to this. Forty-seven percent of Americans may not have to pay federal taxes. Find out why simply by logging on to CNNMoney.com. The president leaves this afternoon for Denmark in hopes of bringing the Olympics back to the United States.