Watch Out For Little Fees

When you receive your monthly bank statement or credit card statement, do you take the time to review each transaction to make sure that everything is accurate? If you do not review your statements, you may very well be paying fees that are being incorrectly charged.

Reviewing Statements.
This month I sat down to review my bank statement and noticed that they had charged me a $1.75 fee for using a non-network ATM. When we do use the ATM, we typically visit one near our house that is a surcharge-free location so this fee immediately jumped out at me.

After reviewing all of my transactions and verifying everything else was accurate, I placed a call to my bank to dispute this charge as we did not use any non-network ATM. In the past, I have been told that there are times where a POS purchase is mistakenly labeled as a non-network transaction and that is why they assess the fee. In a few days, I should have the $1.75 credited back to my account.

Little Fees Equal Large Loss.
Similar to how little things can add up when taking advantage of deals and specials, you need to be careful that these small fees do not pile up into a larger loss.

If I did not have the habit of reviewing my account statements, we would have been out the $1.75 this month. While it doesn’t seem like a big deal, when you consider that this has happened 10-15 times in the last year it starts to look a little more significant and this is for just one account.

Add Fees to Savings.
As an added bonus, if you have taken me up on my challenge to increase your savings you can redirect any money you reclaim in inaccurate fees towards your savings account.

Take the time to review your account statements closely to ensure you are not paying for the mistakes of others.

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6 Responses

  1. Tech says:

    Companies make so many mistakes, yet they are always in their favor. Interesting how it is a mistake.

  2. Tyler says:

    When I goto a local pub I’ve used their cash machine a few times and I’m dinged the $1.50 to use it but then my branch dings me for using a non-network ATM machine so if I take out $60, I get charged $63.75

    🙁 Makes me take out cash at my local ATM prior to doing anything. That stuff adds up. And then at the end of the money I get dinged again if I use my debit card a certain amount of times.

    And to think, its a Credit Union and not a Bank! Thought they were supposed to be better!

  3. mnc says:

    You’re lucky the fee in the pub was only $1.50 as I’ve seen some places charge fees as a percentage of the amount withdrawn or a minimum of $5 whichever is more.

    Planning ahead to use an ATM that will not result in a fee can add up over the long term.

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