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Debit Card Debacle

 A friend of mine used his debit card for everything.  He normally didn’t have any issues. 

One day he forgot about a major bill that went through on his Debit Card.  It went through on a Friday and emptied his account.  

He made seven or eight little purchases over the weekend.  Each purchase went through however the bank nailed him for $20 on each of the purchases. 

The bank would not delete all of their charges.  He ended up with $100 in extra bank fees.  

If the bank had just refused payment he would have checked and discovered his account was empty.

Fees like this waste a lot of money.  If he used a credit card and paid it off every month he would not have had the overdraft debit card fees.


Debit Card Fees

I stop by a local pub regularly.  Several people the first thing they do after they walk in the door is go over to the ATM and get cash.  The ATM charges $4 for cash. 


Many people will get $20 or $40 from the ATM.  A four dollar charge on a $20 withdrawal is huge.  The pub is four blocks from three different banks.  Most people could stop by the bank window and get cash from their account with no fee.

  

However I pay No ATM or Debit Card fees.  I use a points credit card to pay my bill at the pub and just pay it off every month.  I get 5 points for every Credit Card purchase at restaurants with one of my cards so I use that one.


One bar/restaurant in my town (They have awesome Wings) will not accept Debit or Credit Cards.  They have an ATM that many people use.  The fee to use the ATM is between $2 and $4. 


They get very little of my business.  They also serve good food, however I rarely eat there as I don’t always carry cash and I refuse to pay an ATM fee. 


I have never used a debit card.  I like the points I get using my points/airline miles credit card.  I also like that using my credit card, I get both a Grace period and Float.



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