Banking on the Internet with USAA
Written: Mar 04 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Excellent Service, free accounts, low opening minimums, useful simple website
Cons: Data on the website updates only nightly
The Bottom Line: USAA is a convenient low cost bank. You'll never have to switch banks again. Cash back on the Debit card and ATM reimbursement are great.
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| grepsedawk's Full Review: USAA |
You do not have to be a member of the armed forces or related to a member in order to bank with USAA. USAA Federal Savings Bank is open to all civilians.
As a military dependent I've had a relationship with USAA for about 12 years. It started with a credit card my father co-signed for and later I added car insurance. About once a year I would get an offer in the mail to open up a checking account with USAA bank. I was always somewhat interested, but just didn't know if it would be convenient to do business with a long distance bank. I was afraid of the hassles of depositing money, making ATM withdrawals, and whether merchants would take out of state checks.
It wasn't until December of 2001 I finally took the plunge and opened up checking and savings accounts. I figured with the advent of the web and popular internet banking a long distance bank wouldn't be so uncommon these days and should work nicely.
My specific concerns, depositing money, making and paying for ATM withdrawals, and out of state checks are no longer a problem.
USAA makes deposits as simple as can be for a distance bank. As often as you request, they will send, at no charge, 10 postage pre-paid deposit envelopes to you. I ordered mine and received them 2 days later. Each time I've sent in checks for deposit (be sure to endorse them for deposit only and put your account number on them) they were correctly credited to my account within 3 days. That is fast considering I am in Boston and they are in San Antonio.
USAA does not charge any fees for using ATMs and they refund you up to a $1.50 per transaction for the first 10 transactions (a total of $15.00) each month. The fee will be charged against your account at the time of withdrawal, but at the end of the month USAA pays it back to you. I haven't tested it yet, but if a fee exceeds $1.50 you will only be reimbursed the first $1.50 of that transaction. I've not yet come across an ATM that charged that high of a fee. But, with what USAA has in place, you could end up never paying an ATM fee again, and be able to access any ATM out there. I've found this to be very convenient as I know I can get cash at any time and not be nickeled and dimed by the fees.
USAA will give you a free Debit/ATM card with your account. This is what you use to access ATMs, but also what you can use to pay merchants. It works just like any other banks Debit cards. This card can be used as a debit card, where you have to punch in your pin #, or as a credit card where you sign a slip. It is accepted wherever Mastercard is accepted. This debit card, plus the fact that merchants now run check clearances before accepting checks has eliminated my fear of merchants not accepting out of town bank checks.
The nicest feature of this debit card is that it gives you cash back in the amount of 1/2% for all items you pay for while using it like a credit card. That means when you sign a receipt. So, if you go grocery shopping, use this card, if you pay for a dinner out, use this card, if you buy something at a store, use this card. On your monthly statement you will receive your cash back award. I love this feature, and I have not found any other debit card that offers it. In just 2 months I've earned $40 back.
Now that I've addressed my specific points for not signing up for distance banking originally, I'll detail more information about USAA.
1) USAA is a huge company. They offer all sorts of financial services for their members. In offering these services they nearly always manage to provide excellent service, great products, and try to avoid making your life miserable. They are very member focused. Remember that. They really are their to serve you.
2) I signed up for the Four Star Checking Account and the Bonus Savings account. I was already a USAA member, so I signed up through the website. Signup was painless and easy. The online form was simple and walked me through the steps for opening my accounts. I was offered the chance to fund the opening of the accounts with a credit card, via wire transfer from another account, or by sending in a check. I opted to send in a check.
3) In order to access the website I had to call to get a pin number to log in with. This is for security purposes. My fiancee had to call first to get USAA member number assigned to her so she could use the website. I already had a member number.
4) Each account has a minimum of $50 to open, though you can carry a lower balance once it is open. When I sent in my check for $100 to open the account, USAA did not correclty apply $50 to each account. As a result they closed my Savings account after 60 days of not funding it (they state that they will do that when you sign up.) A simple phone call was all that was needed to get them to reopen the account and transfer $50 into it.
5) I was closing a brick and mortar bank account and needed to get my money into the USAA account. I'm adverse to paying fees for this so I used my Debit card iwth the brick and mortar bank to deposit money into my USAA account. I was allowed to transfer $1000 a day doing this. It was painless, but I did have to make a telephone call.
6) About that telephone call. Using a 1-800 # I was able to talk to Customer Service agent in about 10 seconds. They were able to help me. No voicemail systems, no transfers. All they needed was my USAA member # and then verified who I was by asking date of birth and social security #.
7) Everytime I call USAA I get to an agent in a matter of seconds and they are always the person who can help me. I love that kind of service.
8) Once they made the funds transfer from checking to savings for me my account was setup to be able to make transfers between those accounts on the web. However, it was not setup to go in reverse. Another phone call set that up in a matter of 1 minute. I consider this a good thing, because it doesn't necessarily follow that I want to transfer from savings to checking. There is also a form available on the web you can printout and send in (via mail or fax) to setup funds transfers between USAA accounts or other bank accounts. There is no fee for ones done between USAA accounts. When you get the routing information from other banks, use their Electronic Funds transfer routing number, not their Wire Transfer number.
9) I got free checks (50) with my checking account and 25 free ones with my savings. You can write unlimited checks for checking in a given month. For your savings account you can have a total of 6 withdrawals a month, 3 of which can be checks, 3 of which can be electronic. More than 3 of each type, or 6 overall and USAA might have to change the account to a checking account. This is explained in the welcome packet.
10) The welcome packet arrives a few days after opening up the account (mine came before I even sent in the money to open with). It includes some signature cards so they will have your signature on record. Be sure to send those in.
11) You can order checks through the USAA website. They link to a third party provider. Rates are very good, the choice of patterns is large, and you can always use another supplier if you wish.
12) The checking account earns interest on Average Daily Deposits greater than $1000. The current amount is a bank average of 1/2%, but has been higher when interest rates are higher. Netbank.com and Everbank.com offer better rates if this is all you are interest in. The savings account earns on a tiered structure. Visit USAA.com to get the current rates. The savings account doesn't really beat that of other banks, so it's not so great. I use ingdirect.com for the bulk of my cash savings as their rate is consistently about 2.75%APY higher than other banks.
13) So, if they rates aren't that great, why did I sign up with USAA? Well, the answer is on many levels.
a) I wanted to do some financial house cleaning in my life so I decided to start fresh with a new bank account that wasn't sullied by my previous poor spending habits. This was merely for psychological reasons.
b) It's free. I was using Citizens Bank here in Mass and was finding it impossible to keep my account straight. I got charged ATM access fees, something called Point of Sale fees, and a monthly charge. I was always off by a couple of dollars each month. USAA is free. Not ATM fees, no account fees, no cost of doing business.
c) I wanted an account I could keep forever. With USAA I would never need to switch banks again simple because I moved to a different state. With direct deposit, ATM reimbursement, and the web, I could bank from anywhere.
d) USAA is an awesome company that provides excellent service in all that it does. I wanted to be a part of that. That is why I have my car insurance, banking, and a credit card with them. It feels right to do business with USAA.
e) The terrorist attacks on Sept 11 and the insuing war on terrorism has reminded me of the service performed by our US Military men and women. USAA was founded by such people and has long served them. I choose to patron those who server those who serve me.
I have nothing but good things to say about my banking experience with USAA at this point.
My only caveats are with the website. It seems a little slow to come up and to change pages. This might be because of the security. On a side note, I do love the website for it's simplicity and the fact that it is web browser agnostic. I use a Linux machine about 60% of the time and the website works with Opera, Konqueror, Mozilla, Galeon, and Netscape. Not just Internet Explorer on Windows or the Mac.
The website also only displays information that was updated at 12:00am. Meaning, you won't see transactions from that day. I was alarmed when I first setup direct deposit and did not see it in my account on the day it should be there. It turns out the money was there, but not viewable on the web.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
grepsedawk
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Location: Watertown, MA
Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
Geek with a computer fetish ;-)
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