ATMs are getting a new face — literally, a human face. Some bank customers are already encountering what might be called ATM cyborgs, in which a machine includes a screen showing a bank teller's head. The teller, in a remote location connected via webcam, is able to perform tasks that traditionally have been handled only by bank employees in person, such as check cashing.
Few people would make the case that we should encourage gambling. But what if gambling could be used as a ploy to improve road safety, recycling, school attendance, the financial well-being of citizens, and society as a whole?
While you can’t control the price of gas or the direction of the stock market, many of life’s most irritating money challenges do have reliable solutions. Here are 9 all-too-common financial annoyances, and strategies for resolving them.
What happens when you take companies many Americans love to hate and place them into something we all love to love – namely, a tournament bracket? Welcome to The Consumerist’s Worst Company in America 2012 tourney!
Most Americans began 2011 having never heard the phrase “debit interchange fee.” But by year’s end, a few more of us were aware that it refers to the money paid by retail merchants to card-issuing banks when we use our debit cards to make purchases. These fees turned out to be an important battleground in [...]
Several big banks have reported their earnings over the past week, and the results aren’t pretty: JP Morgan Chase & Co. had a 23% drop in profits, Citigroup’s fell 11% and regional bank PNC Financial Services Group suffered a 40% drop. While this kind of news primarily gives heartburn to investors and bank executives, consumers also [...]
As Wall Street’s biggest banks prepare to report fourth quarter earnings for 2011, many analysts expect the results to cap off a horrible year — at least by their formerly high-flying pre-recession standards. As a result, bonuses, which are tied to performance and typically represent the bulk of bankers’ compensation, are expected to be sharply [...]
One day after President Obama appointed Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over the objections of Senate Republicans, the bureau announced the launch of a new “nonbank supervision program.”
Nonprofit group The Pew Charitable Trusts found that the average length of checking account disclosures is a staggering 111 pages. To cut through the clutter, it proposed a simple, one-page form with basic account fees spelled out — no legal jargon, no tiny fonts. Today, Chase is adopting Pew’s proposal.
Chicagoland teenager Daniel Ganziano thought he was doing the right thing when he opened an account last year with TCF Bank near his Illinois home to learn how to handle money responsibly. Instead, Ganziano learned that bank fees can very quickly spiral out of control — in his case, to more than $229 in less [...]
When consumers threw a collective fit over fees charged by big banks for debit card use, credit unions were thought to be poised for a windfall. Customers were expected to defect in droves — and the initial data seemed to bear out this hunch: The Credit Union National Association announced in early November that 650,000 [...]
