uds0

After [another] closer look at the State Farm Bank ATM reimbursement policy:

https://www.statefarm.com/finances/b...unt-access/atm

I updated the chart to show that ALL ATM fees, including balance inquiry, are reimbursed by State Farm. Since their reps are not consistent about the VISA ISA 1% fee being passed through or not, I appreciate folks using the card reporting in on actual use results which include whether this separate 1% VISA network usage fee charged to the bank rather than the card holder (which is not an FTF fee but many banks who do charge fees either call it that or include it in their fee, if any) appears separately on their statement, is included in the purchase amount, or is hidden in the exchange rate.

uds0

Chart shows 0% FTF or "other" international fee for Fidelity but fine print on web site states:

"Please note, a foreign transaction fee of one percent is not waived"

Which is real please?

007shinobi

From others who posted their experiences I think it just means that if there is a 1% fee charged, they will not waive it. But field wise, only certain atms do make them charge the 1%. I do wish we have more field experience of state farm bank.

uds0

I don't see how the VISA ISA fee can be ATM specific since it is the fee that VISA charges the issuing bank. Anyone have info that indicates that VISA ISA fee is not charged to one bank vs another?

Now that I fully appreciate that State Farm Bank reimburses ATM cash withdrawal fees AND other ATM fees such as balance inquiry and balance transfers (only bank that I know of that does this), and have known that they support local ATM deposits (which Schwab doesn't), I will apply for one shortly and use in Europe in April and post my actual experience on this new journey.

007shinobi

Yeah me neither.. sorry I can't be much of help. Keep us posted on your state farm bank experience. Schwab is nice, but I can't really use it as a ach hub since they have 3-4 day holds when you pull money. However, I believe state farm bank takes 2 days. Oh, can you let us know how fast ach pull and pushes are as well for state farm bank?

uds0

In my experience and from what I've read, ACH transactions pretty much always take 2-3 days for the side receiving the funds. The party line is that the funds can be pulled back within that time frame, thus the hold.

State Farm has the ATM deposit feature that might avoid that delay if cash is deposited?

In my experience, Sun Trust has reduced the hold time after a few months of history, so the hold time does appear to be a policy issue by bank. Sun trust doesn't have anything compelling (and is a pain sometimes due to lack of free local ATM access and demands that some things can ONLY be done at a branch - stupid for an online bank across the country from me). Also, they and banks that have no provision to reset a pin besides sending it to a home address are a major pain when traveling.

Happy

Correct. This happened on a withdrawal made at BNP at Aix-en-Provence. a 1% fee was separately listed as "purchase" on the withdrawal slip. That was in the Fall of 2013.

And yes, it is ATM specific for this is the ONLY ATM that I have encountered that shows a 1% separate line item, among may be 50+ withdrawals in the past 18 months in Europe and Asia. Nor there is any 1% padding on the exchange rates being used.

I cannot believe the topic is still in discussion on the same old cards after dozs posts and months passed.

How much potential "spoilage" we are talking about here? difference at the most has been 0.2 to 0.3% versus the mean intra-day historical rate (You do know that rate changes literally every minute of the day in real time, even on a calm market day, right?) For a hypothesis $1000 spend on a trip, that 0.2% would be a whopping $2 grand total. Some folks spend countless hours trying to get a "definite" answer on something that amounts so little... wow.

uds0

Ok, so this is most likely an ATM fee - not a VISA ISA fee. Thanks!

007shinobi

I somehow forgot but have you looked into TD Ameritrade? I think they dont pass the 1% and they have same day atm reimbursement. Maybe im missing something... Never mind it only says it reimburses nationwide.

joshwex90

I've never heard of annual fee debit cards. I have heard of debit cards connected to bank accounts with monthly maintenance fees, and you can feel free to add that column in

uds0

I have one! <g> It's a Delta airmile MC debit card (Sun Trust; sadly, no long available since June 2014) and the only current true airmile debit card that I am aware of. This card is very valuable when paying taxes because it limits the max fee to less than $3 for up to $30,000 tax payment instead of 2% "convenience" fee charged for credit card! Got me (with alot of flexibility and time searching and negotiating with airline - a real personal challenge with a very satisfying payoff) and another card holder 2 business class round trips from Oregon to Istanbul return from Amsterdam recently via airmiles for $200 (200k Delta airmiles including another 2 Amex Delta 40k signup bonuses) - a $10,000+ fare value! Yep, those fake "airmile" cards with no blackout dates really pale to actual airmile cards.

A reasonable policy on charts is to never add a column unless a significant portion of the rows have a value in that column. Instead, a note should be added for the few exceptions like this one. In those rare situations, using a consistent key word in the notes supports searching by that characteristic if desired and supports validating key values for consistency.

On the other hand, when using a actual database, any data element that has substantial impact should have it's own column (otherwise know as field to us old timers!) so that it can be indexed and thus provide very fast access to rows (items) that have that characteristic. Filters are MUCH slower for significant database sizes. I am a professional software database application developer for over 30 years, so I have serious experience with this stuff.

uds0

I did too. There are soooo many sneaky fees that need to be considered:

1. Foreign Trasaction Fee
2. VISA International Service Assessment network VISA use fee (or other network equivalent). NOTE: Some US banks may actually also charge a fee with this same name for Home Equity Line of Credit accessed via VISA card (should be disclosed)! http://www.bankersonline.com/forum/u...&Number=381425 (bankers discussion group)
3. ATM fee for cash advance/balance inquiry/funds transfer/... (operator)
4. ATM fee for cash advance/balance inquiry/funds transfer/... (issuer)
5. Purchase fee (store)
6. Purchase fee (issuer)
7. Exchange rate piggyback
8. teller "cash advance" fee on debit card! It is considered a "cash advance", but not a "cash advance" on a credit card, because it is from a different bank than the one where the funds are.
9. Dynamic Currency Conversion fee
10. whatever they choose to charge and call it fee
11. VISA exchange rate vs bank to bank exchange rate
12. ...

So, you have to be VERY aware of what you paid vs what the original purchase amount was to confirm that you got what you paid for.

007shinobi

I haven't seen many data points in regards to state farm bank's ach. I saw one on a thai website saying that they always get it next day at around 7 PM EDT(ach pull, I believe ach push is dependent on the sender's bank). However, that was in 2011 when it was subject to next day availability. Looks like now state farm bank adds another day now according to policy. And sorry I've gotten off-topic but yeah the local bank I am looking at with its debit card is stating that MasterCard may impose a fee, but they told me it depends on the currency rate and they could not determine the exact fee. What does that mean for me is what I want to know...

Happy

No, it is a Visa 1% fee, NOT an ATM fee.

It is exactly 1% of the withdrawal and when I asked Fido they confirmed that is Visa Fee.

May be I should say that not all ATMs programmed to charge the 1% fee. At that BNP location, there were literally 5 or 6 ATMs there, EACH of them is a different looking machine, but ALL of them belong to BNP, INSIDE the enclave of the bank after the main door, but before the door led into the banking hall. The one I happened to use, looked much newer style than others. I have no idea if other ATMs would also charge the 1%. I only knew this one I used had a weird place to insert the card and a very tiny space for you to grab your card when the machine signaled you to get your card, by an animated pair of eyes that kept looking side way, and I could not figure out what that was for! By the time I finally understood what it meant, it was too late, my card was retreating back into the machine...

I will tell you what is an ATM fee - at ICN, every single machine at the arrival hall, has a charge, and clearly specifies on the withdrawal screen, as well as on the receipt.

Ditto at BKK luggage claim area but once you get out of it, the ATMs at the arrival hall some of them dont have a fee.

All ATMs that charge a fee, would CLEARLY tell you there is a fee and ask you to confirm if you want to proceed.

This BNP ATM did not tell me anything - only when I looked at the slip I saw the 1% line item, classified as "purchase".

Once again, you make a WRONG assumption.

Happy

Mileage earning debit cards have fee.

The discontinued BofA AS card has a $35 annual fee.

The soon-to-be-discontinued SunTrust DL card has a $75 annual fee.

The long gone Chase CO card also has a $75 fee.

But those cards should NOT even in the discussion on this thread as they are specialty debit cards and only Fools would use them to withdraw cash overseas because the sole purpose of these specialty debit cards is to earn miles when they are used to make a PURCHASE.

So why even include these specialty debit cards in the mix?