Hi, I'm posting this here because I know that many of you have Chase accounts. I don't check my balance very often because I use that account mainly to complement my Chase credit cards, but I checked today so I could marvel over my new UA card and noticed that they've been dinging me for $6 per month since January. When I called to inquire, they told me that they now require 5 debit transactions (or direct deposit) per month in order to avoid this fee. While I'm not going to loose any sleep over the $24 (in fact, this might give me a bit of leverage wrt coin deposits), I'm a bit irked that they snuck this in on me. They claim that they mailed me information about this, but it must have been buried pretty deeply because I do try to stay on top of notices regarding my accounts.

One way to get free checking is to have direct deposit. I am not sure if there is a minimum amount, but if you wish to keep it, you may want to have a % of your pay (if you have direct deposit) deposited to your Chase account.

Unfortunately, I'm an IC so direct deposit is not an option for me. Consequently, I only use accounts that are completely fee free (i.e. no strings attached), which was the case with Chase until recently.

or you can keep a combined $6,000 balance between checking & savings accounts with Chase

thats what I ended up doing, although my Chase account was never free

Since it is not your main account, you should set up a $1 direct deposit from your paycheck to this account every two weeks.

I have 2 Chase accounts - one with a payroll direct deposit. The other, I make a paypal transfer each month and Chase counts this - I have never been charged a fee.

I transfer 5.00 every couple of weeks from ING savings - works also.

if you have multiple Chase accounts you can schedule a "payment" check to be sent as direct deposit from one Chase account to another.

the Chase bank manager where I opened my account suggested this, not for the direct deposit side of things, but to comply with the payments necessary for three months to receive the 10k AAdvantage bonus.

Chase is just plain evil! They bought Washington Mutual (WAMU) at a fire sale price and proceeded to erase any trace that the bank was Washington Mutual. They even went to the trouble of taking the brick out of one of their branches that had the Washington Mutual brand in the brick face. I've finally had it with them and I'm going to a credit union.

Its pretty well outlined here: https://www.chase.com/ccp/index.jsp?...ecking-Account

"No monthly service fee, no minimum balance requirement - with established monthly Direct Deposit or with 5 or more debit card purchases during each statement period "

Don't really know how you MISSED it.

I missed it because there were no restrictions whatsoever when I opened the account, and they failed to notify me about the changes in a transparent manner. While an email with a subject heading, "we're going to start charging you $6 per month for your checking account," might never have been in the cards, I'm pretty sure they buried this key info in a statement mailer. (I have received several "changes to terms" notices from them, but most deal with new methods of calculating balances and the like.)

I've had a Chase Checking account for 6 years. It's been the same. Here's the old page: https://www.chase.com/index.jsp?pg_n...-checking-page

"Monthly Service Fee
None with direct deposit or if 5 or more debit card purchases are posted to your account during each statement period (withdrawals from the ATM or cash advance transactions do not qualify); otherwise $6 per month"

When I opened the account, my bank was named "WaMu." When Chase took over, they promised that the terms would remain the same.

Probably should have said that. Regarding the post title though, it's quite misleading.

This is somehow different from other banks when they take over other banks?

Washington Mutual itself obliterated any trace of the banks and savings and loans it took over, such as Home Savings of America, American Savings, and Great Western (all of which were very large savings and loans prior to becoming part of Washington Mutual). Washington Mutual's name had been a misnomer since 1983, when it demutualized.

The only trace of a fully taken over bank[*] that I still see is at a Wells Fargo ATM in a standalone concrete mini building. A barely visible First Interstate logo indented in the concrete is on the outside of that mini building (it was never painted or otherwise highlighted and was probably never noticed when Wells Fargo rebranded the ATM).

[*] Except for taken over banks where the acquirer decided to adopt the acquired bank's name, such as Wells Fargo (Norwest), Bank of America (NationsBank), and Chase (Chemical).