Bank Accounts & Cell Phones

Colleges and Universities A-Z California Institute of Technology
21

<p>I got full control of my bank account (Bank of America) earlier this year, when I was 17. And I have a checking and savings account, with one of the Visa Check cards mmcduff mentioned, and it works great. I can easily transfer funds in and out of savings online, which is free, and I think online bill-pay is too, but I'm not positive I've never needed it. Also, Bank of America has a Keep the Change program, where they transfer the "change" from all transactions into savings, then match the amount every three months and put that into savings for you. The program is completly free, I think its an incentive to use your check card. I hardly ever carry cash anymore, cause if I use the card I make 50 cents or whatever.
The only problem is if you overdraw your checking they charge you like 30$, and then you have to go online and transfer funds from savings to make it not negative. And they're tricky about it, cause when you sign up they tell you if you overdraw it takes the money from savings but charges you an additional fee, which isn't really true cause it just makes your account negative and then you go online and fix it.</p>

<p>But yeah, I love Bank of America (although I guess some people have problems with it).</p>

22

<p>Yeah gilly, there seems to be hate sites for every bank. You could find thousands of people to tell you each major bank in the US sucks. The problem is, when you look at bank reviews (these actually exist), only the people with bad experiences speak, so it isn't a good representation. Plus, if you actually read what they have to say, you can point out 100 things wrong in how they dealt with the bank (expecting things to happen overnight, going to the local branch expecting the teenage teller to know how to run complex transactions, etc...)</p>

23

<p>The Caltech credit union allows freshman a Visa credit card (in addition/combination to the debit card) with a $1000 limit. See their web site cefcu.org click on products/visa card/student visa. Slightly higher limits for each successive year.
<a href="http://www.cefcuonline.org/site/products_visa_student.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cefcuonline.org/site/products_visa_student.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

24

<p>Hmm, my CEFCU credit limit is the one they have listed for "sophomores"... and I graduated 2 years ago! Heh.</p>