I have never been charged a fee of any kind for any service by my bank, a small, locally owned bank in Fairbanks, Alaska. Those services include checking, savings, wire transfers to foreign countries, money orders, automatic monthly bill pay, electronic banking, overdraft protection, and a host of other services I don't remember or never needed to use. (I have used all of the services listed above)

My overdraft protection is not free, but there is no fee involved. Instead, I have a revolving line of credit so if I go into overdraft, the bank just covers the overdraft and I pay about 8% annual interest on the loan which is normally paid back within a few days so actual expense is trivial.

By contrast, I have an account here in California, whose sole purpose is to have a debit card I can use at Costco (they don't take my Visa card there) and the fees are horrific. They charge me about $8.00 a month for the "privilege" of having a savings account there that pays about half a percent annual interest, they charged me a fortune for a book of 25 checks (none of which I have ever used) and I am fully expecting them to put NY Subway style turnstiles at the entrance to the bank so you have to pay to get into the lobby.

I'll keep my Alaska bank account for as long as they'll have me. The Bank of America account is going away real soon.

tanstaafl.