I just listened to a great fresh air segment with Bob Sullivan who wrote a book called “Stop Getting Ripped Off: Why Consumers Get Screwed And How You Can Always Get A Fair Deal.”  If you have a checking account, want to buy a car, or want to be a better informed consumer, run over to the fresh air website and give this a listen ASAP! It’s a bit long at 39 minutes, but I found it well worth the time.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122212229

In fact, a couple days before hearing this story, I had just found out that my Citibank checking account, which was a free checking account for 9 years is now going to start charging me $15 a month if I don’t keep a minimum balance of $1500 (just like he mentions in the segment). Needless to say, I’m going to start shopping for a new checking account. I was also the angry recipient of a new overdraft protection charge last month. I have one of the line-of-credit types of overdraft protection. I used it more when I was younger and lived paycheck to paycheck, but now they’ve started charging me $10, on top of the double digit credit card interest rates every time I use it.

This fee-based economy is something I’ve noticed for a while. And it’s not just banks and credit cards. Cruise lines, hotels, rental car companies, and even our governments with their red-light cameras and bottled water and grocery bag taxes. One of my personal favorites was the fee I had to pay for sub-prime mortgage education, even when I wasn’t taking one out on my condo! It feels like consumers are being bled dry by a million tiny paper cuts. Good luck holding on to your wealth!