Check Your Bank Accounts Regularly. Always.

[lizmariposa]

Mistakes happen and they can happen to anyone. I recently obtained a personal loan. On its first due payment, unbeknownst to me, the bank had already set up recurring payments. Since I didn't know (I didn't see it on the account dashboard anywhere), I set up automatic payments for it. The bank then took TWO payments at the same time on the due date. I noticed, freaked out, and called the bank. Okay. They fixed the situation and replaced the money.

So now, because that money had come out of principal, what I call the bank's "automatic freakout system" decided I hadn't paid and was now late. So my account was flashing it was 10 days late and I was assessed a late fee and all the drama.

I had to call the bank AGAIN, explain the situation, and have the matter fixed. It is now back to normal as if nothing had happened.

I share this experience because if I had not made it a habit to take a quick peek into my bank account at least once a day, I would not have caught this and it would have likely landed me in hot water, and perhaps with issues to my credit report. I am reminded of someone who once posted they hadn't checked their account for months and didn't realize the automatic payments for their mortgage weren't on, and now they were being foreclosed on. Scary things can happen.

Always check your accounts. Always.

[Rogue46]

I check all my accounts everyday when I get home from work, It takes just a minute or two and helps calm my worries.  After rebuilding from a bk7 and finally getting to this point I'm paranoid a payment will be missed or something else unforseen.

[LakeLife]

Chase has a feature (I'm sure most banks do this) that I can use to "link external accounts".  Literally every credit card account I have along with my Lending Club High Yield Savings and Thrift Savings Program accounts are linked there.  It's one stop shopping for me to check each and everyone of them.  It's the best thing ever.  

[Royalbacon]

Not only should you check regularly, I got all my bank accounts set up where I get a notification for (Either a text message or a push notification on my smartphone, or you can choose email too) 

• Any time theres a debit card transaction where the card isn't present (Like an online purchase or an automatic payment)
• Any deposit over $1 or 1 cent (Some banks/credit unions online banking won't let you set a minimum below $1, while others will let you go all the way down to 1 cent)
• Any non-debit card withdrawl such as an ACH transaction or withdrawing cash in person at a branch over $1 or 1 cent 
• Anytime money is transferred between savings & checking or vice versa
• Any ATM transactions
• Any failed transactions of any kind
• Anytime any of my personal information in my online banking is changed/updated
• Anytime my password or security questions are changed
• Any time there's an unsuccessful login attempt to my online banking
• And anything else the online banking lets you sign up to be notified for

One credit union I 'm a member of, Idaho Central Credit Union, even allowed me to set up a text/push notification everytime theres a successful signin to my online banking, whether it be on a mobile app or on a desktop computer/laptop, which is phenomenal! Some banks/CUs let you get notifications too for when external accounts are added or removed too. Whatever the online banking offers, I sign up to be notified.

Also a lot of banks/debit cards in this day and age let you turn your debit and credit cards on & off, and some will even let you turn off only specific transactions too like ATM transactions, card not present transactions like online purchases, foreign transaction, transactions over a certain amount of money, etc rather then turning your entire card off all at once. I highly recommend utilizing those features too!

Edit update:I also have 2FA (2 factor authentications) set up for all my bank accounts too. It's where after you type in your username & password to login you can either receive a text/email with a code you need to enter, or some places offer a push notification on their app too that you can use instead of a text/email.

[Shooting-For-800]

I check everything every weekend but have no auto anything coming out of checking only on credit cards.

[Rogue46]

@LakeLife 

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@LakeLife wrote:

Chase has a feature (I'm sure most banks do this) that I can use to "link external accounts".  Literally every credit card account I have along with my Lending Club High Yield Savings and Thrift Savings Program accounts are linked there.  It's one stop shopping for me to check each and everyone of them.  It's the best thing ever.  

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That's pretty slick, I just went ahead and linked all my accounts. What a nice feature!  The only thing it wouldn't let me connect is my Penfed card so I have to remember to check that one

[Anonymous]

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@Rogue46 wrote:

@LakeLife 

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@LakeLife wrote:

Chase has a feature (I'm sure most banks do this) that I can use to "link external accounts".  Literally every credit card account I have along with my Lending Club High Yield Savings and Thrift Savings Program accounts are linked there.  It's one stop shopping for me to check each and everyone of them.  It's the best thing ever.  

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That's pretty slick, I just went ahead and linked all my accounts. What a nice feature!  The only thing it wouldn't let me connect is my Penfed card so I have to remember to check that one

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And this sort of thing leads to a different security vulnerability, now all your account information is stored on one site (for the same convenience). Yes, it better be stored encrypted (in the big bad breaches that hasn't been the case, but Chase, hopefully) but you never know if backdoors have been added or whatever.   And 2FA using text messages isn't that secure either.

As for notifications, it depends on your level of activity.  I have a lot stuff going in and out and would get too many notifications, thus learning to ignore and....

But whatever works for the individual, equally what works for you may not work for others.

[Anonymalous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Rogue46 wrote:

@LakeLife 

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@LakeLife wrote:

Chase has a feature (I'm sure most banks do this) that I can use to "link external accounts".  Literally every credit card account I have along with my Lending Club High Yield Savings and Thrift Savings Program accounts are linked there.  It's one stop shopping for me to check each and everyone of them.  It's the best thing ever.  

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That's pretty slick, I just went ahead and linked all my accounts. What a nice feature!  The only thing it wouldn't let me connect is my Penfed card so I have to remember to check that one

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And this sort of thing leads to a different security vulnerability, now all your account information is stored on one site (for the same convenience). Yes, it better be stored encrypted (in the big bad breaches that hasn't been the case, but Chase, hopefully) but you never know if backdoors have been added or whatever.   And 2FA using text messages isn't that secure either.

As for notifications, it depends on your level of activity.  I have a lot stuff going in and out and would get too many notifications, thus learning to ignore and....

But whatever works for the individual, equally what works for you may not work for others.

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Doesn't JP Morgan uses Plaid for connecting accounts? That leads to another set of problems, because Plaid asks for your userid and password for all the bank accounts being connected, which is a violation of the most basic of all cybersecurity standards (never give your password to anyone). They say they'll keep it secure and won't use it to make transactions on your account, but it's a level of trust I'll never be comfortable with. It also gives Plaid the ability to see every transaction you make on any account that can be accessed with those credentials, and their terms of service says they collect it all, which means it's all being aggregrated and monetized. The (minimally) safe and secure way would be for banks to set up an API that allows you to authorize third parties like Plaid to have read-only access, and to be able to control what they can see, without needing to give them the keys to your entire financial house.

[docbang]

I am with you on this habit, EXACTLY!!