Huntington Bank has a clever new advertising campaign promoting “Asterisk-Free Checking”. So many banks promise what sound like great accounts, but then you find all kinds of hidden charges and minimums buried in the fine print.
Not with Asterisk-Free Checking, they say:
[wposflv src=https://www.huntington.com/free/video/HuntingtonBank_AsteriskFree_Rev.flv previewimage=http://www.mouseprint.org/wp-content/avert/huntingtonasterisk1.jpg width=425 height=250 title=”Asterisk Free”]
A whole host of services are provided with this account, including “Free Online Banking and Bill Pay”. However, if you are planning to use Quicken to do online banking and pay bills, it is not free.
*MOUSE PRINT:
There is a $2.95 a month charge for “PC Banking”, which apparently is different from “Online Banking and Bill Pay”. That fact is buried in their FAQs which are not accessible from the detailed description page for Asterisk-Free Checking. And true to the name of this account, unfortunately, there is no asterisk leading the reader to this qualification and distinction.
When asked why they don’t disclose that charge upfront, and would they now consider doing so, a spokeperson for the bank replied:
“PC Banking is not actively promoted and is offered only to customers who contact us requesting services not provided through Online Banking. The monthly $2.95 fee applies only to customers using the extra services offered directly through Quicken® and Quickbooks®. Therefore, our Online Banking and Bill Pay services as the vast majority of our customers use them are indeed free.”
MrConsumer is not trying to beat up on Huntington Bank. In fact, it was selected as a refreshing change from how other banks advertise by hiding costly things in asterisked footnotes. However, if they talk the talk, they should walk the walk. No one put a gun to their head and forced Huntington to advertise “asterisk-free checking” and “isn’t it time you switched to a bank that believes in no surprises.” But having gone down that road, shouldn’t they have been a little more forthcoming about the actual cost of “free online banking and bill pay” for those who use Quicken?
They could easily solve the problem by removing “PC Banking” from this type of account. And if a customer calls to request PC Banking, convert the account to another type.
It’s unfortunate Huntington chose to name a checking account “Online Banking” as it can be easily confused with the generic term “online banking” which can mean something altogether different. Fortunately, I’ve seen this nonsense before. Had been offered $50 to open a checking account at a large bank with “free online banking,” no strings attached. I knew better than to trust this bank so I walked into a branch with the offer in hand and asked a rep about specific services available on this account. Yes, there was a gotcha. The bank charged $7.95/month to service ACH transfers and that’s $95/year for something I need and get for free at other banks. Ditto for Huntington. If you need connectivity to other banks, you need the $2.95/month PC Banking, the free Online Banking allows moving money among Huntington accounts only. Not as bad as $7.95/month but still deceptive.
Other Huntington gotchas:
1. PC Banking interfaces with customer-supplied Quicken software on customers’ PCs to perform transactions — something I’m less than keen on as any third party software in the loop should be considered a security weakness.
2. Did you know that your free Online Banking comes with complimentary Financial Review from Huntington Wealth Advisors and Insurance Quote from Huntington Insurance? Quick, raise the drawbridge.
In fairness to Huntington, it’s all there on their website and wasn’t hard to find but they could have named them Basic and Premium Online Banking which clearly signals a difference in service levels instead of the cryptic Online and PC Banking.
ING Direct talks the talk and walks the walk. No minimum for FREE checking and savings, including CD’s. I have a couple of bills that are paid the old-fashioned way; snailmail. ING will mail a paper check the day after I order it…THEY pay the postage. I’ve been banking with them since ’02.
Ya can’t beat it.
Not sure what the scandal is here. Enhanced services come with a price tag. That’s the way the world works. Ask your ISP to give you its premium services for no additional cost. Or buy a nose bleed ticket for the game and try to sit in the front row. There is marketing slight of hand and there is common sense.
The issue isn’t wanting enhanced services for free, it’s the lack of transparency. In Huntington’s case, account brand names were confusingly ambiguous and they would still work if you exchanged them but not so had they been named “Basic” and”Premium.” Huntington has a right to call them whatever it wants to but why choose ambiguity over transparency? The $50-new-account offer advertised “free online banking” but did not disclose the $7.95/month ACH service fee on the offer itself. I don’t begrudge banks charging for their services; I do begrudge their lack of transparency. Re. “Enhanced services come with a price tag,” banks have every right to set fees for services and I have every right to shop around — in this case, the competitive price is FREE, not $2.95/month or $7.95/month. If you pay $7.95/month for ACH service, it’s robbery in progress, not “Enhanced services come with a price tag.” I would never bank with either even if they waive charges. Huntington because of third party software, the $50-new-account bank because I could never trust them again (and I’ve been proven right but that’s another story).
Umm… no.
Online banking is where you go to a website and view / do your transactions all on there. I have it with PNC. “PC Banking” is where you do calculations and such and bill payments on your home computer, potentially off-line most of the time. If I expected to be able to do my banking offline I would not be surprised if there’s a fee associated with that.
I think you’re off base /out of line on this “Online Banking” vs “PC Banking” issue. This one sounds more like a witch hunt than a legitimate beef with a product that was truly misrepresented, IMO.
I would agree with Kyle Morgan if Huntington included external ACH access with their free Online Banking package but Huntington doesn’t so the $2.95/month is not purely an issue of using the bank’s website with Online Banking versus “banking offline” (whatever that means) on your own PC with PC Banking. ACH transfers are routinely done and available at many banks’ websites for free (2 of my 3 banks offer it for free, the third does not offer it at any price). Huntington offers “free Online Banking” while charging $2.95/month for an ordinary online capability. Of course, “free Online Banking” means something different than “free online banking” but how many consumers would catch that?
Huntington is just playing semantics. If banks practiced transparency and truth in advertising (ha!!), then we wouldn’t have to pay politicians to pass more reactive legislation. (It’s called business with integrity, folks. But I guess that’s a relative term to most big banks.) I bank with a credit union that has Online PC Banking, online pc banking, onLine pC banKing…or whatever. No matter how you spell it or what device I’m using to access it (including my iPhone), it’s free. No asterisks, no price levels, no premium vs. basic, blah, blah, blah. It’s FREE. It’s ONLINE. I pay bills, any bills…for free. I transfer money between my CU accounts…for free. I transfer money between other financial institutions…for free. I download to Quicken, Excel, Mint.com…for free. The point is, I wouldn’t take my money to Huntington whether they used an asterisk or an ampersand to disclose all their rules and conditions. I know what I get from my credit union, and I know what I don’t get from a bank.
9 out of 10 people dont use Quicken…so why complain? Its mostly used by business and people with a high number of transactions…if you are sane and a grown adult you should be able to balance your checkbook…
Several years ago, Intuit began charging financial institutions to “license” their protocols that Quicken uses to communicate financial transactions with the bank. A local credit union that we have accounts with chose to drop support for Quicken rather than submit to Intuit’s extortion. I didn’t blame them.
I suspect Huntington is just passing that cost on to those few account holders that really want to depend on Quicken to do their banking with, rather than the vast majority that don’t.