Is threatening to close the account a good way to negotiate with the bank?
If this matters to you a lot, I agree you should leave. My primary bank account raised chequing account and transaction fees. I left. When I was closing my account the teller asked for the reason (they needed to fill out a form) and I explained it was the monthly fees. Eventually, if a bank gets enough of these, they will change. I want to get back those features for the same price it cost when I opened it They are in their rights to cancel features or raise prices. Just as you are in your rights to withdraw if they don't give you a deal. The reason why I mention this is that this approach is comical in some instances. A grocery store may raise the price of carrots. Typically you either deal with it or change stores. Prices rise occasionally. thus they will lose a lot of money from my savings From my understanding, a bank makes a large chunk of their money from fees. Very little is from the floating kitty they can have because of your savings. If you have an investment account with your bank (not recommended) or your mortgage, that would matter more. I've had friends who have left banks (and moved their mortgages) because of the bank not giving them a better rate. Does the manager have any pressure into keeping the account to the point of giving away free products to keep the costumer or they don't really care? Depends. I've probably say no. One data point is an anecdote; it is expected in a client base of thousands that a few will leave for seemingly random reasons. Only if mass amounts of clients leave or complain will the manager or company care. A note: some banks waive monthly account or service fees if you keep a minimal account balance. I have one friend who keeps X thousand in his bank account to save the account fee; he budgets a month ahead of time and savings account rates are 0% so this costs him nothing. Take your business elsewhere, where the products and services are priced at a level you agree to pay.  This does two things.  First, you end a bad business relationship.  Why bad?  Because you're not happy with the deal.  Second, it sends an unambiguous signal to the losing bank that you were unhappy with their service.  If they offer an exit survey, complete it, and be sure to tell them what made you unhappy with their service. In a free market economy, if consumers all take their business where the terms are favorable, supply and demand would force the banks to compete for consumers' business. "To avoid going on and on in the comments I'm going to add this point that seems to be missing from the other answers. ""Banks often offer me deals while negotiating to open an account (since they are under high pressure to open an account)""   Would these happen to be the regionally advertised account opening deals like a $200 new checking account bonus if you deposit at least $x and leave it for at least 90 days?  This kind of deal is not unique to you.  This is not offered to you because of your unique negotiating ability. You need to understand the authority of the person you're dealing with.  Products are designed in the corporate arm of the bank.  Once a product is ready, it's rolled out to branches to be sold; sometimes with some fancy sign-up bonus.  A checking account is a product, just like an iPhone.  Apple took the headphone jack out of the iPhone 7, no amount of negotiating with the Genius at the Apple store will put it back for you. Vote with your wallet, show the bank you're unhappy by leaving." "I would hold off on making that threat (closing your account). First, because as others have said, it's not likely to help. And second, assuming you're willing to make good on that threat, you should only play that card as a final absolute last resort, because if it fails, and you close your account, there is little to nothing else you can try to get what you want. First, talk one-on-one with a personal banker at your local BA branch. You might be surprised at how helpful they can be. Next, try talking to customer service on the phone. After that, you might try sending a letter to corporate HQ. A lot depends on the particular ""feature"" you are talking about and why they removed it. It could be that 1) the bank finds the feature is just too costly provide for free, 2) there may be a technical reason why they can no longer provide it, 3) it could be as simple as that few to none of their customers (excluding you) are actually using the feature, or 4) it could be that due to changing regulation, or market forces, no bank is offering that feature anymore. Also, while they may not care specifically about your business, the local branch has an incentive to not drive customers away if it can be reasonably avoided." "From the bank's perspective, they are offering a service and within their rights to charge appropriately for that service. Depending on the size of their operation, they may have considerable overhead costs that they need to recoup one way or another to continue operating (profitably, they hope). Traditionally, banks would encourage you to save with them by offering interest growth on your deposits. Meanwhile they would invest your (and all of their customer's) funds in securities or loans to other patrons that they anticipate will generate income for them at a faster rate than the interest they pay back to you. These days however, this overly simplified model is relatively insignificant in consumer banking. Instead, they've found they can make a lot more profit by simply charging fees for the handling of your funds, and when they want to loan money to consumers they just borrow from a central bank. What this means is that the size of your balance (unless abnormally huge) is of little interest to a branch manager - it doesn't generate revenue for them much faster than a tiny balance with the same number of transactions would. To put it simply, they can live without you, and your threatening to leave, even if you follow through, is barely going to do anything to their bottom line. They will let you. If you DO have an abnormally huge balance, and it's all in a simple checking or savings account, then it might make them pause for thought. But if that's true then frankly you're doing banking wrong and should move those funds somewhere where they can work harder for you in terms of growth. They might even suggest so themselves and direct you to one of their own ""personal wealth managers""."
Mostly ditto Pete B's answer. There's little you can do about closing costs. Some closing costs are government fees. There's nothing you can do about this. Sad and unfair as it is, taxes are not optional and not generally negotiable. Title insurance and fire insurance are required by the lender. Even if you're paying cash, you don't really want to skip on these. If your house burns down and you have no insurance ... well, if you're worried about saving a few hundred on your closing costs, I assume that losing $200,000 because your house burned down and you have no insurance would be a pretty bad thing. Title insurance protects you against the possibility that the seller doesn't really legally own the property, maybe a scam, more likely a mistake or a technicality. You can, and certainly should, shop around for a better deal on insurance. Last couple of housing transactions I made, title insurance was a one-time fee of around $200. (I'm sure this depends on the cost of the house, where you live, maybe other factors.) Maybe by shopping around I could have saved $10 or $20, but I doubt there's someone out there charging $50 when everyone else is charging $200. Fire insurance you're probably paying a couple of thousand a year, more opportunity for savings. Typically the buyer and the seller each have a realtor and they split the fee. If you go without a realtor but the seller hires one, she'll keep the entire fee. So the only way to avoid this expense is if neither of you has a realtor. I've never done that. Realtors cost a ton of money but they provide a useful service: not only helping you find a house but also knowing how to deal with all the paperwork. Plenty of people do it, though. I presume they get the title agency or the bank or somebody to help with the paperwork. There are also discount realtors out there who don't show your home, do little or nothing to market it, basically just help you with the paperwork, and then charge a very low fee. Timing closing for a certain day of the month can reduce what you owe at closing time -- by reducing the amount of interest you pay on the first month's loan payment -- but it doesn't save you any money. You'll make it up over the course of the loan. You might possibly save some money by timing closing around when property taxes are due. Theoretically this shouldn't matter: the theory is that they pro-rate property taxes between buyer and seller so each pays the taxes for the time when they own the house. So again, you might need less cash at closing but you'll make it up the next time property taxes are due. But the formulas the banks use on this are often goofy. Maybe if you live some place with high property taxes this is worth investigating. You could skip the inspection. But inspections I've had done generally cost about $500. If they found something that was a major issue, they might save you from buying a house that would cost tens of thousands in repairs. Or less dramatically, you can use the inspection report for leverage with the seller to get repairs done at the seller's expense. I once had an inspector report problems with the roof and so I negotiated with the seller that they would pay for a percentage of roof repair. I suppose if you're buying a house that you know is run down and will require major work, an inspection might be superfluous. Or if you know enough about construction that you can do an inspection yourself. Otherwise, it's like not buying insurance: sure, you save a little up front, but you're taking a huge risk. So what can you control? (a) Shop around for fire insurance. Maybe save hundreds of dollars. (b) Find a seller who's not using a realtor and then you don't use a realtor either. Save big bucks, 6 to 7% in my area, but you then have to figure out how to do all the paperwork yourself and you severely limit your buying options as most sellers DO use a realtor. Besides that, there's not much you can do. "There is no way to stop any merchant from setting a recurring charge flag on a purchase. According to the following article, Mastercard and Visa encourages merchants to use this feature and even give them a better rate. I have found it impossible to stop these unauthorized transactions.  The article sites that the merchant is allowed to march the charges across expired cards to find a good card that you might have as well as the article states they can cross banks to find you if you have the same type of card. Virtual account numbers will not protect you. Sorry but the only solution I have found is to close the account with the bank and move to a different type of card, mastercard to visa, or vice versa. This will only protect you for one move ,because if you have to do this again. Merchants that you thought were forgotten even years later will find you and post a charge legally. Virtual numbers from Mastercard or Visa won't stop them.   I believe this is the number one reason for credit card fraud for consumers. There is no reason for a merchant to let anyone off the hook when the credit card company will side with them.  The article below does state that Mastercard does have a ""stop recurring payment"" flag.  Apparently no CSR tht I have talked to knows about it when I have asked to get a problem fixed. I have found that the only way to stop these charges from happening is to close all my visa and mastercard credit cards, pay with a check that you write and mail or a PayPal one time payment that is sent to pay for an invoice.   Recurring Credit-Card Charges May Irk Consumers" "Welcome to the 21st century, the New Order. Forget all that legal mumbo jumbo you may have read back in law school in the 1960s about commercial code. Its all gone now. Now we have Check 21 and the Patriot Act !!! Basically what this means is that because some Arab fanatics burned down the World Trade Center, the US government and its allied civilian banking company henchmen now have total control and dictatorship over ""your"" money, which is no longer really money, but more like a ""credit"" to your account with THEM which they can do with what they want. Here are some of the many consequences of the two aforementioned acts: (1) You can no longer sue a bank for mishandling your money (2) All your banking transaction information is the joint property of the bank, its ""affiliates"" and the US Treasury (3) You can no longer conduct private monetary transactions with other people using a bank as your agent; you can only request that a bank execute an unsecured transaction on your behalf and the bank has total control over that transaction and the terms on which occurs; you have no say over these terms and you cannot sue a bank over any financial tort on you for any reason. (4) All banks are required to spy on you, report any ""suspicious"" actions on your part, develop and run special software to detect these ""suspicious actions"", and send their employees to government-run educational courses where they are taught to spy on customers, how to report suspicious customers and how to seize money and safe deposit boxes from customers when the government orders them to do so. (5) All banks are required to positively identify everyone who has a bank account or safe deposit box and report all their accounts to the government. (6) No transactions can be done anonymously. All parties to every banking transaction must be identified and recorded. So, from the above it should be clear to (if you are a lawyer) why no endorsement is present. That is because your check is not a negotiable instrument anymore, it is merely a request to the bank to transfer funds to the Treasury. The Treasury does not need to ""endorse"" anything. In fact, legally speaking, the Treasury could simply order your bank to empty your account into theirs, and they actually do this all the time to people they are ""investigating"" for supposed crimes. You don't need to endorse checks you receive either because, as I said above, the check is no longer a negotiable instrument. Banks still have people do it, but it is just a pro forma habit from the old days. Since you can't sue the bank, the endorsement is pretty meaningless because it cannot be challenged in court anyway. You could probably just write ""X"" there and they would deposit it." "Most answers have concentrated on this being a scam, however, it is possible this is an innocent mistake. Australian bank account numbers do not have redundant digits to be used to validate an account number; all of the numbers are data and uniquely identify a bank and branch (the BSB number) and an account (the Account number). Computer check digits are not part of bank account numbers because bank account numbers pre-date computers. It is entirely possible that someone entering an incorrect number can, by chance, hit upon an existing account. As the bank clearance system in Australia is entirely automatic there is no cross-checking of account numbers with account names.  Internet banking in Australia is not a wire-transfer as is common in places like the USA (although these can be done): here you are effectively accessing your bank's ""back office"". Nor is it like the BPay service which  is used primarily by B to C businesses as a way for their customers to pay their bills; when using this service the biller code will show you who you are paying and the customer number does have check digit validation. I run a business in Australia and it has happened to us on several occasions than an employee or supplier has given us incorrect numbers. Usually, it is not a real account and after a week or so the money makes its way back to us with a message like NO ACCOUNT or A/C CLOSED.  Very occasionally, however, the wrong number hits a live account: when that happens the person who f*&ked up needs to contact their bank and try and get the transaction reversed. If there is money in the destination account this usually happens with little fuss, however, if the destination account has been closed or emptied things get problematic. Of course, taking money that isn't yours is stealing even if it happens to be sitting in your bank account. However, unless the sum involved is significant the police are usually not interested in diverting their attention away from ""serious"" crimes like homicide, armed robbery and terrorism so the aggrieved party is usually on their own. That said, this is probably a scam because they called you rather than your bank doing so. They cannot get your phone number from your account number: they have to know who you are and what your account number is. This is not as hard to do as it sounds since both your name and account number are prominently printed on your cheques and deposit books (possibly your phone number as well which saves them looking it up in the White Pages)." I am not a lawyer, but the big thing to consider would be how you would split the money should either of you decide you want to close the account (or, at least her/his portion of the account).  I suspect you'd also need to determine how to split the capital gains/losses for tax purposes.  I can't really see any benefit to a joint account, unless you needed her money to qualify for some of the lower cost funds, and even then the difference in cost would be fairly low, much lower than the cost of having to potentially hire a lawyer to sort out all the questions. I am not sure about your country but I think each country must be having some fixed time frame for reversal of the transaction (Which must be less than a month), please inquire if that time limit has passed or not ? If it hasn't best will be to wait for some more time before informing them.  Once the reversal time limit has passed no one (Except government agencies with court orders) can withdraw money from your bank account without your written consent even if they have deposited it themselves. World would have been a strange place if this restriction was not there.  Since you want to close the account you can approach your previous boss (or executive from HR/Account department) and tell them your intention. After that either you can transfer money online to their account or give them a cheque which they can deposit in their account. This way things will end faster and you will be freed from this extra account.  If above process takes time another solution will be to transfer the money to your another (permanent) account and give them a cheque from this account. Here also you can use online transfers or by sending them a cheque through courier.  Whichever mode you choose to pay the money back make sure you have some documented proof that may be helpful in future. "I love John's answer, but I just can't help myself from adding my 2 cents, even though it's over 5 years later. I sold cars for a while in the late 90s, and I mostly agree with John's answer. Where I disagree though, is that where I worked, the salesperson did not have ANY authority to make a sale. A sales manager was required to sign off on every sale. That doesn't mean that the manager had to interact with the buyer, that could all be handled behind the scenes, but the pricing and even much of the negotiating strategies were dictated by the sales managers. Some of the seasoned salespeople would estimate numbers on their own, but occasionally you'd hear the managers still chew them out with ""I wish you wouldn't have said that"". Of course, every dealership is different. Additional purchase advice: There is a strategy that can work well for the buyer, but only in scenarios where the salesperson is trying to prevent you from leaving. They may start interrupting you as you are packing up, or blocking your path to the door, or even begging. If this happens, they are obviously desperate for whatever reason. In this case, if you came prepared with research on a good price that you are comfortable with, then shoot lower and hold firm to the point of near exhaustion. Not so low that that they realize you're too far away- they will let you leave at that point. It needs to be within a reasonable amount, perhaps at most 1-2% of the purchase price. Once you detect the salesperson is desperate, you finally move up to your goal number or possibly a little lower. Typically the salesperson will be so happy to have gotten you to move at all that they'll accept. And if the managers are fed up too (like 45 minutes after close), they'll accept too. I saw this happen multiple times in a high pressure scenario. I also used it once myself as a buyer. If you are planning to purchase options that can be added at the dealer rather than from the factory, keep them up your sleeve at first. Get your negotiations down to where you are a little further apart than the invoice price of the option, then make your move. For example, suppose the option you want retails for $350 with an invoice of $300. Get within about $400 of the dealer. Then offer to pay their price, but only if they throw in the option you want. This will throw them completely off guard because they didn't expect it and all of their calculations were based on without it. If they say yes, you effectively moved $100 and they moved $300. It's much more likely that they'll agree to this than taking $300 off the price of the car. (I'm guessing the reason for this is partially due to how their accounting works with sticker price vs aftermarket price, and partially psychological.) Note, this works best with new cars, and make sure you only do this if it's for items they can add after the fact. Even if they don't have the part in stock it's ok, they can give you an IOU. But if the option requires a car change to something they don't have on the lot, it will probably just make them mad." Ask your bank to write a letter asserting that you have $xxxxx on deposit with them, on their letterhead? Though realistically, the chance of your getting hit with identity theft In this situation, when you presumably know exactly who you're dealing with, are vanishingly small.