Fifth Third Bank “Early Access” Check Advances
by Thomas Powell on Feb.21, 2009, under posts
Fifth Third Bank has been pushing this “service” pretty hard at their branches. It’s basically a pre-authorized payday loan account that you can access through your online account access (for a small 10% advance fee). I guess they need a replacement for bad home loans. Their stock price, as of this writing, is in the $1 range.
- “As a Fifth Third consumer checking customer, you may qualify for a line of credit that can be deposited immediately into your checking account for a cash advance.”
- “Please Note: This is an expensive form of credit. This feature is designed to help our customers meet their short-term borrowing needs and is not intended to provide a solution for longer-term financial needs.”
- “Advances are automatically repaid from your next direct deposit of $100 or more.”
- “Your maximum credit limit will be $500 or 50% of total monthly deposits (based upon a 3 month average) rounded up to the next $20 increment, whichever is lower.”
- “The finance charge is $1 for every $10 borrowed. This equates to an Annual Percentage Rate (APR) of 120%.”
Fees:
- “A 10% Finance Charge will be assessed for each dollar that you advance through your Fifth Third EARLY ACCESS account feature. For example, for every $10 that you advance, the Finance Charge will be $1, without regard to how long the advance remains outstanding.”
- Bad math: “For example, $100 Advance with a $10 fee = $10/$100 = 0.1% X 12 cycles = 120% APR.
REPAYMENT” (remember the Verizon dollars versus cents debacle?
3 comments for this entry:
May 14th, 2009 on 11:02 am
CAN I APPLY FOR THE EARLY ACCESS LOAN ON LINE AND IF SO HOW, AND IF I DO APPLY AND I GET PAID NEXT WEEK WILL THEY TAKE THE MONEY FROM THAT CHECK OR CAN I GET TWO WEEKS
May 27th, 2009 on 9:34 am
Tenneka,
I don’t know if you can apply on-line for the “service”, but the branch locations were pushing it pretty hard.
As for repayment, the next direct deposit of over $100 is when the loan is automatically repaid. This means that you could borrow one day and have it automatically repaid the next–at 10% interest for a loan that was borrowed for only 24 hours or less.
March 9th, 2010 on 6:36 pm
They put my account on probation for no reason I can see. I paid it back in time, still getting the same direct deposits, etc. Of course, they did this during a month when I actually do need the money and need to use it. This is one of the reasons I hate Fifth Third and am going to change banks. Add to that the fact that the branch manager is so completely hateful that it would do me no good to contact them about this issue.