Bank Accounts | Financial Crooks

Oaken Financial Stops Sending Paper Statements and How to Enroll and Find Electronic Statements

Another bank goes paperless, more or less!

How to Get T5 Tax Documents for Your Online Bank Accounts at EQ Bank, Oaken Financial, PC Financial, Tangerine, ZAG Bank

It’s almost tax time again. How joyful! Here’s how I rounded up some T5s.

How to Open a Tangerine Chequing Account If You Don’t Have Any Bank Accounts Anywhere

Before a first job it may be necessary to open a first bank account: Tangerine offers a great chequing account with no fees for regular banking and no minimum balance plus you get a debit card.

Review: Why I Won’t Recommend Opening an Account at Zag Bank

I may be the only person who couldn’t successfully open an account at Zag Bank.

How to Link an EQ Bank Savings Account to a Second External Chequing Account at Another Bank for Electronic Funds Transfers

How long did I wait on hold when I phoned EQ Bank in February 2016 to get another account linked for transfers?

How to Create More Savings Accounts at EQ Bank for Different Purposes

You can have more than one savings account at EQ Bank if you like to see at a glance what you’ve saved for various goals.

How to Open a Bank Account at EQ Bank to Get the 3% Interest on Its Daily Savings Account

Here I go again: this time I’m lured by a 3% open-ended offer for daily interest.

Where Can I Get the Best Rate of Return for My Money that I Need In Two or Three Years?

Where should I put the money to buy our next furnace while we wait for this one to wheeze out its last gasp?

Comparing Canadian to US Dollar Cash Exchange Rate Options

A reader was checking recently about how to use Tangerine to buy USD and then transfer them to another bank to withdraw the US cash. It made me realize it’s been a while since I compared exchange rates offered byaaa

Planning the Best Way to Invest Our Emergency Fund

We needed a strategy to try to keep our emergency fund available but earning enough to meet or beat inflation.

How to Set Up Online Banking with Oaken Financial

Well that was fast: my savings account is open; my GIC is purchased and my ability to transfer funds between banks is set up. How long did it take Oaken to complete these tasks?

How Many Bank Accounts Can I Open at President’s Choice Financial? Why Would Anyone Want More than One Bank Account?

I was surprised by the answer to this question.

How to Download Your Transaction History from a BMO Online Bank Account

It’s fast and simple to download your banking data from BMO but there’s one thing I wish they’d change.

How to Enroll a BMO Bank Account for Online Banking

What would Spock say is illogical? Who is so security UNconscious that they frankly should not be allowed to online bank? And why do we have a bank account that is not electronically linked to any of our other accounts?

PC Financial Offers 3.1% Short-Term Rate to Lure Customers from Tangerine

If only I’d published this on the 8th, it would have been a scoop. Ah well, here’s the details of the latest salvo in the savings account interest rate wars.

How to Accept an Email Money Transfer Sent to You by a Tangerine Customer

It’s easier and faster to get your money if you’re also a Tangerine customer but anyone can accept an email money transfer from a Tangerine account. Here’s how to do it.

How to Email Money from Your Tangerine Chequing Account for Free

If you have three children paying university tuition this September, can you just email them each the money to pay their bills from your Tangerine chequing account? And why it depends whether they’re going to McGill or U of T.

How Is Defaulting on Your Credit Card Debt Different Than Robbing a Bank?

If you could pay back your debt, would you?

What is a Business Bank Account? Do I Need One? How Do I Open One?

Aside from the higher fees, how do business bank accounts differ from personal bank accounts?

How to Confirm the Link and Transfer Money Between Your Tangerine Account and Your Other Bank Account

Or how I scored 23 cents from Tangerine for a minute’s worth of typing!

How to Connect a Tangerine Account to a Bank Account at Another Big Bank

You don’t have to mail in a cheque to connect your Tangerine savings account to another bank’s account. Also includes as a no-fee bonus: a sexist saying with which my Grade 8 teacher used to irritate us.

How to Get Back Your Old Bank Balance from a Forgotten Account

Did you ever misplace a traveller’s cheque before you cashed it? You might be able to get the money back: from the Bank of Canada.
Or for you ET viewers, do you know this celebrity who can’t be bothered to claim his own money back from the Bank of Canada?

How to Get Your Tax Slips (T5s, RRSP Contribution Receipts) for your PC Financial Accounts

Once more ING Direct beats PC Financial for convenience and timeliness.

How to Get Your Income Tax Slips (T5s, RRSP slips) for Your ING Direct Accounts

It’s easy to get your tax slips for your ING Direct (Tangerine) accounts but keep an eye on them. I found two accounts were not reported and one account type is reported in a way that doesn’t suit the CRA. A bit more worrying was the fact that the ING Direct (Tangerine) representative was wrong when they informed me how our joint USD account’s interest was being reported.

Which is Better ING Direct or PC Financial: Part Two Cheques, Interest, Overdrafts and Chequing

If you keep between $30,000-60,000 in your chequing account, needs lots of free cheques and write some big ones occasionally that ricochet like a super-ball, you’ll probably prefer one of these two chequing accounts. Which one?

How Old Must One Be to Open a THRIVE No Fee Chequing Account with a Debit Card?

Why removing cursive from the Ontario curriculum was not the best idea.

PC Financial Joint Accounts are NOT Joint: One Person Will Have All of the Control

PC Financial never ceases to amaze me: Unfortunately NOT in a good way!

How to Check Your Cashed Cheques at PC Financial

My husband has no secrets now that I can check his cheques online for free! (OK he probably does but he’s much too clever to get caught this easily anyway.)

Which is Better ING Direct or PC Financial: Part One Moving Money, Transfers and Holds

If you want to pick between online banks ING Direct (now Tangerine.ca)ING Direct Tangerine and PC Financial how they handle transferring your money between accounts and banks may matter. Here’s how they compare.

How to Cancel a PC Financial Automatic Savings Transfer

If, like me, you’re no longer earning bonus high interest from PC Financial, it may be time to cancel an automated transfer of money into your account. Here’s how.

Thanks to a Special Financial Crooks Reader for the ING Direct Bonus Interest!

Thank you to a very kind reader!

BMO Gets A + for Customer Service

Once more I am an idiot but luckily BMO was willing to forgive my stupidity.

Bank Fees BMO, CIBC, RBC, ScotiaBank, TD

This handy page summarizes where online to find the fees for the five big Canadian banks. Unfortunately, it doesn’t provide any way to make all the little costs and charges magically disappear.

Joint No Fee PC Financial Accounts are Dis – Jointed

PC Financial seems to think we have one of those marriages where we discreetly ignore everything the other person is doing and share nothing but a house. Why else do they treat the joint owners of a bank account as if they never want to pay the same bills or earn the same interest perks?

PC Financial’s Computer Can’t Believe My Husband and I Want to Share Our Joint Bank Account

What PC Financial needs me to do to link our joint chequing account to a joint chequing account at another bank — even after my husband has already linked the same two accounts–and why I won’t do it.

How to Download Your Transaction History for an ING Direct Bank Account to a Spreadsheet

Downloading my daily banking transactions from ING Direct was a snap, although I still want to know who put the little joke into the bill payment line.

How to Download PC Financial Transactions to Use in a Spreadsheet

While testing how to download my account history from PC Financial to my laptop I discovered a programming error that I wish was true.

How to Set Up Automatic Transfers to a PC Financial Account

Setting up automatic transfers to your savings account or to your chequing account to pay bills can simplify your monthly banking chores. Here’s how to create scheduled transfers for your PC Financial accounts.

How to Transfer Money into Your PC Financial No Fee Bank Account

If you can get PC Financial to hook up your no fee chequing account with your bank account at another institution then you can transfer money in and out. Here’s how.

Never Underestimate the, er, Narrow-Focused Thinking of a Bank, Especially Online

In which PC Financial proves yet again the axiom that “Garbage In = Garbage Out” when it comes to computer programming.

How to Order Cheques for a PC Financial No Fee Chequing Account

How to order more cheques from PC Financial, how to check the status of your order, and when to expect them to arrive. And if you really want the gold-embossed cheques with the image of Warren Buffet in silver leaf, there’s also information about how to order cheques that will cost you money to buy.

How to Setup and Pay Bills Online from a PC Financial No Fee Chequing Account

In which I battle the Bell nemesis again to try to pay our telephone bill through an online bank. Who will win? The megalithic telecommunications company or the Stonehengian financial institution? Tune in for this week’s spine-tingling tale.

How to Apply In Person for a Joint Chequing Account at PC Financial

Here’s how long it took us to open a no fee chequing account; when we got our debit card; what id etc we needed and whether we had to have a credit check.

How to Activate a Tangerine (ING Direct THRIVE) Chequing Account Debit Card

What’s the fastest way to activate your new debit card? And how long did it take to get the card in the mail?

Checking into Chequing Accounts and Other Financial Curiosities

A roundup of articles and ideas about bank accounts and cheques. And a question about whether there’s a poltergeist loose in St John.

How to Order Cheques for a Tangerine (ING Direct THRIVE) Chequing Account

How to order cheques for your ING Direct, now Tangerine.ca, THRIVE account so you can pay for all of those Scholastic Book Club orders, field trips and pizza lunches. Oh, sorry, I suppose you may have a life beyond parenthood: these cheques are also good for paying regular bills for utilities, (sport and otherwise.)

Why Paying by Debit may Help Keep a Small Business in Business

You can make a difference in whether a small business stays in business simply by choosing one plastic card over another at the checkout counter.

How to Setup and Pay Bills Online from a Tangerine (ING Direct THRIVE) Chequing Account

How I managed to pay Bell online using my ING Direct, now Tangerine.ca, THRIVE account with only two phone calls and minimal cursing! Normal people (who do not constantly run into problems with Bell like I do) should find this a very fast, efficient, FREE way to pay bills.

How to Open an ING Direct THRIVE Chequing Account

If you are an existing ING Direct, now Tangerine.ca, customer opening a THRIVE chequing account just takes seconds and you score you 50 free cheques. For those of us endlessly writing cheques for pizza lunches, field trips and music books, every free cheque helps!