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So I was looking over my bank account at US Bank. They’ve been decent to me over the past 7 years I’ve had my money in there. I more or less was forced to bank with them, as my parents opened my first savings account there and they had access to manage all my checks through their accounts at US Bank. It’s a good bank if you live in the States. Lots of branches, helpful phone service (when I called at least) and it was pretty much a no-hassle service for me.

Anyways, back to me looking over my bank statements online today. I was pretty shocked to see they were charging me ridiculous amounts of money just for taking out money through an ATM. We’re talking about 3% here, and that is on top of the $5 the Thai banks charge me for using a foreign ATM card (another giant rip-off, I know). Now 3% isn’t too much if all you need is $20. But I’m withdrawing thousands a month – to pay rent, pay my employees, pay for my hookers and blow entertainment, etc. It can add up to several hundred extra dollars a month their screwing me out of.

A lot of you are probably wondering why I don’t just get a bank account in Thailand. Does paying tax to two different countries sound fun to you? I’m not sure about the rules on that, but just to be safe, I’m keeping my money in the US. I get a tax break for staying out of the US anyways, so it makes more sense to me. Plus, transferring money through PayPal or wires costs extra and take a longer amount of time. My designer, whom I’ve used PayPal to pay, insists I don’t pay him through it because it takes him a week to get the money into his bank account.

So a quick tweet for a no-international fee bank for my checkings came back with a reply to check out Ally. Their website is the shit by the way. Reviews were nice, so I said what the hell and started signing up. It took me 2 minutes to fill in my info. I thought it might take a day or two to approve, or they’d do some dumbass credit history check and ask me questions I don’t know the answers to, but I was instantly approved and have full access to the account.

Just have to wait for my check card and all my monies will be with them. So, to any US Bank reps that read this, I’m willing to let you guys redeem yourself if you’d like to refund all my cash you jacked from me. I’ll gladly continue to use your service if you can match Ally’s terms.

Of course, that probably won’t happen.

And, if you haven’t already seen it… the Ally commercials are sadistically hilarious.