.i. .y.. _-t Admi. 0 0 2B Wednesday, February 22, 2012 // The Statement THE JUNK DRAWER from last week: strangers and food random student interview Which restaurant are you most likely by kaitlin williams/ illustrations by jeff zuschlag I Wedesday Febuary 2, 212 //The tatemnt 7E Cents and sensibility Why TCF isn't the leader and best of student banking By Steve Zoski to go after reading this piece? Panchero's 33% Sava's 66% DO YOU KNOW ANYBODY EXCEPTIONAL? The Statement is calling for nominations for its annual Students of the Year issue. Please send a brief paragraph stating why a student deserves to be chosen to thestatement@umich.edu. Students must be currently enrolled at the University of Michigan. Multiple nominations are permitted. Nominations are due February 24. We tweet, too! Follow us on Twitter @thestatementmag Welcome to the Random Student theyi Interview, where we're secure key. I enough with our masculinities probl to wear purple whenever we solut please. See, So what do you got there in your hard pocket? That looks tasty. answ A big bag of candy. Ther of ou what 0 o Do y Yeah. Seems a bit weird, eating kid- So, I1 shaped candy. ple.A They're delicious. I'm a do y Is that how you like to start off purp every Friday night, with a big Reali bag of child-shaped candy? I'm W Actually, I'm going to be at the outfit library. That's not ideally how I'd butI like to spend any evening, but I have an exam on Tuesday. Q 9 P So nm for it Oh. What subject? No. Engineering. Beca Ick. That's totally outside of my (Laup realm of understanding. How er's s does one study for an Engineer- back1 ing exam? Uh, just go over all of the home- How work you've done throughout the He's semester and after that maybe the professor will give you a practice Well, exam, which sadly isn't the case for ion s this particular class. Anyway, typi- with cally you'd just work through the Sure. practice exam and try to make sure you understand how to do all of the What problems, which isn't hard because dres THE Statement Magazine Editors: E Dylan Cinti Jennifer XuE Deputy Editor: Kaitlin Williams usually give you an answer If you can actually do those lems without looking at the ions, then you're all set. as an English major, there's ly ever really a'correct' ver. e's not a correct answer in all r classes. We have to back up we're doing. ou ever get to build things it all problem sets? . Sometimes. notice you're wearing pur- As you can see by my hair, huge fan of the color. What on think about men wearing le or pink? men can pull it off. That's why wearing it. Maybe an all-pink t would be a little too much, don't know. oone's ever given you shit t? use you'd kick their asses? ghs) This is actually my broth- hirt. I stole it before I came to school. old is your brother? a senior in high school. , you both have a great fash- ense. Want to help me out something? t do you think about this s? I bought three today at Editor in Chief: Joseph Lichterman Design Editor. Nolan Loh Copy Editor: Beth Coplowitz H&M and I don't know ifI want to wear this out. What's the occasion? I'm going to my friend's birthday and then maybe the Heidelberg. Oh I've been to the Heidelberg. I played blackjack there once. Do they have tournaments and whatnot? Yeah. Upstairs. (His roommate Mike walks by) Mike: Hey Justin! We're doinga Random Student Interview. Do you want to join? Justin: He's actually my roommate. Oh cool! What are you doing tonight, roomie? Mike: Studying for an exam I have Tuesday. Justin: We're in the same class. Nice. You guys should study together! Justin: Oh, we will. Look! There's University Presi- dent Mary Sue Coleman. We should get her in on this. - Justin and Mike are Engineering juniors. Managing Editor: Josh Healy Photo Editor: Terra Molengraff Junk Drawer: Jordan Rochelson Have you heard of a bank called TCF? Or perhaps a better question - have you heard of any other? About 20,000 University students current- ly have TCF Totally Free Student Checking accounts linked to their Mcards, according to Bob Borgstrom, executive vice president and director of branch tanking at TCF Bank. Last year, TCF was voted best bank in 2011 by readers of The Michigan Daily. Appearances suggest TCF is the leader and best in Ann Arbor student banking. A simple Google search, however, tells another story. Negative reviews abound on RipoffReport.com, a website where custom- ers can file reports over the Internet about scams, frauds and bad service experienced at companies. On Yelp, where the public can review businesses, the TCF branch location on South University Avenue earns an average of one star out of five. There is even a website dedicated to negative TCF reviews. Complaints about TCF range from com- plaints about the "turtle speeds" of the tell- ers to the overdraft fees to the apparent difficulty of closing an account. One Yelp user said of the TCF branch loca- tion on South University Avenue, "If the TCF stands for Truly Crappy Financial services, then I'd say that the people who founded this bank aptly named it." TCF is the most prevalent bank within walking distance of the University campus, with five branches and 25 ATMs on campus and around Ann Arbor. Most students hold the TCF Totally Free Student Checking Account, advertised on the website as "easy to use and provid(ing) the convenience nec- essary for busy students," with no minimum balance requirement, no monthly mainte- nance fees and the option to use Mcards as ATM/debit cards. With a $25 opening bal- ance, these new accountholders can earn a free Michigan sweatshirt emblazoned with the TCF logo. However, what the website does not pub- licize is that these checking accounts do not earn interest and require a $10,000 mini- mum balance or 10 qualifying withdrawals a 0 z m r co 1 to avoid a $2.95 monthly fee. "I kind of thought we had to," Allemon Jason Korstange, TCF's senior vice presi- said. "Because they said you get this account dent and director of corporate communica- and you get a free hoodie and it's with your tions, said he did not believe the minimum Mcard." balance would be an issue for most students. TCF Bank is not recognized as the official "We put it out there just because we bank of the University and students are not do it for our other accounts, but truly the required to sign up for its services. issue is, just use your account and it's free," TCF is, however, permitted to label itself as Korstange said. the "Official Bank of the Mcard" after being chosen by the University in 2001 to have "I hated it wvhen I Mcards linked to users' checking accounts. University spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald was a stud ent.B t said the University decided TCF offered the best proposal for a beneficial Mcard relation- S.ca us t ship. i o c"Itprovides some benefits to students as well as faculty and staff who choose to take wvas valkable and I advantage of it," Fitzgerald said. "Here is an opportunity to provide some lower cost banking services and link it to the Mcard." Once a student informs TCF that he or " she has graduated, his or her Totally Free canpus. Student Checking Account turns into a TCF Convenience Checking account. The mini- -Kathryn Lampi, University alum mum $10,000 balance still holds, but month- ly fees increase from $2.95 to $9.95. The 10 Other banks do not generally require such qualifying withdrawals requirement turns a steep minimum balance to avoid monthly into 15, and the checking account still earns fees. Bank of America's MyAccess Checking no interest. account requires a $1,500 minimum bal- University alum Kathryn Lampi signed up ance to avoid the fee, while the Chase Total for a TCF account before her freshman year. Checking account only mandated a $500 Based on her experience she said students minimum balance. thinking about signing up for a TCF account When LSA freshman Jessica Allemon should reconsider. came to orientation last summer, she signed "I hated it when I was a student," Lampi up for a TCF Bank Totally Free Student said. "But it was on campus, it was walkable Checking Account because she thought it and I didn't have a car on campus." was mandatory for all students of the Uni- After she graduated, Lampi said she was versity. hit with overdraft fees of $28 for each day her account was overdrawn by more than $5. Whereas most other banks would charge a fee on the basis of one overdraft, TCF charg- es overdraft fees by the day. Thus, if someone overdrafted today but didn't discover it until three days later, that person would be $84 in the red. Compared to most banks - where there's a standard $35 charge - this seems pretty steep to some students. "All of their fees got me in the end," Lampi said. "They don't tell you that. They just kind of market all of the shirts and stuff to eigh- teen year olds." Korstange said TCF Bank took negative reviews very seriously and tried to model fees to be comparable to its competition. "What we try to do is look at the major banks in the area and then try to be just below those," he said. "We try to review the market and try to be just below what our competition is." Business Prof. Scott Rick - who's writ- ten a number of journal articles on personal finance - said banks have always offered plans to entice students with benefits like free checking because banks are confident they will make their money back when accountholders make mistakes. "You take a loss initially on the free account, but you more than make it up with the fees later," Rick said. Central Michigan University alum Andrew Bennett, who used TCF Bank while living in Ann Arbor, also said he does not rec- ommend that anyone use TCF's services. "The fees were both hefty and numer- ous, and seemed to constantly be on the rise," Bennett wrote in an e-mail interview. "Between the fees and my dissatisfaction with their 'customer service' during my years with a TCF account, I was eventually convinced to drop them as my bank." Rick advises that students carefully moni- tor their money and be "vigilant." "Just understand what the banks are get- ting out of this, which is either loyalty, and/ or they're waiting for you to trip up," Rick said.