Over the years, I've been hit by every bank fee imaginable: overdraft fees, non-sufficient funds and, of course, I've been ensnared in the vast matrix of ATM fees. I'm not proud of this. I think it just comes with the territory, when you're a freelance writer, or freelance anyone, and you're not paid regularly. Sometimes there are cash flow problems.

We had one last weekend, as my wife discovered when she tried to take out $20 out of our bank account. She was denied. (One of the lovely side benefits of blogging about personal finance is getting to shred myself of any humility. Yes, that's right; our account had less than $20 in it.) As it turns out, my wife tried to take the $20 from an ATM that wasn't part of the ATM network that our bank belongs to, and so a message flashed on the screen reading: "You're broke, and now move on, so we can get a customer with deeper pockets than you."

(Well, maybe those weren't the exact words, but you get the idea.)

When it comes to borrowing money, credit unions are my favorite place to go because of the quality personal service I receive. In the current credit industry, where the 10th bank this year recently closed, credit unions are faring well and even bragging about it.

BankRate.com looked into how credit unions are prospering while conventional banks are taking hits across the board. It found that the success was linked to credit unions being quicker to share best practices even with those in the same market, and due to the fact that the credit unions faced lower write-offs and delinquencies than traditional banks.

Not only are credit unions doing well in avoiding write-offs, but many of them are boasting increased membership. Further adding to the health of credit unions in a tumultuous environment is that for the first quarter of 2008, as a whole, they issued more loans than they have historically. Analysts place this rise on the willingness of credit unions to utilize their local knowledge and sit down with individuals in order to provide smart lending.

This throwback to the old-fashioned, highly human-involved method of banking may be one part of what protected the credit unions from the current fallout, not to mention a good way for individuals to continue to get loans to get the economy back on track, at least on a small scale.

The Federal Reserve gave consumer a few months to mull over this proposition: Should credit card companies be allowed to raise the rate on debt you already owe? Is it fair for them to constantly reshuffle your debt so you are always paying the highest possible interest rate and the most fees? Should banks keep secret the way to opt out of their overdraft protection plans, where they can charge a huge fee for a tiny overdraft? And can they send you an offer of one rate, then switch you to another?

Guess what? Consumers overwhelmingly hate all these current practices. They think credit card companies should be reigned in. Nearly 20,000 people wrote in on the three parts of the proposal: credit cards, overdrafts and truth in lending rules. Many call for stricter rules and use florid language like "usury."

Also guess what? Banks think the rules are a stupid idea. Bank of America is not just worried about itself, of course. BofA is concerned about the "broad impact on the economy both at the retail level and in highly complex securitization markets, slowing growth and limiting access to financing. To quote Bill Murray: "Dog and cats, living together!"

BusinessWeek's Jessica Silver-Greenberg says that it's the most significant credit card rule change in 20 years. Till now, she writes, regulators were content to simply force banks to clearly disclose their terms (which resulted in those pages of small-type that practically nobody reads). So now regulators and getting around to actually regulating. The comment period ended August 4, (though the comment form is still up).

Another week, another bank failure. Columbia Bank of Topeka, Kansas became the 9th bank to fail so far this year. You can read all the gory details here, but we want to focus your attention on just one number: $46 million.

$46 million was held in accounts at Columbia Bank that will NOT be covered by FDIC insurance. Most likely because those accounts were over the $100,000 FDIC limit. That's a lot of people losing a lot of money-money that, like you, they probably thought was safe in their bank. That's a lot of hard work, retirement dreams and college tuition payments that just went up in smoke!

Look, the banking industry is facing some serious trouble right now and we expect more failures ahead. (There are 90 banks sitting on the FDIC "trouble" list right now.) Don't let this happen to you and your loved ones.

Understanding how FDIC insurance works and taking a few simple steps to making sure you are playing by those rules can save you tremendous heartache should your bank fail. So, please take a few minutes now to be absolutely sure your money is safe.

Just watch our video below for a simple explanation of the rules and the steps you should take to protect the maximum amount of money possible.

Is your bank safe? Let personal finance experts Ken and Daria Dolan show you how to get the answer at Dolans.com. Plus learn 5 things you need to know if your bank fails.

There are two incidents that occurred this month, where a bank's computer was either slow or malfunctioning, and it turned out to be a good thing. Both, naturally, involved criminals who were trying to make a rather large withdrawal.

In Clarksville, Indiana, at the Your Community Bank branch, a 40-something year-old man approached a teller and handed her a note, apparently written on the back of a bank receipt. The teller couldn't decipher most of the handwriting, but she did recognize the opening words: "I have a gun."

The teller, however, told the robber that her computer was moving slowly and asked him to wait a second. He did, but soon became impatient, grabbed his note and left.

See, I'm so glad I'm not a bank robber, because that's the type of thing I know would happen to me. For instance, earlier this week, I made a deposit at my bank, was given a receipt, went on my merry way, and discovered the next morning that the deposit hadn't been recorded. I was able to get everything straightened out in my favor, but this is the second time this has happened to me in the last six months, and do I get to hand them a bill for their mistake? No.

Anyway, I know if I were robbing banks for a living, I'd either be like that guy in Clarksville, or I'd have a situation like this one in Vernon, Connecticut.

Several weeks ago, a thief couldn't open up the bank door or possibly the safe door -- the article I found doesn't say -- but the point is, he had to race off in a car without any stolen money, which is especially heartening, since he managed to escape the police officers who were in pursuit of him.

None of this makes me glad when my own bank's computers can't get a simple deposit right, but if misery loves company, it is kind of nice to know that all bank customers -- even the ones who wear ski masks -- are having similar problems.

Geoff Williams is a business journalist and the author of C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race: The True Story of the 1928 Coast-to-Coast Run Across America (Rodale).

After customers of the bank formerly known as IndyMac waited in blistering heat to get their life savings out of the bank many are finding out that the piece of paper they just got may not help them out so much after all. The LA Times reports that WaMu is placing an 8 week hold on checks issued from IndyMac. Other area banks are also placing partial holds on funds coming from IndyMac but to a much lesser extent.

There is no excuse for WaMu to place an 8 week hold on a check from a federal insured and currently FDIC controlled bank even if they do claim it is to prevent forged checks. The acting chief of IndyMac in Pasadena has a similar sentiment, and is contacting other local institutions to try and smooth the process. Wells Fargo is another bank who has placed extended holds on funds coming from IndyMac but these holds only apply to a portion of deposits over $5,000 and should be released into the account within 9 days.

These partial holds are pretty common when you make a large deposit at an institution even when the money comes from a reputable source. The last time I had to deal with a large check the funds were dispersed into my account over the course of a week, with a small portion being available immediately.

If you are upset by WaMu's decision to place these exorbitant holds on your money, then simply walk across the street to another bank and find one that will take your hard earned money. Do you really want to settle for a bank that treats you like this on the first visit? Imagine what it will be like after you're already committed and breaking up is difficult! When you set up your new account make sure you take the right steps to keep all of your money under FDIC insurance.

Over the past weekend it was announced that IndyMac was being taken over by the FDIC after customers began a run on the bank, which had denied any solvency issues. Many customers had their life savings in the bank, whose accounts are protected by the FDIC, but not all of their funds were insured. In one instance a man had been told if he simply added the names of several relatives to his account the insurance amount would be increased to cover his deposits of over $300,000. Instead he found out that initially the FDIC will fully cover the insured funds but only cover uninsured deposits to the tune of 50%.

Hopefully things will work out for everyone -- even those whose accounts went over the insured limit. If you have over the insured amount in your current bank account I highly suggest you take the needed steps to make sure you are fully insured. This could be creating a joint account with your spouse to gain coverage up to $200,000 or it could be creating several trusts for your children in order to gain the protection they are entitled to as beneficiaries. If neither of these options work, spread out your money at other institutions. As my colleague Zac Bissonnette pointed out recently, most banks are offering the same services these days.

If you have enough money to be over the FDIC limit, you should really spend some time with someone who can provide an expert opinion on keeping your money safe as well as growing it. The FDIC provides an explanation of the protections afforded to different accounts as well as how your protection changes based on the beneficiaries of the accounts. If you are an IndyMac customer the FDIC has also set up a specific site to keep you up to date on the fate of your loans and deposits. While I'm not predicting a huge bank run in the near future, why not take a few minutes to make sure your savings are covered? The FDIC insurance is free so take advantage of it!

Mint.com is a personal finance site which provides the ability for you to link together all of the parts of your financial life. In order for the service to work you need to provide all of your banking passwords and account numbers to Mint so that it can work all of its behind the scenes magic. With a treasure trove of financial information like this sitting in one place, you'll want to be sure that your information is secure. Ryan Taylor of Money Millionaire Habits did just that and has provided a simple rundown of the security features utilized by Mint.com to protect your money.

First off, it is important to note that you don't make any transactions from inside Mint, which affords solace to some wary users. The most impressive piece of information about Mint.com's security is that the back end that runs Mint, called Yodlee, is also used by many of the top banks in the industry. All of these precautions should combine to give most users the same sense of security when using Mint.com to manage their personal finances as they have with their own bank.

Even though I am part of the younger generation which seems at time to jump on new technology, I have been hesitant to start using any of these third party online budgeting systems mainly due to security. Thankfully, it appears that my fears were unfounded and Mint.com appears to be using good policies and software to safeguard users' information and money. Stay tuned, in the near future I'll be looking into the security behind a Mint.com competitor, Wesabe.

Last week on WalletPop you read about how I thought banks could encourage savings by telling me I was a good boy! After I gave it some more thought I realized that we need a program similar to what my bank had when I was growing up, the Moola Moola savings club.

This club for youngsters featured contests and events which, in order to be a part of, you needed to deposit a certain amount of money. While my bank no longer participates in the Moola Moola club, I found a bank in Philadelphia which is sponsoring a summer savings program from which they will choose a winner for a Nintendo Wii as well as several other prizes.

There are several reasons that a program like this would be a good idea, the first being that people seem to be suckers for prizes, they'll drop $20 on raffle tickets to support a random charity or at the high school ball game's 50/50 drawing but they haven't even put a drop into savings.

Americans spend billions of dollars in bank fees every year, and at least one customer, Judith Tremblay, is a little irritated about it. She has good reason. She's been stewing over and trying to fix what she feels is an injustice for over a year now.

Tremblay, 43, had been a customer at Citizens Bank for 12 years when she noticed a monthly fee on her and her husband's bank statement. She asked her spouse about it, and he replied that he assumed it was a standard charge that they had to pay. After all, it was there every month.

Curious, Tremblay called the branch near her Salem, New Hampshire home and learned that the $17.50 monthly fee was an error. Because they had something called Circle Gold Checking, the Tremblays were supposed to be exempt from the fee. But instead, the $17.50 had gone unnoticed.

When Tremblay asked for her money to be returned, she learned that she could, indeed, get a refund -- but only for the last three months: $52.50.

Read Write Web reports on a survey recently performed by Worklight, a company specializing in web 2.0 services, regarding online banking. The survey of Facebook users found that 48% of them would make use of online widgets to manage finances if their bank offered the service. A more detailed response goes on to show that the most likely group to use these would be males in the 25-34 year old range. The use of online widgets to perform banking tasks or track spending levels have not been widely used to date due to security and compatibility issues.

Web 2.0 is a rather loose term which many people associate with social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook but in reality it can be used to describe tools which ease the flow of information as well as allow you to access it on a variety of devices. Ideally, users could take advantage of these web 2.0 widgets to track the balances of their checking, savings, and retirement accounts, all on one page, all while also viewing the amount due on any outstanding credit cards, student loans or mortgage payments. Right now you can achieve this one screen approach only with a dedicated program and the time it takes to constantly update the information.

Ken and Daria Dolan are widely known as America's First Family of Personal Finance.

If the weak economy has you tightening your belt a bit these days, you're not the only one. The subprime crisis is putting a strain on banks' bottom lines all over the country since they aren't making as much income off of loan interest. I know, cry me a river, right? But this is important because it impacts your money in a big way.

To compensate for the dip in funds, banks are once again finding more ways to nickel and dime folks like you and me. The latest tactic is a fee increase from the usual suspect: ATMs. These fees can quickly add up to hundreds of dollars that can drain your account. While we can only dream about a world where we never have to deal with banks again, there are ways to avoid these costly fees. Check out my video below to learn about new ATM charges and my advice for protecting your money.

For more ways to fight back against bank fees, check out the Dolans' banking section at Dolans.com. Click here to learn more.

Don't forget to send your money questions to Ken and Daria!

I've said it before (more than once, actually), and it appears I'm going to have to say it again. If money that's not yours appears in your bank account, do not spend it. I know it's not yours. You know it's not yours. And it's only a matter of time before the bank finally admits it's not yours. But it's apparently too easy to pretend you've won the lottery or some secret person has given you a large gift, right? Well, Herbert Starbird and his wife found out the hard way that they shouldn't spend money that didn't belong to them.

Their bank account showed a deposit of $280,277 in October. Herbert knew he didn't deposit that money and that it didn't belong to him . He says he called the bank several times and was told that the deposit was accurate. So Herbert and his wife promptly began spending the money, and then the bank said the deposit was a mistake. (Duh!) The bank tried to take the money back, but over $157,000 of it was already spent. The bank says that Herbert never brought the error to the bank's attention. They're suing the Starbirds to get the money back.

Sorry, but mistake or no mistake, the Starbirds should not have spent that money. They should have tried harder to give it back to the bank, because they knew it was not theirs. Spending it was just plain wrong -- and stupid.

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

As millions of Americans are waiting to see that sweet sweet stimulus rebate appear in their bank accounts, many banks are feeling the pressure. My boss reported that as he was trying to manage his parent's finances last week he couldn't get into the local bank's online service. A phone call later and the problem was revealed to him by a friendly bank employee. The online banking system couldn't handle the repeated refreshes it was getting which could only be attributed to the throngs of people eagerly awaiting their HDTV allowance from the government.

We already received our stimulus package but today as a I tried to check the status of several automatic bill payments I was confronted with an error page. It's not that I don't understand the load that these requests are having on banks, I am just surprised that that many people are refreshing their bank websites in the wait for government cheese. It seems the many economic stimulus sales may be inciting consumers to spend spend spend.

If you haven't received your rebate yet and your social security number's time has come and gone be sure to check out several reasons your rebate may have been delayed. If you don't fit any of those categories and you still haven't received your money and you bank anywhere other than Citi or Chase do me a favor -- WAIT -- don't check your bank account like a meth addict in need of a hit. Some of us have important banking matters to attend to, like seeing if the PayPal transfer for selling my toilet paper roll collection went through!

The unchecked use of homes as ATM machines has left many home owners in the uncomfortable position of being former home owners.

Now that they're out equity and have little left to be milked for fees and interest, the big banks have turned to another group: people who have been responsible, paid off their mortgages, and preserved their equity. The New York Times reports that the big banks would "love to serve" these people.

Will isn't that just dandy. Having spent the past decade reporting huge profits (and then huge writedowns) helping financially unstable people get themselves into bigger trouble, the industry is now looking to move on to the more responsible borrowers.

To be sure: some retired people who own their homes outright do need to tap into the equity to provide for living expenses. But as I wrote back in March, retirees need to proceed with caution, especially when it comes to reverse mortgages.:

There's a reason salespeople love these products -- and therein lies the problem. One elderly lady quoted in the New York Times piece paid an up-front fee of 8% -- $17,100 -- out of the initial proceeds of the loan. And the independent counsel that people are federally-required to receive before closing on a reverse mortgage appears to be a total joke --oftentimes it's paid for by the lender making it, by definition, not independent.