Standard Time Start

Time to set clock backward! Daylight saving time ends at 2 am today (Sun 6 Nov). 

What a mess! Moving 1 hour backward will obviously affecting my sleep pattern and my appetite for a few days and I have to deal with it. The good thing is that I will get an extra hour sleep! Yeay!

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Power of Voices

This great news is conjunction with this post. The decision has been made by BOA on Nov 1st after few days economic justice petition.  Victory for customers!!.

Response officially from the BOA website

I don't know what to say but that news really made me relieve and happy. Now I have doubtfully feeling for closing the BOA account. Maybe sooner or later if they have any hidden fees.

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Debit Card Issue

Debit card is really convenient for making purchases at the store, online shopping, booking flight, paying at gas station and restaurants. No worry if no cash in wallet. No bulky wallet with dollar bills and coins and also save time from driving to ATM to withdraw money. 

Unlike credit card, debit card deducts money electronically from your bank account. Seriously debit card replacing cash or representing electronic money. How comfort it is when you just bring the plastic card everywhere, swipe and pin?

I

I was at self-checkout machine (auto cashier) at the local store

Recently the Bank of America (BOA) planned to charge $5/month for using debit cards for purchases early next year.

from ABC.com

This news really shocking the customers including me. I am BOA account holder more than 4 years and the charging monthly fees completely disappointed me and hurting thousands customers. Besides BOA, the other largest banks like Wells Fargo, Chase and SunTrust also plan for the same thing. Obviously nobody wants to pay the fees. Supposely banks save our money and not spending our money to cover their profit.

People pissed off with this news and reacting to change it. Few things happened:

1) Bank Transfer Day will be launching on Nov 5th

2) One of the customers launched a petition at Change.org website for opposing debit card fees. Personally I support that petition and already signed it up.

from change.org website

President Barak Obama also has signed up the petition.

3) Chase and Well Fargo announced cancelling the debit card fees when the customers start closing their accounts.

from CNN website

Switching to other bank and ditching BOA account are part of my plan since I heard that bad news. 

I started looking and research the other banks such as online banks (Ally, ING etc) and credit union which offer good rates and without ridiculous fees for sure. Finally I managed to open new bank account on Thursday this week (Oct 27). Local credit union bank is my choice. Soon I will close the BOA if this fee happens.  Screw BOA!

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Daylight saving time start...

Daylight saving time or DST has been starting since Sunday (March 12). I had to adjusted the clock one hour ahead. Now it's back to 12 hours different between US and Malaysia.  This shifting time is really messing me up. Obviously it's confusing my sleeping time, wake up, lunch and dinner schedules. I still hard to accept and I know it's taking me sometime to adapt this transitioning time.

The phrase "spring forward, fall back" helps people to remember to advance one hour clock ahead during late winter and  move one hour back during fall. It's switching from Standard time to Daylight saving time. If you notice, I had written the blog about "Switching to standard time?"in Nov 2010.

Generally daylight saving time is reportedly saves energy. During daylight saving time the sun appears to rise one hour later and therefore reduces the period between sunset and bedtime by one hour. This means it allows us to use less energy in lighting our homes by taking advantage of the longer days of spring and summer. We may use a bit more electricity in the morning because it is darker when we get up, but that is usually offset by the energy savings in the evening.

 
However it saves energy, this daylight saving time really affecting my sleep schedule. Now I am still thinking it is 11 pm even it's actually 12 am when I see the clock. I hope it will be over soon in a couple of days.

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