drinkypoo's Journal: A rational banking institution?

Today, many web retailers (e.g. Computer Geeks) will only ship to your credit card's billing address. No one in their right mind would extend me any credit, so I typically use my debit card for making web purchases. Now granted, more and more retailers are taking paypal, but I have the problem that my bank (Washington Mutual) will not permit me to associate "temporary" addresses with my debit card - meaning that I can only have things shipped to my mailing address. This is not my real address (I don't want junk mail, so I don't use that one for anything) and this poses a problem.

Can anyone suggest a bank with offices on the left coast that is less lame than WaMu? All I want to do is to be able to spend my money, and they don't seem to be interested in providing me common banking services, in spite of ostensibly being a bank.

Can't help you but...

[WGFELyL5]

Wamu
Wamu seems to be one of the better banks in my experience.
I've also tried a couple of local Credit Unions, Banco Popular, and Compass Bank.
Can't help you there.

fraud protection on debit cards vs. credit cards
Do you know something I don't about the fraud protection on Debit Cards?
It is my understanding that there is MUCH LESS protection than on a credit card.
Additionally, it is your own money on the other end, so the banks aren't directly incentivized to combat fraud.
For this reason, I use only credit ca

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[drinkypoo]

Do you know something I don't about the fraud protection on Debit Cards? It is my understanding that there is MUCH LESS protection than on a credit card.

This is true. However, I doublecheck retailers with resellerratings.com almost always :)

If paypal gets their disposable debit cards working on the web (why the fuck did they use a windows application? that's retarded) then I can use those...

Where do you have your mail sent, if not to your home?

It goes to my father's house, which is in the county. The th

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[nxtw]

PayPal used to have virtual debit cards that you could regenerate on demand (although, I think they got upset if you did this too often, as they didn't change between uses). They didn't actually require a separate application or anything; although, it didn't give you a cvv2 code. They have since cancelled this in exchange for their current virtual debit card "beta" program.

Here's one idea: gift certificates. Newegg sells gift certificates, but they must be purchased with Verified by Visa, a program in w

USAA

[benhocking]

If your parents are members of USAA or if you are in the military, USAA is worth checking out. I use them for checking, banking, auto insurance, life insurance, renter's insurance, and just general services. They rock.

Bank of the Northern Hemisphere

[Servo]

I'm currently using Bank of America and have been pretty happy with them. Lots of on-line banking features for free.

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[drinkypoo]

I used to be a Bank of America customer, and they were the only bank which gave me worse service than Wells Fargo. They were also one of the last corporations to pull out of their substantial investments in apartheid (i.e. institutions actively supporting the state of apartheid.) I will never, ever bank with them again.

PayPal used to be good with this, not sure now

[nxtw]

PayPal allows you to add multiple addresses to your account and will allow you to use them as shipping addresses (of course they would need to be confirmed via another credit card first), and I believe the debit cards will validate with any confirmed address on the account (Paypal's debit cards are MasterCards, but they do not have Debit written on the card or have any indiciation that they aren't a credit card on them.)

All Access Visa gift cards allow you to go on their website and set an address. Last I