Why Banks Suck
- posted by Elmo on 2000-12-14 00:00:00
Alas, the election is finally over. Al Gore has conceded, and surprisingly quite graciously I might add. It actually overshadowed "W"'s acceptance speech. After all the hoopla, this ending is really kind of a let down. It's kind of hard to believe it's over. No more Palm Beach ballot cartoons. No more angry Republican mobs storming courthouses. No more Jesse Jackson on the news channels every day threatening civil unrest. No more Cher threatening to leave the country if Bush is elected. (Looks like she'll be staying after all). You know, if I didn't know any better, I might think that some sense of sanity was returning to this country. Whatever will Leno or Letterman use for material now? SNL has actually been halfway funny the past few weeks--it was nice while it lasted.
Anyway, the rant is late again, I know. I've been swamped again. I was up until almost 2:00 AM last night dealing with network issues and hardware installations, and I pulled a couple of all-nighters last week as well. Sometimes I really envy all my friends and family who have normal jobs working regular hours, even the ones who make a lot less than I do.
So which of the three Grinches shall I rant about tonight? How about the Government Grinch? I'm sure he'll continue to grow ten times bigger after this election, just like he always does. But all of the post-Election 2000 bickering has burned me out on politics for a little while. How about the Politically Correct Grinch? Is he out bullying innocent Boy Scouts again? Stealing candy from babies (because it's bad for their teeth), and putting their parents in jail because they gave it to them? Silly, you say? Did you know that candy is made from sugar, and sugar is white? We wouldn't want children to grow up thinking white is sweeter than some other color, now would we? Okay, maybe that was a bit of a stretch, but you can be sure it's coming one of these days. No gambler ever lost his shirt overestimating the absurdity of the Politically Correct Grinch.
But I think I will go with the Corporate Greed Grinch this week. This Grinch's favorite playground has got to be the banking industry. This Monday I was reminded of why three and a half years ago I had closed my bank account and swore never to use one again. I suppose I should start out with that incident from three and a half years ago and work my way forward. Back then, I was still a student at Murray State. I had opened a checking account in Murray, KY with Republic Bank, for several reasons. First, they offered free checking to students. I saw no reason why I should have to pay the bank for the privilege of holding my money, especially when they would be drawing interest off of it anyway. Besides, I was on a tight budget and couldn't afford silly fees like that anyway. Also, they were locally owned, which is always a plus with me. Give me a "Mom & Pop" store over a multi-national corporation any day.
But I was working part time on campus, making minimum wage, and had my own apartment to keep up. I barely made enough to cover the bills. But I was very careful not to bounce checks. I had made the mistake of accidentally bouncing one a couple of years back. Even though it had only went under by two dollars or so, it was enough. The bank added their nice little $20 fee on there, and the business (Domino's Pizza) added their $15 fee. That $6.00 pizza ended up costing me like $41.00. And that's not all, folks. That loss was totally unexpected, and totally upset my balance so when I deposited my next paycheck and those outrageous fees were taken out, it didn't leave enough to cover my other bills and another check ended up bouncing. Hence more bank fees, more business fees, ad nausium. Luckily, I was able to borrow money from my parents to get out of that hole. The mistake had been mine. I paid for it (dearly). I learned from the mistake. Life went on.
Soon after that Republic Bank had offered a credit card service, where I got a card with a $300.00 limit that also automatically kicked in to cover my account anytime I accidentally become overdrawn. Hence, no $20 fees. No additional fees. Just a typical credit card with slightly higher than average interest. I could live with that. And with that extra protection, I had no further banking problems. Republic Bank were good to me, and I recommended their services to others. I was so happy there that I even bought a large package of Star Wars themed checks from them, believing I would remain with them throughout my college career.
Then they followed what has become a growing trend over the past couple of decades. The owners of Republic Bank sold their 25 year old business to a larger banking outfit. Mergers and buyouts are one of the Corporate Greed Grinch's favorite pastimes. They displace loyal workers, muck up systems that had worked flawlessly before, and turn formerly free services into pay-out-the-@$$ services. And that was true of this buyout. United Commonwealth bought and renamed Republic Bank, moved it across the street into a larger brand-new structure with all new staff (whatever happened to the tellers whom I had come to know by name?), and started charging me $5.00 a month for my formerly free checking account. So unbeknownst to me, $5.00 was automatically taken out of my account which caused another check of mine to bounce (to Domino's Pizza again, naturally--I ate a lot of pizza in my college youth). Oh yeah, and the overdraw protection service on that credit card was no longer in place. So again I get smacked with a $20 fee from United Commonwealth, another $15 from Domino's, and again these fees cause more debt which causes more checks to bounce. This little fiasco cost me over $200.00 that I absolutely could not afford. I had finally borrowed enough money to pay off all of the debt I knew about, and asked the (new) teller if I had any more checks out that hadn't cleared. She couldn't tell me and was completely uncooperative. I asked her if they had an overdraw protection plan like Republic had had. They didn't. The closest they had was something called a line of credit, which was similar to a business loan. No thanks. She completely p---ed me off and so finally I just said screw it, zeroed out the account and closed it. If there were any more checks out, they could just eat them and the fees because their little screw up had already cost me enough.
And that's when I declared I was done with banking. To celebrate I lit a trashcan fire with all of those worthless Star Wars checks I had left from the old Republic Bank. I'd always despise accounting and record keeping anyway. I did much better paying for all of my expenses with straight cash, and money orders when I had to mail something out. I could get them for $0.69 a piece from a nearby Super-America, and with no more than what I had to send out, that was actually cheaper than the bank fees would have been.
And so it was for the rest of my college life, and the year I spent in Evansville after I graduated. And I even continued this practice when I took that web-development job at the Fourth Reich. Several times people had given me flack about not having a bank account and I had actually enquired around looking for one that I could tolerate. First of all, I had to have free checking for the same reason as I described above. And second, I wanted a guarantee in writing that they wouldn't sell out or merge with another bank for at least 5 years. Of course, no bank would give me that, so I stuck with my cash/money order system. Every now and then I would use my Discover card also, because they were the card that actually paid me back. Hands down the best card out there. Too many jerks don't want to accept Discover though--I have been known to turn around, put my purchases back on the shelf, and leave a place that doesn't accept Discover. But that is another rant in itself.
Anyhow, despite constant nagging from Der Fuhrer because I was holding everyone up from getting direct deposit paychecks because I didn't have a bank account, I kept this up until the first of this year. For one thing, I was afraid (hoping might be a better term) that the dreaded "y2k bug" was real and that the banking system would crash, among many other things. For another thing, there had been the Big Brother-like "Know Your Customer" (translation: spy on your customer) plan that the FDIC had tried to force through as policy for all banks last year. Fortunately, the Libertarian party discovered and exposed the plan and various other conservative and liberal groups rallied along with them to put the brakes on it. But rumor has it that many facets of the insidious scheme are still being implemented in a more stealthful fashion.
But anyway, after y2k came without incident, I was running out of excuses. And the Fourth Reich had been purchased from Adolph for a sum of $1.5 million, and its new owners were non-negotiable about the direct deposit thing. So I was forced to get a bank account. So I went with my parent's recommendation and went to Firstar. Well, I can't really complain about how Firstar has handled my personal account. There are fees sure, but I am no longer a college student on such a tight budget that a few dollars here and there don't kill me like they used to. Besides, I let my accountant handle my finances so I don't have to worry about it anymore. Having a professional bookkeeper for a mother does have its advantages.
But more recently when I left the Reich for promises unkept, and started my own computer business, I needed a corporate account. So I went with my associate's suggestion and chose First Union out of Tennessee. First of all, multiple accounts in multiple banks helps thwart that "Know Your Customer" nonsense. Secondly, Der Fuhrer also used Firstar bank and I didn't want him to be able to use that in some way to spy on my business. Thirdly, I liked the online banking services that First Union had.
So I started a corporate savings account and a corporate checking account for WBW Computers, and bought $100.00 worth of computerized checks. I thought I was safe because First Union is one of the fastest growing banks in the nation, along with Firstar. I thought since both were in a buying frenzy, I would be safe for a while from them selling out. Wrong-o! All of the First Union banks in Tennessee were sold to Firstar this month. So now I have three accounts with Firstar, and no longer have any separation of my money between banks. I also have $100.00 worth of useless computer checks. They said they'd buy them back though, so I'll let you all know if that works. But the kicker is that I went in there Monday to transfer money from my savings account to my checking account so I could pay out some bills, and the branch I went to could simply not find any of my accounts. Neither my old First Union ones nor my original Firstar one. After about 20 minutes of looking, the teller had some other customers to tend to so I left and headed down to Oak Grove to the branch where I usually traded at. Believe it or not, this branch still had the old First Union staff that I had gotten to know. They were even able to eventually find the accounts, after another 15 or so minutes of luckless queries. But at least they gave me a free Firstar chocolate bar for my troubles. Mmmmm!
Well, all things considering, it could have been a lot worse. At least I didn't lose an insane sum of money from this buyout, and I'm still doing business with a bank and a staff I'm familiar with. I made out much better than last time. But my friend, who had first recommended First Union, tells me he is having a quite a time getting his own account straightened out since the move.
Still, don't worry. I'm not going to close out all my accounts again. I may consolidate a couple of them into one, since they're all in the same bank anyway, once I get all of my records straight. I never bothered keeping a handwritten check register since I could get a real-time transaction report online any time I wanted. I told you, I despise accounting. The main reason I got into computer programming was so I could write cool games. When am I going to get to do that? That's what I want to know.
Alright folks, that's all the rant for this week. Stay tuned next week when you will read Elmo say, "Boot failure? I've got a 'boot' for that @$$!!!"
Peace,
Elmo
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