In another life I was in banking, local large regional bank...the whole thing started back in the late 80's, save on overhead by reducing the number of people in the front office, you know, those people who used to provide us services, in favor of ATM's, telephone banking (now online banking) and customer service centers...lot cheaper, more reliable and less chance of fingers dipping into the till. I recall the resistance, long lines to access the few tellers on the job, while old teller windows sat vacant. It has just gotten more automated since then, people are numbers, not people, and only transactions matter.
Years ago back in CT my wife insisted we open an account with a bank just because it was on her way to work. I had to go in and do some banking and the lady at the window told me that the bank had instituted a policy that if we went inside and a teller had to do talk to us that we would be charged 2.00 dollars as a bank fee for service.
I told her to charge me the 2 bucks and close my checking and savings accounts there.She told it would not come to that if I used the drive up I responded with isn't it a person at the drive up?
She got flustered and went to the MGR.She asked if there was a problem she could help with,I asked her what the fee was for helping with a problem?She looked at me like she didn't understand. I told them that when a bank I do business with start charging me for a service like making a deposit from the inside of the building it was time for me to find a new bank.
She told me she would wave the fee I told her to write me a check that she didn't have to wave anything.Then she asked why I was still closing my accounts I told her that it was just because that they thought it was going to be they way they thought it was going to be. I then told her that as long as it was my money I still had a say in what happened.
The I went and opened accounts with a small local bank and lived hapily ever after.Of course I had spaining to do with the wife but she was OK with it when I told her what happened. And shortly after Connecticut bank and trust became Bank of Boston.
Yeah, we've all experienced or heard stories like that. Smaller banks, especially community banks and credit unions are still pretty good about treating customers right. Once they reach a certain size, the big bank practices seem to start transforming the old culture into the big bank mentality by adopting their practices, technology and strategies.
The fee structures for banks have only gotten worse over the years. I'm using the term worse from the customer viewpoint, from the banks viewpoint it is survival. A banks balance sheet, especially now since the demonrats sub-prime fiasco, is a tricky thing. Their assets is our debt, our assets are their liabilities, and their earnings is off either the interest rate spread between the two or fee income. What have rates been doing? Earn squat on your accounts, don't ya? And on the other side is higher rates giving them a good spread, but only on paper. If the assets are, troubled as they say, then your real spread is a lot lower. They cover a lot of holes with fee income, and they will charge you for everything they can think of. Another piece of this is other product revenue, but in credit cards for example congress puts limits on rates and such. Creates more impetus to generate fee income. So, if not for CRA and all its fugly spawn foisted upon us by demonrats, banks would have a natural aversion to risk and the sub-prime crap and loaning to people who couldn't afford to pay crap from day 1 would not be the massive problem it is today. But thanks to demonrats we have CRA, F/F and the rest and the sub-prime mess blew the lid off the phony risk cushion that shouldn't have existed in the first place!
So if not for demonrats and their filthy spawn we would not be getting fvcked over like this!
