7.23.2007

Sometimes I want to stuff my money under my mattress

Because then evil banks wouldn't charge me fees for fishy behavior.

It's no news that banks are evil, but I've been under the impression that as long as you read everything you signed on to, you only incur fees if you're being a dumbass.

As it turns out, Bank of America changes its policies like, every six months. I have had an account with Bank of America for two years, about a month after I won a scholarship from them, and I'm not about to read ten pages of size eight font legalese every six months-- not until law school, at least.

So, in my "customer service" backs and forths, the ten lines that I am allowed to reply to their initial response has mostly been civil cursing of BofA's exploitative practices, to which they keep responding with at least thirty lines of "I'm sorry you're upset about your monthly maintenance fee" and then blah blah blah about all of BofA's services that I might be better off using (but, of course, Jamie doesn't know that Steven and Bob, who responded the first two times, were incorrect in thinking this was about a maintenance fee or about another type of account. If she had read the first email herself, she might have known that.).

This was my most recent, of which the last paragraph had to be omitted in final submission because the message was too long for their lame interface:
I was not inquiring about a monthly maintenance fee.

Your bank charges me for every transfer I make after three, despite the explicitly stated "you may make up to six preauthorized transfers" which misleadingly does not mean "free."

Wells Fargo goes to great lengths to warn you when you are about to complete a transaction that will incur a fee. Since the State of California legally allows banks to authorize six transfers, Wells Fargo charges a fee for the seventh, not the third.

Your interests seem to be only to take advantage of those who do not complain about your abysmal service, and to serve the customers who are willing to read your complicated policies, which I believe have changed at least four times in the two years I have been banking here. I shouldn't have to reread my account policies that often, unless I am signing up for new accounts that frequently.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Redwood Credit Union! Any credit union, really! They have a national cooperative network so that if you go to someone else's CU you don't have to pay the ATM fees. This helps solve the dilemma over wanting to choose local banks but being hindered by traveling frequently. Also RCU has online services, which really eliminates the need for even going to the bank.

kfed said...

See, I love credit unions, but that doesn't stop Wells Fargo or BofA from charging ATM fees at their ATMs, and credit unions don't exactly have a ton of them (even on different networks or regions or whatever).

Maybe balance is the answer. Or the mattress.