Conditional Love
I’ve determined the truth about my bank’s love for me.
It’s conditional.
It requires a minimum balance and a touch-tone phone or a computer.
I discovered this while researching (no offense to real researchers of any kind) my bank’s elimination of several service fees (see yesterday’s blog). I looked all over the bank’s web page to find out if the other service fees that were being “updated” were increasing or decreasing.
In many cases, the web site doesn’t say what the fees are. It just says “a fee will apply for this transaction. Please call ….” So I called, and got the information I wanted.
Well, I was so fascinated by the amount of information that could be found on its home page that I just kept reading. And I found the following little piece of information:
“A $2 fee may apply when you call 1-800-xx-xxxx and choose to speak with a Phone Banker when your request could have been handled by our automated service. We waive the fee if you maintain a minimum daily balance in your consumer checking account. Please refer to your Fee and Information Schedule for details.”
This doesn’t seem fair to me.
I thought about one of my moms, for example (and remember, I have three – five if you count the hyphenated ones – so her identity is fairly concealed). She has very little expendable income, certainly not enough to maintain a minimum balance as mentioned above. She has no internet skills. Automated phone systems confuse her. She never learned to drive, so it’s a big hassle for her to find a ride to the bank, and if she takes the bus it will cost her money. But she’s a decent person who tries to do the right thing.
If she had a question about her account or her bank statement, what would she do? She would call the number on her statement and try to talk with a real live person.
And she could get charged for that?
There are a lot of people like her. A recent immigrant might have the same issues. So might your average everyday American poor person with enough money to have a bank account but not enough to buy a computer.
It’s all perfectly legal – I mean, this policy is disclosed in black and white, though in a pamphlet with print too small for my mom to read.
It seems like it should be the opposite. If you have a nice balance in your account and we can assume you speak English (or Spanish, if you’re in California) and have access to a computer and actually know how to use the internet or navigate an automated phone system and THEN you choose to use a phone banker….well, we’re going to charge you. But if you can’t do any of the above and we can see by your balance that money is already tight, well, we’ll just be happy to help you deal with your money (and therefore with your life) in any way we can.
Free of charge.