I have a couple of chequing accounts that use paper cheques. Even in a world where it seems that electronic banking in the forms of credit cards, debit cards, and on-line bill pay rule, there are still those rare occasions where one is simply not able to speed negatively-charged particles posing as wealth to another party. Because of that, there is still a utility for this rather archaic means of settling debts.
Recently my wife and I have had a few, euh, financial difficulties, leaving our bank balances on the low side. In other words, it’s life as normal where petrol is over a dollar a litre. Because of a couple of errors on my part, both chequing accounts went into the negative this week. Of course both banks have in place policies that zap a whopping Insufficient Funds (NSF) fee into our accounts, making them even more negative.
Now, I can understand the purpose of NSF fees. Just like speeding tickets keep everyone going the lawful speed limit, NSF fees are the banks way of saying that if you owe them even a cent, they’ll come down on you like you’ll not believe, thus keeping everyone from taxing the bank’s patience. Surely they can’t have customers actually owe them money.
If it where somehow in proportion to the negative balance, then it would be more understandable. My all-electronic chequing account at ING Direct is more or less in this category. If I overdraw my account for whatever, they treat the amount that I own as if it were a credit card balance. I have only a $25 window, but that is usually enough to cover minor emergencies and calculation errors.
With my account at Chase Bank, I had a debit transaction that comes out on a yearly basis (which I had forgotten about) show up out of the blue. That in of itself didn’t push my account into the negative, but a few transactions that took place earlier that day that I could have waited on drove my balance to the negative. It turned out that four transactions which included two sub-dollar transfers to my savings account (moving odd cents there as a way of building up its balance) resulted in a $100 NSF fee!
Fortunately, I was able to work with Chase and explain what happened. They were somewhat understanding and was able to waive that NSF fee. However, I have a couple of other transitions that were clearing while that was in place, and even though we had put $100 into the account, those two extra transactions resulted in a $64 NSF which I’ll have to absorb. I note with interest that if the first NSF hadn’t existed in the first place, I would have had the second one.
Still, at least I was able to at least get a partial solution. Not so much with US Bank. An accidental $5 PayPal transaction (I clicked on a button without thinking) caused my account to go into the red. Even though I immediately sent funds from my ING Direct account to US Bank, it arrived a day late, resulting in a $35 NSF. OK, I was an idiot and likely deserve some kind of penalty, so I could live with that.
However, what follows is rather horrific. I got there obligatory “You are an idiot” notice in today’s post, telling me that I got hit with the NSF (which I already knew). What I didn’t know was that starting on the fourth calendar day, a Continuous Negative Balance fee would be levied at the rate of $8 a day. And not just on business days, but for each calendar day! I checked my balance on-line and saw the first one of those had been levied, all resulting from going $2.85 into the hole.
Part of the problem here is that there are no US Bank branches in town. I have that chequing account as at one time I had a credit card through the bank, plus it was a decent way of shuffle funds off to the side. (I direct deposit FSA funds there.) I rang their main number to find out how I might be able to add funds into my account to cover the negative balance ASAP. What I got was pretty much no help. They couldn’t do an electronic transfer into their bank, nor could I send any fund to them that would arrive before Monday at the earliest. Gee, so much for the power of electrons! Meanwhile, a Sunday debt would be an $8 indulgence.
The only resort that I can see is making my way to a bank branch somewhere. Fortunately, we’ll be going to my mother-in-law’s tomorrow and a branch is about a 60-kilometre detour along our route. My plan is to give them the funds to bring my balance to zero and then close the account. Good riddance!
One would think that with the advent of flying cars and cybernetic implants, 21st century banking would be a lot more user-friendly to mere mortals. Instead, we see something of a system that resulted in things like feudalism and other things we’d like to forget about. Along with the usury of credit cards, perhaps these marvels of modern economics will be able to build debtor’s prisons. I know, I’m probably grousing from my own stupidity, but still isn’t this how populations are divided economically? Just a thought.
