Banking on banks

I bank at the Baraboo National Bank, one that (at least for now) does not belong to a national or multinational conglomerate. It has been around since 1857 and survived the Great Depression without going bust or having any of its depositors lose money they had in the bank. It has several area locations, including a convenient one only a couple of miles from where I live. I can do business with an actual human being there from 7:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. Monday through (yes, through) Saturday. I pay nothing for my interest-bearing checking account, my ATM card or my money market, am able to handle most of my actual business securely online and even get little perks like free trips to Circus World and other little niceties that they offer their customers periodically. The people are friendly and don't shove deposit slips back at me if I forget to write down my account number. Instead they look me up on their computer and ask politely if I want to put it in checking or the money market account.

Sweet!

Today I ran across this story, which reminded me of some of Kristin and Vince's recent experiences. Not everyone is as lucky as I am with their bank:

"I wrote a check that should have bounced... Definitely my mistake. Washington Mutual was happy to cover my check and the two purchases (a total of $2.00 for a candy bar and a soda) I had made on my debit card over the weekend. But it cashed the check first and then processed the debit card payments and thus justified charging three overdraft payments rather than one. So my soda and candy bar cost just over $70. This wouldn't have happened if I hadn't screwed up in the first place, so I paid the fees but then asked to close my account because I didn't want to do this again: a Snickers isn't worth $36 to me.

Then, in a narrative familiar to anyone - pretty much everyone - who deals with his bank regularly, the bank explained that it couldn't close my account unless I stopped into my home branch. My home branch is in Chicago. I live in New York. I explained this. Brandon, the branch's representative, looked through the impossible protocols that the bank imposed on anyone wishing to close an account and, after half an hour of negotiations, assured me that they would figure it out if I could stop into a local New York branch and try to close the account from there. I did this and assumed I was in the clear. Two months later I was informed by mail that my account with Washington Mutual was in arrears. I called the bank and explained that my account couldn't be in arrears because I didn't have an account. They told me that I had to stop into my home branch in Chicago to close the account and that my health insurance had drafted money in the meantime. They were charging me another $70 for covering this draft. I asked to speak to Brandon. Brandon no longer worked there. I called my health insurance. They apologized for a drafting error and assured me they would do no such thing in the future. I called the bank again. They assured me they would be happy to close my account if I could only make it into the branch... I called the bank teller's supervisor, the national hotline of the bank, the main Chicago office. This went on over a period of months and I eventually paid whatever overdraft fees they were charging in exchange for the assurance that my account would be closed and I would receive verification of its closure by mail. That was four weeks ago. I'm still waiting."