Here’s how they do it.
I like my Chase branch down the street. It’s in a nice old building with big fireplaces at the back, and old wooden wainscotting. The black and Hispanic staff seem largely drawn from the neighboring community, and are friendly, helpful, courteous and I like dealing with them. Chase makes it easy to deposit cheques, the cheques clear in a day, and their bank machines are easy to use. Online banking is easy, you don’t even wait too long to talk to a rep. You can’t hate your local branch or the people in it.
But you can sure hate Chase.
They have a new policy: if you open a checking account and you don’t have direct deposit, or your account level dips below $1500 for more than a couple of days, they ding you with a $12 monthly servicing fee. That’s a hundred bucks a year just to maintain a checking account. If you have bills withdrawn from your account, as most people do, and you lose track of how much comes out every month and your account goes into the negative, they ding you again – #35. If you leave this for more than five consecutive business days, they ding you another $15. If you cancel your overdraft insurance, which they charge you for, they still allow some subscriptions to charge your account into the negative, then ding you $35, with that $15 after five consecutive business days. If you take out your money from a Chase bank account, it’s free, but if you go to one of those convenience cash machines, you get dinged at the machine, and back at Chase. Once, before I realized they did this (I’ve never encountered this in either Canada or Britain, where you single fee per bank machine), I got dinged once for $5, just to take out $20.
Of course, if you have the money to not go below $1500, you won’t be charged the $12 a month, nor likely will you incur the $35 dollar overdraft fee. You’re okay. But that’s the whole point. My Chase is in a poor neighborhood, where many people are struggling to find work, and Chase thinks of ever more ingenious ways to separate these people from what little money they do have. These policies are specifically designed as a tax on poor people. It’s too easy to say, people have a choice, they don’t have to use Chase. There aren’t any other banks in this neighborhood.
How much did the Chase CEO make last year? What astronomic sum will he pull in at bonus time, subsidized by these usurious fees?
Corruption takes many forms.
Louis CK says it best: “Ever been so broke the bank starts charging you money for not having enough money.”
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great blog… and infuriating. I have been at Amalgamated for years but that’s a local union based small branched bank – these big banks have a foot hold neighborhoods that desperately need ethical banking.
Hi CO – Yeah, it’s pretty amazing what they get away with, and how tone deaf they are. I mean they really don’t care – I guess they know they’ll always have the business.
Watch the video if you haven’t already seen it, one of the funniest things I’ve seen in awhile.
t.