Some Woman: Hello, this is Cynthia, how can I help you?
Me: Hi, Cynthia, I have a question about my account.
Cynthia: Sure thing. Let me pull it up for you. Oh! Ha ha, you are poor, which I hate!
Me: Yes, that’s what I’m calling about. I noticed that I got so poor that you stole a bunch of money from me, thus rendering me even more poor. Could I maybe have it back?
Cynthia: No, dummy! It’s ours now!
Me: But please?
Cynthia: No, it’s better off with us. You’d probably just spend it on goofballs.
Me: What’s a goofball?
Cynthia: I wouldn’t know. I’m not poor like you.
Me: Cynthia. Seriously. Could you just give me back some of my money? That you stole?
Cynthia: Okay. You can have $35 back.
Me: But that’s not even enough for ONE goofball!
Cynthia: That brings your balance up to negative $12.
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA.
Cynthia: …Ma’am?
Me: Well, at least this gives me an excuse to post that Louis CK routine about being broke.
Cynthia: That is a good bit.
Me: I love his work.

Lindy West was born an unremarkable female baby in Seattle, Washington. The former Stranger writer covered movies, movie stars, exclamation points, lady stuff, large frightening fish, and much, much more....

55 replies on “A Brief and (ONLY SEMI-) Dramatized Transcript of the Conversation I Just Had with My Bank”

  1. I switched to a credit union after the following series of events:

    My fiance and I were banking at Bank of America in 2001. We had separate accounts, we both just happened to bank at the same bank when we met.

    The week after we were married, we go to our local BoA branch and ask if we can open a joint checking account and transfer all funds from both accounts into the shared account. This seems reasonable and even today I’m fairly sure it can be done, but for some reason the teller insisted it couldn’t be done because I hadn’t changed my driver’s license yet. My ID still had my maiden name on it, so even though we showed the teller the marriage certificate and a bunch of other papers proving we were a married couple living together, he said no can do. My last name was different and that’s not allowed.

    In frustration, my husband and I withdrew all our funds, shutting down the separate accounts, and went to the nearest bank — U.S. Bank. There, we opened our first joint checking account.

    Fast-forward to 2005. I have a horrible habit of liking it when human beings provide customer service, especially when the automatic teller has a grating, robotic voice that doesn’t help at all. So I call U.S. Bank one day and speak to a customer service rep in order to find out how much is in our bank account. Customer service rep tells me $13.

    I convey this information to my husband when he gets home. He asks, “Are you sure?”

    At this point in time, we did not have online banking for our account, because of a small monthly fee charged for said service. So I call up the teller again, just to make super-sure.

    We are now negative $33. Wait, what? How did this happen? I demand explanation!

    Well, apparently when I called the teller and requested my balance the first time, she told me the balance before she deducted the talking-to-a-human fee ($8). So when I originally picked up the phone, I had $13 in the account. By the time I hung up, I had $5. Then I called back to double check my fickle memory, and was charged another $8, bringing my balance to -$3. And because I was overdrafted, I was charged the $30 overdraft charge.

    Yes. I went from $13 to negative $33 because I called my bank.

    So we switched to ACU. Free online banking, I can talk to tellers anytime about anything without being charged, and even the overdraft fees are more reasonable.

  2. So I dont know if you all have Bank of the West in Seattle but its been pretty good to me. Super friendly, not at all bitchy about the fact that I frequently run it down to 3 dollars. I’ve gotten a couple over draft fees, all of which were my fault entirely, not like when I was with BoA…

  4. Banks are in business to make money for their shareholders. Not their customers. The way they make money for their shareholders is to, whenever they can possibly do so, screw it out of their customers. This is perfectly legal. It is also perfectly legal, as a customer, to choose instead to become a shareholder of a financial institution and have that institution work to make money for you. Ergo, the credit unions.

    The banks lost the legal battle (which they waged ferociously for decades) to limit credit union memberships to only very small and select groups. Most credit unions are now open to practically anyone who walks in the door. BECU, Sound Credit Union, Washington State Employees Credit Union – there are dozens, and any single one of them is better than all the banks put together.

    And I say that as someone who more or less cut her teeth in a bank. My mother, my mother’s girlfriend, both my sisters, and practically everyone we knew worked in banks. Anyone who’s spent their life working in a bank will tell you (unless they are trying to sell you something) that banks are in business to fuck you as much as they possibly can get away with so their shareholders get more dividends.

  5. @54 – actually, more of the profits go to the execs than to we paltry shareholders.

    It’s time to Trust Bust the Too Big To Fail Banks.

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