Last week, last Friday to be exact, I stopped at my bank to make a deposit. It was the last Friday of the year so everyone was there trying to do a little business before the long holiday weekend began. The bank was packed with irritable people waiting in line for one of the three out of possibly eight teller stations available.
This was just like Target where they have 450 check out aisles and yet only 2 are open.
Anyway, there were at least 20 people waiting to do banking and the line was getting longer by the minute. Normally I would have gone through the drive thru, but that was backed up and they didn’t have any deposit tickets available at the drive thru lane. I figured it would be faster to go inside and I could grab some extra deposit tickets while I was there.
It’s all about trust
So there we are, the daughter and I, waiting in line patiently with a hundred other people and their kids. There were several people dressed in the bank uniform that were milling about not doing anything, which seemed to annoy some of the people standing in line. This must have been noticed because just as I got to the front of the line a banker lady approached the line and asked if anyone had a straight deposit. What she was hoping to do was to take the deposit from someone standing in line and then make the deposit later and then mail the receipt back to the person. Of course this was to speed the line up and would only work for simple deposits, which I and many other people had.
Not one of us was willing to just hand over our hard earned money and hope for a receipt at some later date.
I’m sure the banker lady was just trying to speed things up and I am maybe 70% sure that she was honest and would have really sent a receipt in the mail. However, the bank has taken so much of my money for made up fees and other questionable charges that I am not willing to just give them my money (and neither was anyone else). If the bank wants to steal my money they are going to have to do it the old fashioned way by charging me $35 for a $1 overdraft.
And we don’t trust the banks
The woman seemed truly surprised that no one trusted her enough to send a receipt. Had she not heard of the Occupy people, is that possible? Did she really have no idea that people are little miffed at the banks who caused this huge mess we are all suffering through and got bailed out but are still screwing things up by not lending to small businesses or helping people save their homes? Of course it wasn’t her they didn’t trust, it was the bank. I can promise you that if anyone had handed over their money and hoped for a receipt but didn’t get one they would have no recourse or sympathy from any of the tellers they would surely speak with come the following week. No, they would get nothing but a scolding for trusting someone, especially someone that works in banking, to take their money and actually deposit it.
Move your accounts to a credit union, Jen. Or a smaller more locally-owned bank. I’m so lucky to have a tiny bank here in my tiny community where there are never any lines and, just like at “Cheers”, everyone knows your name.
I worked in the banking industry for a few years when I was a college student. I know this practice of grabbing straight deposits or simple payments out of a long line and it always included handing a receipt to the customer. I cannot imagine taking someone’s money or check or payment and promising a receipt in the mail.
I called the local Wells Fargo bank in CT to ask a question about refinancing and I ended up in Iowa or someplace else in the mid west. At least, I wasn’t shuttled off to India or the Philippines. I HATE banks.
They have so many hidden fees you need Google earth to find them.
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