The Short Bus of the Banking World

Life at SBLB has been fairly uneventful, now that I've been doing my "real" job for a week now.

One thing I know I’ve touched on in past posts is how apparently unintelligent the average SBLB customer is. If there was any way that I may have just been getting the bad calls of the day and that maybe the theory wasn’t true, that has been shot down in the past week alone.

I got one customer who saw a $9 charge on her account, on the last day of her statement cycle. This was a fee put on the account by SBLB, for non-SBLB ATM charges. The fee is $3 per ATM transaction. The total amount of charges are put on the account on the last day of the statement cycle.

As I explained this to my customer, she grew increasingly more impatient and disbelieving as the call dragged on. She insisted that we had already charged her, “That’s why you took out $21.50 that one time when I took out $20! You already GOT my fee! You all trying to RIP ME OFF!”

I patiently explained to her, once more, that that was the fee charged to her by the company or bank that owns the ATM that she used, and that the $3 charged by SBLB was put onto her account TODAY, instead of immediately afterward. And not only that, but the ATM she used told her that their fee was in addition to any that HER BANK may also charge her.

“I KNOW I SEEN THIS ALREADY ON MY ACCOUNT! YOU PEOPLE TRYING TO FUCKIN’ STEAL MY MOMEY! I KNOW MY FRIENDS BE HAVIN’ THIS PROBLEM WITH Y’ALL AND NOW IT’S HAPPENING TO ME TOO!”

“I’m sorry for the confusion, Ma’am. I know it’s confusing to see the three charges together in one day, a few days or weeks after you used the ATM, but this is how it works…”

I went into it again, explaining what had happened.

She resumed her screaming.

“Would you like to speak with my supervisor about this matter?” I am not supposed to offer a supervisor to a customer, ever, but in this case, I think it was more than appropriate.

“NO I DON’T WANT TO SPEAK TO YOUR FUCKIN’ SUPERVISOR! I WANT YOU TO GIVE ME MY DAMN MONEY BACK!”

“HOLD PLEASE!”

I just transferred her.

Fuck that.

As awesome as that call was, I think the best last week may have been the early-20-something guy who called in, with over $500 in Non-Sufficient Funds fees.

“Look. I want to keep banking with you, I really do. So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m willing to go ahead and deposit the money I spent into the account, pay back what I owe you all, but I am going to need these fees reversed.”

Uh, okay. Thanks for your consideration.

I look, and, shockingly, I’m able to reverse $135 worth of his fees. I tell him this, and His Highness is not impressed.

“Look, I told you I really want to keep banking with you. I’m just not paying these fees. I mean, this is a little ridiculous. I need these all reversed, or I’m just going to go bank somewhere else. I told you I’ll pay the money I owe, so take off all the fees.”

Okay. Well, it’s apparent that we’ll be losing a very fine customer if we don’t reverse all of his fees for what was an obvious case of Not Paying The Fuck Attention, instead of Oopsie Oversight I Need To Pay Rent Please Help Me, the kind that I really want to reverse but somehow never can.

He continues on with his insistence that he not pay any fees, assuming that SBLB exists to give him access to hundreds of dollars that don’t exist on good faith alone, so I tell him that’s fine, don’t pay us. Your account will just go into collections.

I am still new enough that I say this in a very pleasant and polite manner. No, really.

He says that’s fine, he laughs a bit, and I hear noises in the background that sound like his frat boy friends getting a good chuckle out of the situation.

“That doesn’t bother me at all. It’ll be off my credit in 7 years.”

”All right. Anything else I can help you with today, SIR?”

“Nope. You seem like a nice girl. Sorry I have to do this. Have a nice day.”

Oh, you patronizing fuck. Burn in hell with your uninformed and completely ignorant attitude. Because your decision not to pay us does not affect me in the slightest, and it barely affects SBLB. We’ll just sell your debt to a collection agency and THEY will bug you for the next 7 years, while SBLB happily forgets about you because while we may not have made all of our money in fees we’ve charged, we’ll surely make what you owe us in actual charges, plus some, from the collection agency. Have fun evading the creditors. I know how fun that is.

Christ Almighty. The people I talk to… Now, I may not be the most financially responsible person on earth, but damn, I sure do feel better about myself after talking to some of these people.