Another victim of the banking scandal

The following story is sketchy, but I will tell you what I heard. It involves a loved one and the bank created by the merger of Washington Mutual and JPMorgan Chase Banks. The young man in question had been in the habit of swiping his WaMu debit card to purchase small lunches and snacks. . . a coffee here, a sandwich there. . . enjoying the 30% discount his employment afforded. He had been, admittedly, remiss in assuring that his checking account was appropriately replenished, and over the course of a week or two, he overdrew about $20.

Let me pause here to interject how I believe much of the problem could have been avoided. Because these were electronic transactions, the bank could have, on the occasion of the very first overage, simply sent the message, "access denied," and he would have been alerted. Instead, he was allowed to remain in ignorance, because the bank didn't give a damn.

Unfortunately, they really do give a damn, however; they want to zing you at every opportunity. What was his punishment to be? His accumulated overdraft fee was $900. The recommended telephone call drew a reduction of the damage to $300. That's $300 for a $20 overdraft! Step two -- his threat to close the account -- elicited the unexpectedly uncharacteristic promise to reinstate the $900 ransom, so he gave them their 300 pounds of flesh, and has since, closed the account. He's only nineteen years old, but he'll never forget. He's a member of my family.

UPDATE: The visit to the bank brought an apology and a remission of the entire fee. He probably should have been charged some nominal amount ($35) to encourage him to be more careful in the future. He had, however, already obtained another account, so he got off scot-free.


FYI: As predicted, the first five propositions failed by an average 63-37% margin. [The sixth one passed by 3-1 because California is a blue state, and there is a growing Democrat tradition of punishing selected segments of society, such as smokers, social drinkers, rich people, those with strongly-held religious beliefs, conservative talk-show hosts, and now, lawmakers.] [As seen on TV.]