We Need to "Humanize" the Financial Industry

The Setup

This month, Jet Blue provided the opportunity to bid on certain flights on eBay from many of their hubs for roundtrip fares. Knowing that my grandfather in California isn't doing too well (Alzheimer's and other health issues), and despite my financial struggles at home, I decided that if I was able to get a ticket for less than $250 (which was a full $100 under regular retail price to the same destination), then I would take the plunge and get it, and deal with being late on 1-2 bills for 10 days. We'll I won, which immediately put a strain on my budget.

Months ago, after getting tired of Wamu's "prioritizing of transactions" - you know, where you (intentionally or inadvertently) spend more than you have, as can happen in today's economy, and they make sure the largest (and sometimes newer by a day or so) transaction goes through first to get you closer to $0, and then all the smaller transactions go through after, causing you to overdraft faster than you can say "whoo hoo!" - I set my overdraft limit to $0. I was told that this would eliminate the continued transaction approvals as they were made and instead reject them flatly. That would also prevent my account from slipping into the potential hundreds under $0 when you include 5-8 overdraft fees, making things even worse when I got paid next. At least, that was the thought.

The Result

So of course, as expected due to the strain I was in this week awaiting my paycheck, a transaction bounced. Before this happened though, I made sure to get enough food for my dog to last me until the paycheck, as well as get a full tank of gas and some food before it was too late. After all, I do have financial priorities... So the automated monthly payment was attempted, got denied, meaning the payee didn't get their money, that money was not deducted from my account, and yet Wamu still charged me $34. Wamu didn't transfer my money to the payee from my account, my account was still in a positive balance and yet they still charged me $34.

The What???

Let's go over that again: If no money was transferred, if it didn't cost Wamu anything because they automatically, immediately declined the transaction, and I still have to deal with the payee a few days late, why am I still charged $34? This just doesn't make sense to me.

Wamu claims that it's an automated process that they can't reverse. Right. On that note, Wamu, your stock is slipping and you can't reverse it because you're treating your customers like criminals.

It's said that Wamu cannot survive much longer if their customers begin to "jump ship" when looking for a bank that treats them a little better. However, customers can't feel confident staying with a bank that's almost assured to go under shortly. That's a catch 22, but customers will always do what they feel is best. With this economy, I'm going to be pulling my account from Wamu in the near future, even if it damns them a little more. And perhaps they deserve it.

The Rundown

Let's look at this for what it is:  It's not in it for them to "humanize" the industry and become an ally of the consumer.  They simply don't care what happens to their consumers, despite what their ads suggest. There is no "free" lunch, but should the case arise where it truly doesn't cost the company anything to automatically decline a transaction, how can they legitimately capitalize on that and charge the consumer an extortion fee?

The government is bailing financial companies out for mistakes made by the financial companies themselves. It's up to the financial companies to deal with the hole they dug, and its up to them to create a stronger connection between them and their consumers. If consumers won't care, they won't be loyal to their banks any longer than they have to, and with so many banks competing for the consumers' business, they might just learn a very hard lesson in the near future.

With that said, I'm sure they'll continue to pound consumers with nonsensical extortion fees for money that doesn't belong to them in the first place. Charging non-account holders to cash a check written by an account holder, taking money that doesn't belong to them? Please, there's no way that could be a legitimate fee, especially if it's randomized and not consistent from teller to teller.

I know too many people, friends and family alike, that have been victimized by the banks more often than their own actions or malicious deeds of others. I've had friends have their accounts frozen pending a fraudulent charge investigation by someone else using their money, having to scramble to get money together to pay their bills.  I've had my debit card randomly flagged while traveling because the bank thought it was "suspicious" that charges were occurring outside my home area (um, duh?) causing undue embarrassment and inconvenience waiting on hold to get the card turned back on.

Let's not leave it to the banks to  humanize the financial industry. We, as consumers, have to do it ourselves. Before it's too late.

Where do we start? Feel free to comment below, or respond in a post of your own (trackbacks are on).