Place: Quizno's
Lunch: Mesquite chicken with bacon, Lays Kettle Cooked Applewood Smoked BBQ chips (40% less fat! Woo hoo!), Pepsi
Ever wake yourself up in the middle of the night by biting your own tongue? Yeah, that happened last night.
July was a month of financial lessons. Specifically, about how everyone is out to get me.
It started off literally on July 1 while having lunch. I got a call from my credit card provider alerting me to possible fraud on my account. Sure enough, somebody (or something) had attempted two $500 charges to some German-based business whose very name sounded like a service that exists for no other reason than to charge cash withdrawals from stolen credit cards. One was processed, the second declined. Naturally, this happened two days before I was going on a trip and needed the card. Still, the card company had the card shut off within an hour of the incidents and had me a new card literally hours before departure.
But the rep who handled this apparently didn't put the original $500 into dispute, and I had to do that myself. A month later, it's still being processed. You'd think the whole thing would be straightforward, wouldn't you. They contacted me first for crying out loud.
Then my checking bank, who I've done business with for twenty-plus years, decided to steal from me.
I was at an ATM on the way home late one night trying to withdraw cash from my checking account. The machine went to dispense the cash, and failed. The cash door opened, there was machine noise, then it closed. Then it opened and closed several more times. Then an error popped up on the screen indicating the machine could not dispense cash.
(Side note...the machine's night lighting, a bright blinding LED that stares you in the face, is completely absurd and is actually more hampering than helpful.)
So I got home, checked my e-mail, and there in my Inbox was an ATM receipt indicating I DID withdraw $100.
I raised the issue with the bank immediately. They assigned a case number. And two and a half weeks later, I received a letter in the mail from the "Operations Manager of ATM Operations" that said...
"We have completed our research of your inquiry about the ATM card transaction shown below, and found that these transactions were correctly charged to your account. As a result, we're not able to reimburse you."
Yes, they said "multiple transactions". They listed two...the one in question, and another the day after when I got the money I was trying to get the night before. Which was a normal transaction I didn't question at all. Which is proof they paid no attention to my issue whatsoever and just let it sit for two weeks before blowing it off.
There recently was a local news story about a big bag of cash that had fallen off an armored truck leaving a bank. Some young couple found it lying around on the ground and went on a spending spree. They're in jail now for stealing the money.
You take money lying around that a bank lost by its own accord, that's robbery. But a bank stealing money from you? Perfectly legal.
Can you imagine if that happened to somebody who was in a desperate financial situation and this was their grocery money for the week, or even month? The fact this even took two weeks for the bank to blow off is appalling. They SERIOUSLY do not care that they're hurting people. They SERIOUSLY believe they're that much better than the rest of the human race.
Smug bastards.
So I'm shopping for a new bank. I hope my bank's sick perversion was worth it for them.
I know, I know. It won't matter. They couldn't possibly care less. And based on the online reviews I'm reading, that's true about all banks..
I will never understand how these people live with themselves.
