Cash or Chickens Only

I want you all to take note, in case I need to call you as witnesses later, that I closed my account at Bank of the West today.

That would be my business account, under "The Laughing Lady" (by which I did business for several years) that I originally opened in 1998 shortly after returning to my home town here in Central CA.

I have had that account for 13 years-- well, just shy of 13 years, September would have been our anniversary.

Let it be known just for the record, that I stand firmly with all those grumpy, suspicious old men who feel the best way to keep my money is in a coffee can buried in the back yard. However, running a business has a way of convincing you that maybe you should get a bank account. Sure... I could insist on cash only. But that's really inconvenient for an increasingly cash-less society and if there's one thing you don't want to be in business-- it's inconvenient to people who want to give you money.

For many years I was really fond of my banking relationship with BOTW. I have had some very bad relationships with banks in my past-- like, if they had been boyfriends, I would have had them arrested, gotten a restraining order and gone to a shelter, bad. Whereas, over the years, I have known dozens of people who insist that they love the bank they have been banking with for 10, 20, 30 years.

These tales seemed too idealistic to hope for. But then I opened that account at BOTW. For years, the staff at the bank knew my name without looking at my ID or account #, they recognized me at the store, they chit chatted with me during my transactions as though I actually mattered to them as a regular customer.

It should also be noted that I am the reason banks invented overdraft protection. I once had a client who boasted to never once, in the 15 years that she had had a bank account, bounced a check or overdrafted her account for any reason.

I find that to be almost as amazing a feat as winning the lottery or being chosen to represent the human race in some sort of intergalactic beauty pageant.

At any rate, the fact that the bank was probably able to cover annual Christmas bonuses just with what I paid them in overdraft fees each year could only have added to the staff's love of me, right?

But, as all fairy tales seem to go eventually, Bank of the West and I started to grow apart. Fees increased, staff turned over, the bank grew, and grew, and grew until Bank of the West isn't just in the west anymore.

We had a couple of really big issues that I just couldn't forgive and forget and soon enough I realized that I just wasn't feeling the love anymore.

When my business moved across town, I opened a new business account at a much more local bank with a branch near my new location.

It just made sense. The new bank (Visalia Community) offered me a free business checking account (BOTW cost me $12 a month) and not only promised my overdraft protection, but told me HOW MUCH they would cover-- BOTW was always so moody about it; one day they might pay my overdrafts and happily charge me the fees, one day they might turn a cold shoulder to my oversights.. and charge me fees anyway. And VCB's fees were lower. Don't get me wrong, they're bank fees-- they're still high. AND, VCB gave me information UP FRONT about their credit line option that would allow me to overdraft from a line of credit without racking up all those individual fees. BOTW told me that at about year 11.

Just sayin.

Well, I did the bank switch a year ago. And it took me quite some time to switch all the bills that automatically deduct from my account. I have been procrastinating on one insurance bill. Mostly because I would have to call them personally and within their time zone to update the information.

But it's all done. Today I made sure to walk in to my estranged bank and personally close my account.

On my way to the bank, I rehearsed several possible lines to give them when they asked me why I was leaving them. But I've been around more than one block and broken up more than one relationship in my time-- I knew the best answer was to simply let them down easy and tell them that it was simply time for Bank of the West and I to go our separate ways.

It was almost hard. The problem is-- I'm not angry or unhappy with the staff that works at my branch. They've been good to me and I'll be sad to not see them anymore. Like breaking up with a boyfriend whose friends you really like. But the Corporate Mother Ship has made "advances" in the business that leave me feeling unappreciated; tagged, numbered, and considered superfluous to its workings.

Heck... I hadn't been inside the bank in so long, I don't even know when they put out those outrageously annoying little pin-pads and started requiring you to swipe your debit card to get access to your own money.

And this is what it all boils down to today: The people who work there, looking at me like I'm a crackpot lunatic because I'm telling them that this is not how I want to do business with the establishment that holds on to my money.

First, I say I'm closing the account. So the teller asks for my account number-- actually asks-- and then proceeds to start writing out a check to "Cash" for the whopping $12.11 that is left in the account. So I ask him why he is writing a check instead of just giving me cash... it took me a moment to catch on that what he was actually doing was using the check as a withdrawl slip and that it would actually be a check from fmyself to myself. It's not that that really seems all that weird to me, it's just not the way I'm used to them doing it. But when I asked, he asked me if I had my debit card with me, because that's the only way he could give me cash...like I said, It took a minute to figure out the whole process, so we had a wee discussion about how irritating it is that banks think debit cards are IDs. And what about people who cut up their debit cards? People who don't want to use debit cards because it'll just get them in as much trouble as using a credit card? Or just don't believe in plastic?

They are out there. Don't pretend you work at a bank and haven't met at least 12 customers who feel this way.

But the poor boy just stared at me like he wasn't quite sure that I was talking to him anymore.

Then I asked about my savings account. Which the teller had no record of in the computer. As in, he's looking at my information in the computer and literally cannot find any sign that I have ever had a savings account at that bank.

Well, I've always wondered how they would know the difference between the accounts, seeing as how they have the exact same account number and all. Sure, when you look in the computer, one says (or used to say) "checking" and one said "savings" but if they have the same number, it seems pretty cocky to assume that no one will ever mistake one for the other (yes... it has been done.) But he had no record of a savings account ever having existed.

This was worrisome. I was pretty sure there was a balance in it.

Another staff member got involved. She pulled some sort of original document. Whew. At least we've established that I did, in fact, at one point have a savings account. She looked in the computer herself, she went back to her desk and got on the phone... (insert music from Final Jeopardy here)... see? This is why I'm leaving your bank.

You-- the people who physically work in the branch-- no longer have access to the information that is vital to assisting you in the role of providing adequate customer service. This has happened before. If the bank does something sketchy and I come in to the branch to sort it out, the people who work in the bank should be able to sort it out with me. They should not have to call the Mother Ship.

She gets off the phone and announces that yes, I have a savings account and it has $25.91 in it... so why does the computer insist that I have no savings account?

(More Final Jeopardy music)... eventually it is settled. At some point, several months ago, the balance was transferred from the savings to the checking and the savings account was eventually closed for inactivity.

Fine. I am willing to accept that... and by the way; stop continuously saying, "I don't think they would escheat the money to the state if there was a checking account that was still open..." You aren't impressing me. You aren't confusing me. You don't sound important or knowledgeable. You know I own a business, I am closing a business account. I know what "escheat" means.

So I sign the check, he gives me my $12.11 and then they look at me and wish me luck with my new bank... ummmm...? So I asked, "don't I get some sort of receipt? Or some kind of document saying that the account is closed?"

Nope.

"Do I get a final statement that is marked 'account closed?'"

Nope.

Ummmmm. Guys? I know I already sound like a crack pot whatwith all my concerns and distrust of your computers and debit card systems... but I've been through a bad break up a bank in the past. What's to keep you from telling me that the account is closed and then hitting me with fees later because there's a zero balance?

Apparently, they insist that the account is closed. I am just supposed to accept that this has been done and done correctly. They simply "don't do it that way."

I have my concerns. But I was not able to procure any documentation to show that I did, in fact, close my account.

I feel a little dizzy. I think the process is crap. Banks are constantly enacting stricter controls and higher fees under the auspices that they are required to meet higher and higher regulation-- but they think I'm the weirdo for wanting proof that we have terminated our relationship? on good terms?

I am seriously considering no longer accepting checks or credit cards-- cash or chickens only... maybe small shiny beads. Anything that I don't need to put in a bank!