Banks suck because Stone Cold said so. However, since I am not Stone Cold, I must resort to tempered argument not involving steal chairs or turnbuckles.
Banks suck because they do things, hidden secret things they dress up as connivence’s but then conveniently charge you to experience the convenience of. For example, the other day I had the satisfaction of writing the last mortgage payment on my first house. My wife and I sat next to each other in the land of convenience, because we had to be in the bank (land of convenience) to do it, because they wouldn’t accept checks mailed in the way we’d being doing it for the last century. We sat there, all giddy to finally be powerful, fat cat real-estate owners, and then we were told we could pay off the house if we were OK with the 25 dollar wire transfer account fee they had to charge us to transfer money from their bank to their bank. Yes, you read that right, the same bank to the same bank.
Apparently if you work for a bank you can charge to move money around inside of it, even if it’s technically the same space and the numbers are just automagically prancing around in a computer box someplace. Needless to say, I was not happy. I started talking about how I knew (I had no idea actually) Wells Fargo wouldn’t do something like that to it’s precious costumers. How they would give me 25 dollars to come in and pay off a mortgage. My bank didn’t by it so switched gears and went into a philosophical tirade about how heretical it is that you have to go into debt to get a credit score and how you have to pay shackling interest even if you can afford to avoid it so banks will think you’re responsible enough to lend to. I raged about their mutated definition of responsibility, especially when the country is weathering one of it’s worst financial crisis’s in it’s history. How dare the lenders say you need to pay stuff off slowly, practically bleed yourself dry so that powerful banking demons will smile upon you and agree that you’re the kind of sheep they want to fleece over and over again only to reward you with a number that says to other nefarious bank creatons you’re a sucker who’ll gladly come in to get your 25 dollar, “you’re to responsible, and thus unprofitable so here is a punishment/convenience charge in person.” (deep breath, count back from 10…. 9… 8…). No, no, no. Dirk Hayhurst did not pay that charge. Oh Hellz no, yall. He told the bank branch manager to stop and desist. And, much to the satisfaction of every internal instinct that has ever envisioned me riding on the back of a Harley with one hand on the bars and the other flying the middle finger righteously at “the man”, they did.
Then I said I wanted a new credit card. A real man’s card. No more of this, I don’t own a house bull crap. You know what they told me? Sure I’ll tell you/ They told me I couldn’t get a credit card with more then a 4 thousand dollar limit because I had no history of carrying a balance. They said I have what’s called revolving card debt, not real card debt, so thus no need for a larger limit. I stared at them, I mean just stared like my brain burnt out like some old toaster. So, to recap, people who own their own houses and make big league minimum can’t get a credit card limit higher than 4k unless they show they can get themselves into financial indentured servitude first. Well, God Bless America if that ain’t worthy of some shift+number keys right there…