I am FUMING after another lengthy and crappy encounter with my bank. I went in to pay 3 cheques and close a business account and three days later am still fuming.
But life is good for us really. Our house is not currently being repossessed. We are not trying to fend off phone calls and endless meetings about mortgage repayment issues. We have not tried to change our direct debit recently. We are not being overcharged on our renegotiated mortgage payments meaning we have no money for groceries. We are not overdrawn.
I have friends in all the above situations who are sick with anxiety and stress from it. And every interaction with the bank leaves them feeling more powerless and frustrated.
Anger towards the banks in Ireland is HIGH. Anger at every level of the system which screws with you and makes you feel used and abused.
Let me add a disclaimer right now - this is not directed at bank employees per se, who I know have been at the blunt end of a lot of shit. My anger is directed at individuals, and banks as a generic mass, and my particular branch...
So let me continue...
1) They charge me to put money into my account. No other bank that I have banked with in the UK, Japan or France have done this.
2) They charge me to take money OUT of my account. Ditto.
3) They do not pay me interest on the money that they are sitting on. My last bank paid me 7.5% interest.
4) The government charge me tax for any cheque book, credit card or ATM card I have. This is just shit. Ditto above points.
5) SOOOO paying through the nose for each of these services one would expect great service... ummm.... no! You have to queue for 20-30 minutes if you go to the bank between 10.30 and 3.30. To be served by the ONE cashier. This is in a major town - population 15,000 with at least that many people again in the outlying area.
In fact out bank has recent been redesigned - with money for us of course - to cut down the customer service positions from 2 behind a service desk, to one floating adviser, to cut cashiers from 3 to 1 sometimes two, and to replace them with a bank of machines.
6) The machines will not accept notes that have been folded to much. Cheques with staples in, or that have been folded at all. That is most of what I try to pay into the bank. Once they even lost a substantial fundraising cheque I paid in. Gone.
7) But if you try to use the cashier, you pay double for a woman with a serious case of the grumps.Who then can't do what you want either.
8) Our bank branch refused to give us a very small mortgage, despite the fact we had a substantial deposit, had a well paid steady job, and had paid off a different mortgage with them, without fail, for 12 years. The same branch of the bank in the next town gave us the mortgage - we named our third child after that woman! That is how grateful we were to have a family home and a woman who cared enough to help us negotiate the mortgage madness with kindness and caring.
9) We, the tax payers bailed out the banks...without any say in the matter. Our children will still be indebted because of this. The economy tanked. Businesses closed. Lots of people became unemployed and suddenly couldn't pay mortgages. The banks do not give a flying fuck. They do not see the morality of do as you have been done to - we bailed your corporate, capitalist butts out - but you can sell family homes from under people, to get YOUR money back.
10) It makes no difference if I change banks cos they're all the same. Everyone I know in Ireland hates their bank.
Here endeth the rant.
yeah!
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