Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Does Rockefeller still own the damn thing?

And since we were talking about huge faceless greedy corporations (Verizon), I had an amazing little encounter today with Chase Manhattan, or whatever the hell they call themselves these days. I use their online service to pay all my bills, credit cards, utilities, etc. I love it, incredibly convenient, I haven't had to write or mail a check in about 3 years. But today I got a letter from customer "service," saying I had went over the number of transfers allowed per month from my savings to checking account. Apparently it is a federal law that you can't make more than 6 transfers each month via online, and I had made 7. And they hit me with a $12 service fee for exceeding the limit. (How do they come up with these fees, by the way? $12?) Well, needless to say, this would not stand. Although God knows, Chase needs that $12 more than me. So I called 935-9935 and asked WTF?? The rep, who was actually very nice, said she wasn't quite sure why this rule is in effect, claimed it was a federal law and out of their hands, but as a one-time courtesy could remove the 12 bucks charge from my account. She said I could make as many transfers as I want each month at ATMs or with tellers, but no more than 6 with the online service. Of course, the damn banks have been encouraging us to use their online services for years, to avoid tellers - this so they can lay off more tellers natch. Fuckers.

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