Click images for desktop size: "Decoration" by WH Robinson My bank has named by checking account "Lifetime Free Checking". It's important to know this or else the rest seems pretty normal.
I got a letter and then an email this week. They both said the same thing: On November 1st your "Lifetime Free Checking Account" will be moved to "Everyday Checking". "Everyday Checking" will cost you only $7.00 per month.
My first thought, before I got angry, was that banks and I have different definitions for either Lifetime or Free or perhaps we see both words differently. I was slightly mollified by reading that because I had direct deposit on my account the fee would be waived. That was short lived as the next line stated that I would be charged $5 per month for my Debit/Checking card!
I'd been reading about the banks plans to pull this stunt some months ago. I thought it had been disallowed as common sense but also as unfair, disruptive and exploitive. I mean, hundreds of millions spent advertising free checking cards forcing people to rely on and use them while earning billions in extortionate fees from merchants and now the banks need to extort more money from us.
I was foolish. I believed that Congress and the President would protect us from the greed of the banks. The greed that has brought our country to its knees.
I was an idiot to rely on government to do the right thing.
I have to decide, unfortunately about whether to change banks and get stuck eventually for the same fees and deal with the present where a new bank would end up costing me more than $5 a month is usurious ATM fees.
These are not decisions that a citizen in the USA should have to make. I blame the government for ignoring the people and helping the banks violate basic human decency.