On Banks II

Still not about Elizabeth Banks. Sorry.

*A thematic sequel to "On Banks."*


My credit card number got stolen recently. I might have mentioned this.

Only two charges were made, even then only for $11.08 total and one do a shady LLC didn't even get processed because I canceled the card and changed my pin fast enough. How fast? The charges were made as I was balancing my checkbook online at 3:30 a.m.

I almost think it was all stolen by a friend or something, because the one charge that did go through was for an eco-friendly light bulb that was going to be shipped to me house. If not a joke, this was the worst credit fraud ever.


Anyway, I decided it was high time I jump ship on this old account anyway. There are no local branches, no ATMs and I'm getting tired of their crappy online policies. I went down to the Chase Bank in my local supermarket and opened up a checking account that actually has fraud protection where I say, "Stop this from happening," and their response is, "Okay," not, "We can't until it's already happened."

And do you know what they did for me? They told me the wrong way to make out my initial deposit, so they just let me have all that money early. Then they tried to get me to sign up for a credit card. I told them I'm a horrible credit risk with zero taxable income. They laughed. They put through my checking account and then decided that was enough to qualify me for every card they have. With low rates. And bonus points. And extra points. For no yearly. You know those commercials in black-and-white with the guy from the dog food commercials and the woman from Pam Anderson's old show V.I.P.? Of course you do. Well I have that card now. With a ridiculous limit. It's insane. I can literally charge something like seven times my actual net worth. I don't know what they smoke down at Chase, but whatever it is I hope they're dealing too because they would make a fortune.

I tried to close down the old evil bank for good the other day. You know what they said? A transaction I made Friday afternoon had yet to be processed by Monday afternoon. A full business day and you haven't approved $45? Really? Maybe if you stayed open past 3 p.m. you could get some shit done.

Speaking of shit, the closest branch I was able to go to (well, the closest branch I could go to without getting shot for driving through the area)? Massive shithole. The building is grubby. It's not even a bank. There's a bank across the street. There's an other Chase right next door. This bank? No, it's a shopfront in a mini-mall. It has some chairs and a couple lamps, with some bad paintings of sailboats on the wall next to large framed ads. There are to little kiosks. No bulletproof glass, no locked doors, just a fat, middle-aged white woman and a chubby, slightly younger Indian woman. They sit around in shabby store that looks like it was decorated in early-smoking-lounge chique and tell me I can't take my money away from their shit security because they haven't finished playing with some of it just yet.

I swear this bank would be better run by a couple of kindergartners and a Fisher Price cash register.