The Loss of Humanity...

It's late, I am exhausted. I had a really good day. I got a lot of things done, managed to do everything in fairly good time, and escaped with only minor meltdowns by either of my children. My Littles were so tired that neither fought going down for the night. My husband was also in that boat, and was snoozing peacefully when I went in the room to plug my cell in before it died. I thought that it was a really good day, and for once, I was tired enough to toss insomnia to the wind and fall into my pillow at a reasonable hour.

And then...



I'm sure many other parents out there can relate to this, but before I could finish brushing my teeth I thought, "Oh, while I have a second and a quiet house, I should take care of that small little thing I keep meaning to do and forgetting!"

So 5 "little things" and an hour later I find myself on the phone with a Wells Fargo representative asking why I have an overdraft fee and notice when I had more than enough funds for the transaction. I noticed the overdraft fee while I was doing "little thing" #3. It made me extremely upset, because I feel like we are continually paying fee after fee for one ridiculous thing or another and it is absurd. One month I realized Wells Fargo had nickel-and-dimed us up to $80 in fees! I couldn't wrap my head around how much money these people were making off of skimming our hard-earned cash!

So I called Wells Fargo. The conversation started out alright, I told the lady what I was calling about, and explained that I'd looked over our account activity several times and that we had more than enough funds in the account to make the payment. Then she starts in on this big schpeel about how she has a worksheet that we can't see and how my account activity isn't really showing everything. I ask her why they don't give you all the information on your account and she says she doesn't know. Then she tells me that the overdraft happened because even though I had money in my account and deposited a check that day, my check was restricted for an extra day because I used an ATM withdrawal the same day. Okay, I say, but even without that deposit we had enough money. Well no, she says, we didn't because we had pending charges on our card for that day that also were held over to the next day. But, I say, wouldn't those same charges come out of the deposited check that was also pending and, in fact, posted first the next day? *By this point I'm starting to get really aggravated, because she just keeps repeating the same things to me over and over like I am Stupid. I am Not Stupid, I understand you lady, I just wonder if you're listening to what you are saying and the fact that it makes NO SENSE!* She tells me that no, the charges would come out of the initial amount, not the check...even though the check was deposited first. At this point she is being RUDE, and I literally can't take it anymore, I start yelling at her, "REALLY, SO YOU'RE TELLING ME THE MONEY IS THERE, THE MONEY WAS THERE, BUT YOU STILL OVERDRAFTED MY CREDIT CARD?" She says, "I never said that, I said that if you looked at your account when the bill came out you would have looked like you were Going To overdraft." "RIGHT, I UNDERSTAND THAT, BUT I DIDN'T OVERDRAFT, I HAD FUNDS AVAILABLE THEN, I HAD MORE FUNDS AVAILABLE THE NEXT DAY! WHY WOULDN'T YOUR STUPID SPREADSHEET JUST ADD UP THE NUMBERS CORRECTLY?" "Well you would have overdrafted if you hadn't done this and this and this..." "THIS IS RIDICULOUS I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE! I CAN'T BANK HERE ANYMORE! YOU ARE TELLING ME THAT EVEN THOUGH I HAD MORE THAN ENOUGH MONEY AND IT'S ALL THERE YOU ARE GOING TO CHARGE ME $20! I AM SICK OF BEING NICKELED & DIMED TO DEATH! THIS IS RIDICULOUS, I HAD THE MONEY THEN, I HAVE THE MONEY NOW, YOUR OWN WEBSITE SHOWS THAT ALL OF THIS IS CORRECT? SERIOUSLY?" She pauses and comes back with even more attitude and more stupid excuses and absolutely nothing helpful to say, and at this point I am crying.

I am crying, because I am being treated like I did something wrong. I am being treated like all of this is my fault, and that I'm too stupid to realize that.  But I'm NOT stupid, and I know when something makes no sense.

Finally she says we can keep arguing about this, but there's nothing she can do, and would I like to be transferred to the Credit Card Customer Service so I can ask them about the fee. YES, GREAT I'D LOVE TO BE TRANSFERRED TO SOMEONE THAT CAN HELP ME. I felt like saying, No duh, I thought that was what I was doing in the first place, but apparently they just want you to call this number so they can treat you like Sh** and tell you it isn't there problem. She doesn't stay on the line, I try to remain cordial in my closing conversation with her, but I just can't. Here's the thing:  I am a human being. I realize that she is, too, and I did immediately feel bad that at the beginning she was getting flack that was held over from all the other issues we've had with our account. But, I'm calling for help, I'm calling for an explanation, I'm not calling to be treated like a criminal. I'm not calling to be treated like trash. I could have calmed down real quickly if I felt like she was trying to work with me on my account, but she wasn't. She truly didn't care what my problem was. And that, that just reminds me even more that the bank doesn't care about people. They care about money. I am nothing but an account number to them. And I wonder about how often this happens in our society. All the CEOS that don't think about the people losing their jobs, just the X amount they need to lay off to make their quarterly report look better. All the endless amounts of people who lost so much money to one stock market con-man or another, and all the Bernie Madoff's of the world who only saw the $$$ coming in from ripping people off. We like things BIG here in the US, but what has big gotten us? More money....and less Humanity. I couldn't stop crying, couldn't stop shaking for at least ten minutes after I got off the phone (of course when she "transferred" me, somehow I got disconnected), and a part of it was because, here I am, grinding away, doing everything I can to stay afloat and keep my house and life in order, and with one fell swoop, a bank with all its worldly power can come in and treat me like I'm sub-human, like I don't matter at all.  I was sobbing, because it is upsetting, because being a stay-at-home parent is full of monotonous, nit-picky "little tasks" that are obnoxious, and end up taking energy and soul out of you that you should/could be investing in the Littles. And now here I am...3 hours later....not in bed, not well-rested, because all of this made me so upset that I couldn't just let it go, I had to get it out. I will be going into the bank as soon as I can and closing my account. This really was the straw that broke the camel's back. I refuse to give any more money to this faceless leech. I will transfer everything we have to the small credit union that I grew up with, and I won't look back, because I am a Human, I am Not Stupid, and for once, I just want to get a good night's sleep.