Oh, this is a piece I’ve been waiting to post for a week now. It’s meant as a companion piece to an article I wrote for Yahoo Voices, and I didn’t want to write it until that one was published. One of the reasons I love this blog is because I have more freedom to write here what I can’t write elsewhere. Last Saturday I decided to take a close look at my finances and I discovered something that really pissed me off. I couldn’t share as much as I’m going to share here on Yahoo because ever since they’ve changed their manner of accepting articles, I’ve stayed away from the personal, but here I don’t have to hold back any punches (well, maybe a few!).
Me and Banks
My first bona fide career was in the banking industry. I worked in banks for more than 15 years, most of them with Citibank. I worked as a teller, a customer service rep, an operations manager and a credit specialist, and around the year 2000 I realized that the reasons I liked working for a bank had no longer existed.
Where I first saw myself as one who helped people solve their financial problems, I eventually found myself being made into selling people products they didn’t necessarily need. Selling product above all else became my only priority. Customer service issues had to be pushed off to the phones in the branch, and I found myself having to simply shrug my shoulders when longtime clients expressed their displeasure with the new way of doing things. I became miserable and finally quit. (Take a look at my story: Changing Careers.)
Having spent so much time working for a bank, I feel I’m more knowledgeable about financial institutions than the average person. I monitor my finances daily, and I know where to look for the real deal when it comes to financial statements. I try to make the best decisions when it comes to financial matters, but sometimes I neglect to take an even closer look at things and I get burned.
Nefarious Financial Institutions!
I am a person who is in conformity with the Occupy Wall Street movement, and much of what they’re fighting against I wholeheartedly agree with. Corporations have an unfair advantage over the individual person in that they’ve got plenty of bucks that buy the ears of the people who make laws. If there is anyone out there who cannot see that these huge conglomerates get away with plenty, and all at our expense, is simply living on another planet.
Banks make up a big part of that nefarious relationship between government and corporation and evidence of how their relationship harms us is everywhere. The incredibly (and purposefully!) confusing small print that is found on nearly every piece of mail from a financial institution lays out rules you’d need a college degree to understand. Hidden fees found through credit and debit card usage cost us more money without us even realizing it (Have you tried using your debit card at a gas station lately?). ATM fees, monthly banking charges, and unfair rules all work to our detriment, too, but probably one of the most common methods of ripping us off is the process by which banks decide to raise and charge interest rates on revolving credit.
Back to My Story…
Now that you know my banking background and my feeling towards banks, I have to preface this story by saying that like most Americans I have debt. Over the years I’ve had to use credit cards for emergencies, and I’ve used them simply to buy things I know now I probably shouldn’t have bought. I try my best to keep up with my bills and pay them down as quickly as I can now that I’m experienced and smarter, and I no longer use credit cards for purchases. With that said, I pay all of my bills on time and I’ve managed to keep my credit score in the mid to high 700’s, which should by all accounts earn me the privilege of getting lower interest rates. Not so much!
Last week, when I was looking over my financial statements, I decided to take a look at my Citibank credit card statement, rather than the summary that appears on my online banking page. A few months ago I had finally succumbed to “saving a tree” by going online with my statements. Unfortunately that caused me to stop looking at the actual statement, which was a bad move!
Shock and Awe
Upon opening the credit card statement for my Citibank MasterCard, I was greeted with a horrifying surprise. Apparently, I’ve been paying an interest rate of 28.25% for who knows how long! The last time I’d gotten a paper statement, sometime last summer, I was paying only 13.99%. Why the raise?
I immediately picked up the phone and called Citibank, and I was fuming. The dude that answered the phone (after a million “for this press that’s”) was named Ahmad or something like that. Of course I was calling India, where the pay is cheaper.
Ahmad could not for the life of him figure out when or why my rate was raised, and to such a high rate. “You have been with us for a very long time and you’ve always paid on time.” He was telling me something I already knew. He put me on hold to see what he could do, and voila, he lowered my rate, effective immediately, to 9.99%.
“That would be great,” I told him and thanked him, but there was another, even more disgusting problem I’d discovered on my credit card statement. You see, I have a part time position as a mystery shopper, and last August I shopped a bank. The assignment was to take a cash advance on my credit card from a teller and rate the service. I took out $100 on my card, which I immediately paid back upon returning home that very day.
When I had looked at my statement, I also noticed that I had a cash advance balance, which was also being charged at 28.25%. That balance, as of last Saturday, was $91 and change! Only nine dollars had come off of that higher rate balance since last August, even though I pay about $150 a month on that card. Tell me that’s right? It’s absolutely disgusting!
Ahmad took care of that problem, as well, but the whole experience soured me to no end. Even as a person who likes to think of himself as being on top of his financial affairs can still be duped by a bank unless he absolutely goes over his statements with a fine tooth comb every month. Banks depend on people not paying attention. That way they can’t get caught when they rob us blind. And the government does nothing to help poor little us.
Occupy Wall Street
This story provided me with a valuable lesson, and hopefully anyone reading this will take heed what can happen to you if carry a credit card. Keep your eyes open because only you can help yourself these days. This whole episode is but a tiny part of what the Wall Street protesters are complaining about, and the people out there who’ve criticized them to no end do not believe in the American principle of power in the hands of the people. If that were only true, then there wouldn’t be so many people wandering around broke like me!
I don’t know how this movement will play out. Obviously coverage on it has diminished and thereby so has our attention. But they’re still out there, and I vow to do my part to help verify their cause through real stories that back up all of their gripes, because they’re all valid. In the meantime, I know it seems like there’s nothing any of us can do to change the state we find ourselves in. Yes, it’s a huge hill to climb, but as long as you pay attention and make your voice heard, then maybe others will follow and somehow, some way, we just might eventually get a fairer playing field.
Check out my Yahoo piece here:
Consumers Should Scrutinize Credit Card Statements to Protect Themselves
Image Source: Econ Matters
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