Alright, alright alright I know what you’re going to say. “Oh no not another one of those conspiracy freaks”. Far from it and if you have a minute I’ll explain what exactly I mean. For most Americans the injustice and basically completely scam of the system may not really be very obvious. I however had the privilege of growing up in Europe, Germany to be exact and the banking system there is completely different.
Let’s take the main thing everyone does on a daily basis pretty much - they’re transferring money. Whether it’s paying bills, by check, phone or whatever, money is being transferred from point A to point B. OK. Where I grew up, all that’s needed for a bank transaction of any kind is a transaction slip. You put down your bank account number and that of the recipient, including the amount to be transferred..and that’s it. No seriously that’s it. You hand in the slip and usually within 24 hours that transaction is history. Who on earth thought up the system we live in is beyond me. In the US however that’s a slightly different situation. For every, and I mean every transaction involving money, there is a fee. Of course there are exceptions, but basically everything costs something. Not only that, the transactions usually take days to clear and then there’s always a lag to account for between what you can check on in your online banking account and what’s really going on.
Another thing all German banks have is a built in credit limit on every checking account and here’s where the main ‘let’s sock it to the customers’ comes in for US banks. Instead of arranging let’s say a soft limit on the available funds. US banks watch that “0″ threshold as careful as if it were the crossing into another country and we need to charge a fee for that. What the hell am I talking about? I’m talking about the following scenario: Let’s say you have a bill that you already paid worth $100 - the available funds on your account however are only $99.98 at the time of transaction. Now every US bank customers knows what’s going to happen - you’re going to pay a hefty fine on the fact that 2 cents weren’t in your account.
In Europe I guess banks work on a different principle, and that’s based on the idea that they’re the bank and they have our money and make interest on everything we leave with them, on a daily basis. So you’d think they could cut us, the consumers some slack. Not happening. Instead for everytime you cross that “0″ line they will make you pay $35.00.
I know I know everyone’s saying ‘well then just leave enough money in the account to always cover it’ - definitely good point. What about the times where I put a check in that has to ‘clear’ for 5 days. What on earth has to clear is what I want to know. It’s the year 2007 - we can nuke a foreign company within 24 hours but I can’t get a bank transaction to go any quicker than a damn week? What’s happening in that week other than the bank collecting interest.
I’m seriously interested in what happens in those 7 days, whether midgets have to iron and fold the money and reinsert it into the banking machines, I just don’t know.
This article was written by Alligazm - Author's Website
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