Day 5: (Boring Alert) Never have I ever... Haggled with a Big Bank

What? Every day can't be babies and adventures and rainbows. Some days are a little more oatmeal than omelette.

By nature, I'm not a haggler. I can negotiate well for business, but when it's MY money, I'm much less aggressive because it just seems.... pushy. So I've been putting off this annoying life task for months and losing money in the process. Stupid, I know.  It's easy to procrastinate on a task you've never done, because you tell yourself it's going to be JUST AWFUL. Ugh, i'm going to have to go there, and spend HOURS at the bank, and fill out tons of paperwork, and I probably won't even have the right documents, and then I'm going to have to go home and research tons of boring stuff to make sure they're not screwing me over... and I really don't want to do that on my Saturday morning. I'll go to brunch instead. 

Six months later you realize that you've spent more on sneaky little fees than you've spent on gas. So it was time to man up and go in there and get myself a better deal. This is America! Land of the deal!

I opened my accounts with my current bank when I was still a minor. So I'm a longtime client (you do the math.) For the sake of this blog, current bank will go by the alias Blochovia. It's not a bad bank. Actually their fraud protection has proven to be quite thorough. It's just that they charge me $2 to use an out-of-network ATM, in addition to the $2-3 charged by the ATM bank itself. Because the bank only has, like, 3 locations in all of New York City, and ZERO in Brooklyn, that brings their service from OK to useless. 

So I headed in to the bank (the very same suburban branch that I sat in more than 14 years ago opening the account with my Mom) and told my assigned Personal Banker that I wanted to stay with Blochovia, but now that I live in NYC, it's just not practical, unless they can work with me on the back-end ATM fees.  "Many other banks don't charge these fees, and several will even refund a certain amount for the other bank's ATM fees annually. How can Blochovia expect to keep clients if they can't match the competition?" I said.  I showed her fees from my account and compared them to other banks' fee structure. I was reasonable. I was polite. I was prepared. I was firm. 

I was also (later) appalled. First, my Blochovia rep looked at me blankly and say there was nothing to be done, before continuing on with her explanation. 
"Yeah, if I was spending money on ATM fees, I would be pissed, too. I don't blame you." 
I replied "I'm not upset, I hope I'm not coming off that way. My hope is just that Blochovia will work with me as an individual to keep my accounts. Because I should be saving my money with Blochovia, not spending it on ATM fees." 
Blank stare in return. 
She then continued on in an inappropriate tangent about how the bank merger with the Bell's Embargo Bank (alias) means that things are just "day to day" for them right now. 

What does that even mean? Why is she telling me this? I didn't want to give up. I tried harder to get her to understand, and make the exception, or get a manager, or something. I asked again politely. I said, if Blochivia couldn't help me resolve this, I would have no other option but to close my accounts. No luck. In the end, I'm just one of millions of accounts, and helping me is probably a bigger pain in the ass fo her than closing my account. 

I inquired about the process of switching banks and she handed me an annoying packed of papers to sign. With that, I said farewell. 

Results: Just as I expected, the conversation was uncomfortable. I hate uncomfortable conversations, which is why I procrastinate on stuff like that. Can't say this is a new experience I want to repeat. The closing/switching part was remarkably painless, and I can't believe that I let myself think this was going to be such a hassle. The biggest hassle was trying to get any useful information out of Ms. Blochovia. Though she was remarkably informative about account closing procedures. 

Status: Depends on how you look at this one. I'm sure I'll just be gauged by a new bank in all new ways, but for now, I took care of my something new by crossing off an old task!