Are Bankers Really Like Swarming Flies? YES, according to CNN!

Good Morning DINKS! Usually everyday on DINKS we like to provide information, tips, personal stories and strategies about personal finance.  However, today is not one of those days.  No No, today is a rant about a stupid article that I found on CNN titled Annoying Bank Fees.  As a bank employee whose bank salary is paid by fees, among other things, I was extremely offended by this article on CNN.

The article Annoying Bank Fees compares everyday bank fees to sticky dirty flies that we want to swat and kill.  What a stupid analogy! First or all, when do we ever get something for nothing in life?  Second of all when do we ever get a service without paying a fee? If consumers never paid fees for services they received the economy would not function.  Our economy functions on the supply and demand model, and the entire monetary system functions on exchange.  People pay money to retailers in exchange for goods, retailers make deposits at the bank, the bank lends out the money to people, and people in turn pay money to retailers when they purchase goods, it’s all a big cycle.

This article on CNN made me so upset that I felt the need to rant about it here on DINKS because it relates to money and banking as well as my job as a personal banker. People are always complaining about service fees charged by financial institutions but what people may not realize is that bank fees are just like any other fees paid by consumers for a service.  We don’t complain about the fee that we pay to dry cleaners to get our clothes cleaned, and we don’t complain about the tip that we have to leave with waiters for serving us food, so why do people always complain about bank fees?

Here is a list of the 9 Most Annoying Bank Fees according to CNN, along with my justification of each fee.  Have you ever been annoyed by one of these fees?

9. Forgetting to update your address. This is an obvious fee because there are costs involved with mailing and re-mailing account statements.  If clients don’t want to be charged fees they should be responsible and keep their personal information up to date.

8. Cashing in Your Coins. I know that some banks only charge clients who bring in coins unwrapped as loose change.  However there are some banks such as Capital One that charge a percentage of the total value of our coin transactions even if they are wrapped.  This fee makes sense because it takes a lot of time to turn a box of loose change into rolls of money.

7. Talking to a Human Teller. The fees associated with processing transactions in branch are higher than self service transactions because human tellers can process transactions that Automated Banking Machines (ABMs) cannot, such as wire transfers and foreign exchange transaction.  Most monthly banking plans include both self serve as well as teller assisted transactions.

6. Losing Your Debit Card. I have personally never heard of banks charging fees for this service, but it only makes sense because clients have to come into a branch to obtain a new debit card and there are costs to manufacture the card as well as pay the teller.

5. Getting a Paper Statement. The service fees for paper statements are partially due to printing and mailing costs incurred by banks, but they are also used to defer clients from having paper statements for environmental reasons.  Why should we pay for a paper statement and kill trees when we can get an eco friendly virtual statement online for free?

4. Requesting Old Statements. This is another obvious fee because statements are stored on microfilm and there are costs associated with retrieving, printing, and mailing old account statements.  Some banks offer old online statements to clients for free up to 3 years.  Before you call your bank to get an old account statement, check if it is available through online banking.  It is also important to note that Online Banking is a service offered to all bank clients for FREE, even though there are costs involved in maintaining and updating a website.

3. Receiving Money. Most of the fees for wire transfers are incurred by the sender; however some banks do charge a flat fee (ours is $10) for receiving wire transfers.  This fee is strictly to cover the costs of being a member of the international wire transfer service that is used by banks around the world.  Clients should be happy that their financial institution offers a wire transfer money service.  Depending on the currency in which we receive the wire transfer we may also have to pay fees for foreign exchange.  That is beyond the banks control, if you have an issue with foreign exchange fees, you have to take it up with the International Monetary Fund.

2. Redeeming Rewards Points. When we call a customer service phone number to redeem our rewards points there are costs involved.  If we don’t like the costs involved (which are usually to cover taxes) in redeeming our rewards points over the phone with a customer service agent, then we always have the option to self redeem our points online.  However, the service level is not the same.

1. Closing Your Account. The fees associated with closing an account are usually prorated based on our monthly account fees.  If these fees were not charged by the bank then we would be using our account for fee during the billing cycle.

Photo by JimmyJoe

Kristina Tahnyak

Tahnya is a Certified Financial Planner and former Investment Advisor turned marketing and communications professional She holds a degree from Concordia University, is debt free and currently works in the field of digital marketing.