Wainwright Bank Stole My Grocery Money

[redheadedmuse.livejournal.com]

After almost 10 years of doing business with Wainwright, I finally jumped ship this week after they charged me almost $100 in overdraft fees - even though my statement shows no overdraft at all.

As I said in my open letter to them, this is not just my issue. Banks are poised to rake in over $38 billion in overdraft fees this year, and Congress has just approved new regulations making the kind of sneaky accounting and overdraft "protection" racket Wainwright is using illegal. Those regulations haven't gone into effect yet, but I would have hoped our neighborhood "progressive" bank would be ahead of the curve in this important social justice issue.

I'm disappointed that a local bank that advertises itself as "banking on values" would treat its customers this way. It's a deceptive and predatory practice that traps financially marginalized people in a painful cycle of debt they can't get out of. Shame on you, Wainwright.

Comments

[turil.livejournal.com]

It is a bank for profit. It's a for profit business, obligated to make money for it's stockholders. Sure they are nicer than most huge banks, but they aren't a non-profit organization, and to expect them to be is to be delusional.

Bottom line....

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

If they make more money by screwing people than by not doing so, they will screw people. Posting these things here may tip the balance a tiny bit, if some customers actually pack up and go somewhere else s a result.

Re: Bottom line....

[turil.livejournal.com]

The bottom line is that for profits can take your money a little bit at a time for a long time, or a lot at a time for a short time. Either way they take your money. A better solution is to create non-profits where the goal is to share resources with everyone and direct the resources to where they are most needed, when they are most needed.

Re: Bottom line....

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

It's OK if they take my money and provide an actual service. That's what "buying" means. Not OK if they merely steal it.

Re: Bottom line....

[turil.livejournal.com]

Sure, and the bank provides you with a service. Only because they are a for-profit their goal is to "steal" more of your money while they provide you with a service that isn't worth as much as you are paying. This is where the profit comes from. Non-profits don't do this. They are happy to have an equal exchange.

Re: Bottom line....

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Sure, but the CEO can still make over 200K...

Re: Bottom line....

[turil.livejournal.com]

In cases like that, I don't really consider it a non-profit. The laws are kind of random when it comes to classifying different kinds of organizations/businesses.

Re: Bottom line....

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Harvard is non-profit... Which is ridiculous.

Yeah, in many ways. But it's also got a lot of good stuff too.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Some organizations just get too big for anyone's good. But even the best organizations who really do care and are truly non-profit for the benefit of the world have imperfections. And even the worst corporate businesses that really don't care and are truly trying to make the most profit possible to the detriment of the world have their good qualities.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

there's a difference between not being a non-profit (which would still be covered by charging an overdraft based on chronological debits) and being exploitative.

It seems like, so long as it's not YOU making the screw ups, it's always everyone else's individual fault.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Blame is pointless. We all do it though. It's a human condition, at least in this modern world. At least we can try to take responsibility of what we do once we've realized that things didn't go the way we wanted them to. The bank did what all banks do, try to maximize their profit, while working within the law.

And I screw up as much as everyone else. Probably more, because I tend to not play it safe, and really try to get the best I can. It's not easy for anyone to be successful in this world so full of fear and negativity. We all contribute to the problems, because we are a product of our environment.

for profit means exploitation

[turil.livejournal.com]

Also, being for profit does indeed mean exploiting others. Profit means that you take more than you give. In the corporate profit world, one party has to lose for the other to win because they are working with an arithmatic/linear economy. The bank can't make a profit if their customers don't pay them fees. So the bank does what it can to legally charge those fees. All banks do this. So if you want to change it, you need to start with the policy of encouraging for-profit banks.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

there is a distinct difference between "for profit" and "scam every penny of profit possible, even at the expense of angering (and losing) your customers"

most large corporations seem to have lost that distinction sometime during their growth, and the larger a corporation gets, the easier it is to implement bad policies, hire venal people, and in general screw over everyone it comes in contact with.

[turil.livejournal.com]

It's only a difference of degree, not kind. For profit companies always have the goal of taking more than they give. So they either screw you over a little bit over a long period of time, so that you don't complain too much, but their profits grow slowly, or they screw you over a lot all at once, so that you complain a lot but their profits grow fast. Either way, in the end you lose a lot of money, and they lose a lot of respect.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

It is a depressing view of both capitalism and human nature to insist that if I sell you something for a price that makes it worth my while to provide it, and a price that makes it worth your while to buy it, that this by definition involves me screwing you over.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Sure, except that's not at all what I said.

Profit isn't about selling something at a price that makes it worth your while to provide, it's about expecting to get significantly more for it than it's worth your while to provide it for. It's about an unfair exchange where you charge significantly more resources than you have invested in resources. Of course, in order to get away with it for long, you have to be sneaky and manipulative and convince people that it's their only option so that they don't go elsewhere to some non-profit type and do a more equal exchange of value.

[cos]

Actually, I think that is exactly what you said, and the distinction you're trying to draw just makes it worse. I'm beginning to feel a little dirty from reading your comments, and very happy that we don't live in a world whose expectations are set by people who hold the opinions you're expressing. Because, ewww!

Almost *ever* voluntary exchange between two people or companies will involve each one gaining a little more than the other one lost. Everyone makes some profit on it. That is generally the reason why people make exchanges. Trade of precisely identical value to both parties is an extreme rarity, and if it were the only thing possible, then hardly any trade would ever happen. Profit is a natural consequence of voluntary trade, and is not the same as exploitation.

[turil.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry I live in a place where people think that's it's ok to take more than they deserve/need.

I think, though, you don't understand what I'm talking about here. I'm not sure what you think I'm talking about, but no one who has any sense of health and wellbeing would object to what I'm talking about. Profit is not a natural consequence of voluntary trade. At least not the profit I'm talking about.

The best I can offer is to think about a friendly tribe. Each individual has something they can contribute to the health of the tribe, based on their unique skills. If I'm good at collecting wild food, then I spend a while collecting wild food and share it with my tribemates, so that they can be full of energy to do the things they are good at, such as building huts, and weaving baskets, which they share with me, so that I can collect wild food. It's an equal exchange for the benefit of everyone. We all get the things we need to take care of ourselves. But with profit motives, I suddenly decide that I'm only going to offer half of the food to my tribemates, because I want to try to manipulate them into giving me more huts and baskets than I need. And because they aren't as skilled at food collecting as I am, they either starve, or comply with my demands. I've created an imbalance that will have to be offset by someone else withholding something I need. And so on in an ever complexifying system of eye for an eye threats. So even if I "win" temporarily, I lose out in the end because I'm spending all my time and energy working to overcome the increasingly difficult manipulations everyone is creating to offset mine. No wonder well all so stressed out.

[cos]

Sorry, but you're really not making any sense. You seem very committed to your weird definition of "profit", completely unaware that it is *not* what the word actually means, and yet you still apply it to what all "for profit" companies must necessarily do - even though they've never heard of your definition of "profit" and wouldn't recognize it. You can go on believe that you don't "profit" when your trade is of the variety you think of as good, and only profit if it's of the variety you think of as bad, but attempting to use your quirky belief in this discussion as a way to *justify* what "for profit" companies do, results in utter nonsense.

What you *said* was that because it's a for profit business, we must necessarily expect it to pursue profit, and because profit means nasty stuff, that means we must expect it to do nasty stuff, and we're delusional for thinking otherwise. Then you screw around with the definitions of "profit" and "nasty" (or "screw over") in order to try to pretend that you're saying something other than what you actually said. I think you're out of your gourd, and I don't think you're contributing anything valuable here. And even if we adopted your definitions, such that what you're saying might be at least comprehensible, it would still be false when applied to the real world. But because you're playing with the definitions, we can't even pin it down as false, because you can claim to be saying something other than what you said.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Let me be more precise then: from a bank for long-term profit involving developing business relationships with the people in a community to a bank for short-term profit that doesn't give a fuck about anyone but still claims it does.