This is a combination rant about both our political leaders as well as banks, big banks specifically.

Bank fees, honestly, $6 fee on a $20 check is ridiculous, while I understand that there need to be limits on what the government pokes it’s nose into and the need for freedoms for a business to operate how it sees most fit for itself, charging fees like that shouldn’t be a major profit center for a bank. The same goes for bounced check fees and ATM fees; Sorry, if these were the actual costs they were incurring I could understand it, but these aren’t realistically their actual costs in labor etc to handle these things. It’s just an opportunity to price gouge consumers to make an extra buck, I mean, how else is Santander going to increase profits from $1billion to $2billion in a 3 year period unless they do this sort of thing?

I understand it’s a banks job to make money, but why not make money the way a bank is actually designed to make money? You’re supposed to hold our money for us, protect it, and in some cases give us a small bit of interest on holding that money for us, and in return for holding that money, we have granted you the right to loan that money to other people, who then pay it back with interest, which is where you are supposed to make your money and profits. There is zero additional cost to a bank if they cash a check drawn on an account in their bank, whether it’s for a customer or a non-customer. Your teller is there regardless, whether they are processing a check or sitting staring out the window, you are paying them the same amount of money, and even if their are costs associated with the processing in the background, it’s pennies at the most on a per check basis with the modern computer technology we have.

Ever notice that there are lots of banks that don’t actually require a fee if you cash a check drawn on their bank? They don’t have a problem with it, why do you other banks feel the need to charge a fee?

I am not totally against a convenience fee, but really, make it something that’s realistic and doesn’t intentionally punish the poor for not having an account with your bank. Change the fee structure based on the size of the check. If someone walks into a Santander right now with a $10 check they got for something,  they either need to pay a $6 fee to cash it, or open up an account with fees attached to them. Doing a quick scan over their options, you could open up a savings account that has no fee if you keep a $100 minimum balance, otherwise $3.50 a month; You could also open up a Checking account, but that has a $5 monthly fee, or there is another account where you can have it free, but that requires $500 direct deposits a month, or a $750 average daily balance.

They are taking money from the people who have the least amount of it in the first place.

This is a good fee structure in my opinion.

$1-100 or payroll check under $1500 – $0 fee

$101-500 – 1% rounded to the nearest $0.25

$501-1000 – 2% rounded to the nearest $1

$1001+ – not cash it at all, or $20 cash it but not let them pick up the money until the check can be verified, 2-3 days. If you are getting a check that’s not payroll for more than this, then there’s probably more to the story and as fraud protection, it should go through some extra scrutiny, but in general, I think anyone cashing anything this size that isn’t payroll is probably in a situation where they have a bank account they can use, or that $20 and the couple days isn’t a big deal. Same with the upping of the % at $501 in my opinion, the larger the check, the less impact the fee will have on the person cashing it.

In the end though, fees like this aren’t truly a necessity for any bank, they aren’t being taken advantage when someone wants to cash their check, or, if the process of cashing a check is really that big a deal, how about just charging everyone who writes a check $1 for every check instead, put the onus on the person who wants to use it, not the person willing to accept it. That would probably make them more money as well.

and our political leaders? That’s a whole other story.

I really wish that whoever our political reps have reading their email and correspondence actually read them and understand what is being communicated with them instead of scanning for a couple quick key words and making up a reply that actually has nothing to do with why they were written to in the first place.

If I write to you about how towns should be securing my personal information and tracking whoever gets access to it, and also including concerns about there only being penalties for people if they Dox someone in law enforcement or the government, but not a regular citizen, don’t send me back a reply about how you have helped sponsor a bill that limits how the government is allowed to access your emails without warrants etc.

Then of course, even if they actually read and took time to understand what you wrote to them about, all they are going to do is send you back some sort of acknowledgement that you sent them something, not like they are ever actually going to do anything about your concerns unless you have a ton of money to donate to their campaign.

Corruption at it’s finest.