How dare you provide me with goods and services

B3ta’s Question of the Week is on banks and banking. Oddly enough, the consensus is ‘against’. However, someone called ‘Star Wars’ has a rather nice post going against said consensus, which distills most (not all) complaints that people make about retail banks and penalty charges:

I opened a bank account once in the full and reasonable expectation that the banking system existed entirely for my benefit. Because of this, I didn’t bother reading the paperwork I’d signed; nor did I take much notice about my credit cards, overdraft limit, or anything else like that. After all, when the banking system is designed around your personal needs, desires and proclivities, it’s up to the banks to keep up with you.

Or me, in this case.

So I am, of course, full of righteous indignation about the manner in which these huge corporations have utterly failed to give their undivided attention to me, and – worse – the way in which they have utterly failed to read my mind and sort out all my banking requirements on my behalf without my even having to ask them.

I’m also disgusted by the way that these businesses seem to think that they can behave as though it’s important to make a profit. What temerity! What kind of world is it when a bank thinks that it exists to sell goods and services and make money from those sales, just like any other business? After all, I think we’ve already established that the system is for MY benefit, and mine alone. I think it’s disgusting that they should be able to charge me fees just because I really can’t be bothered to look after my own finances. It’s not as if I get anything in return (except interest on my savings and access to loans when I need them – but they don’t count).

I’m steaming with rage about the way in which, that time when the ATM went mad and doled out free £20 notes, I had to repay what I’d been given by accident.

Personally, I blame the Illuminati, the Bildeberg Group (I don’t know what this is, but I’ve heard of it, and it sounds sinister) and the Jews.

Yes, I know that banks can sometimes mess up, lose thousands of pounds of your money, and leave you in the utter shit. This is entirely bad, even though such events are normally sorted out pretty quickly.

However, nearly all the stick they get isn’t from people like that: it’s from people who can’t be bothered to check whether they’re over their overdraft limit, and/or who’ve borrowed silly amounts of money so they can go to Ibiza and have a big TV…

Update note: this isn’t sticking up for investment banks, or mortgage banks who were busted by their innovative financing models. Nor is it criticising people who are angry as taxpayers about the money channelled into banking. That’s fair and right. Blaming the bank when you spend money you’ve not got isn’t.