At War With The Banks -- Continuing Struggles in Customer Service

Yes, yes, yes, I'm turning into an old crank who holds up the line at the store with his tiresome complaints. A truce has been called in my War with Canada Post (cashed the refund cheque rather quickly, got a pleasant call from their complaints department, had another issue with another letter and was offered a full refund on postage with a minimal fuss. Canada Post is my bitch) but another has started with RBC.

Here's the thing I don't get: Why do bank tellers talk themselves out of a job?

Remember when the local branch was a homey place, filled with kind-hearted people from the neighbourhood who more interested in your day than processing your cheques? Yeah, I don't either. The machines have risen and taken over the banks, in the name of convenience (and this is how it starts- first the banks, then we are all living in a computer-generated fantasy land while our free survivors endlessly battle against robots. Trust me, I've got evidence on that one) and now, it seems the tellers themselves have been replaced by robots.

It galls me to the core to pay for bank fees. To the core! This is one of the great scams that we have been fooled into it. Paying a fee to take out my own money? Paying a fee to pay back money I borrowed from the bank? Sure, that sounds good to me. As Canadians we clutch our heads and moan about taxes, yet we have allowed the banks to bend us over the table and greased the ride without even asking for a thank you. (And yes I know one of the reasons banks get away with this is because we are stupid and we withdraw money from ATMs found inside strip clubs and baseball stadiums and debit everything.)

A few months ago I purchased my first car (I'm an official grown-up now, complete with the advancing male pattern baldness and extra 10 kilos of anxiety) by using my line of credit from a bank that will come unnamed. (Unnamed but not unlinked) The rate was good and since I was buying a used car, I felt better about owing the bank money than I did a car dealer money. The first payment came and I did it through the ATM, like a sucker, and was charged a $1.00 for it. (I'm talking about the principal payment, not the interest payment, which is automatically deducted from my account).

A dollar isn't that much (it's about a dollar) but it bothered me that I would have to pay anything to make principal payments. (Galled me! To the core!) I called the customer service centre, and I was told that if I went to the bank, stood in line and made my payment that way I could avoid the bank fee.

Call me a cheap bastard (or a man trying to support a wife and daughter on a single salary) but to save a dollar I'll wait all morning in line. If I make one payment a month, that's $12 a year, and I've worked out that it will take me about 5 years to pay off the car so= $60, which is an interest payment.

And besides, it's the principal. When did we concede our rights as consumers to be served? We've gone from having our windshields wiped and our oil checked by gas attendants to swiping our credit card at the pump and driving off. We've been tricked into believing that paying a fee to use a bank machine instead of talking to a human is somehow 'empowering' and 'convenient'.


Twice now I've gone to the bank on a Saturday morning, waiting in line to make my principal payment and have been told by the teller that I should be using the machine. I always reply that I don't want to pay the fee and they look at me as I'm babbling in tongues. The last time the clerk said that I would incur a fee from the teller and not from the machine, to which I had to correct her. She had to ask a senior staff member who waved his hands and said to me 'tell him to do it at the machine' and to which I replied 'I'd prefer not to be charged a fee' and he gave a derisive snort and walked away.

This confuses me. Shouldn't the tellers be thanking me for using their services? If I were in direct competition with a machine (say the News Release 3000, now with cup holders!) I'd bust my ass to make sure that I was more than valuable to the organization. If everyone stopped using tellers (which bankers, in the dark lumps of charred meat they have for hearts, secretly wish for) than they wouldn't have a job. Rather simple, I would think, but with the attitude I get, you'd think I was putting them out for asking them to do their job.