Banks

There are a few business that really 'tweak my hide'. Car dealers. Their job is to screw you & you are to enjoy it & then brag about it to your friends and family so they can go to the same dealer and get screwed too. There are others - I'm certain I'll eventually discuss them all, but today the victim is: BANKS.

Yes, banks.

When you make an error on any account at a bank, you are immediately charged fees of any and every sort & interest on top of it all. However, when a bank makes an error on your accounts, nothing. You MAY get a 'Sorry' - but only if you're lucky. And that would be the best-case scenario. Why can't we charge fees back to the banks for their errors? If they were charged for errors, I'd bet their errors would decrease and WE would be much happier people.

Let's look at a few scenarios that have happened to us. We are currently in house #3. 3rd mortgage through the same bank. I won't name names, but if you call or email me I will tell you who it is. The bank is a well-known national bank that doesn't happen to be in financial distress at the moment - as far as the public is aware of anyway. OK, so back to the mortgages. Each and every one of these mortgages, once taxes were added in (all were new buildings, so 1st year taxes were only on the lot), were done WRONG. All were short. So it's the "Oops" letter - 'your mortgage is going up $XXX/mo. until the difference is made up.' Then after the difference was made up another letter arrives "Oops - we over charged you." Seriously. What is this crap? ALL 3 HOUSES. And isn't it sad that we will now expect this behavior from our bank in the future and actually PLAN for it? How crazy is this?

So let's look at another bank issue. Refinancing. We had a responsible 5 year arm that expired last year and with rates that are currently very low, we are looking at refinancing. If you are 1 of those people who really need to refinance, you can do this without closing costs, but your interest rate will be higher to compensate. Now, exactly, how does this really help those people who need to refinance? We'll give them a break here, but screw them there. Nice. I am not opposed to banks making money - but let's be responsible here. You actually WANT people to make their payments, so you better not be hitting them up too hard Mr. Bank-man.

Here's another thing. And this is a HUGE issue for me because I think it is a huge scam-ola. When you refinance a home - should you really need to re-do a title search? It's been done the last time when you bought the darn house. If something would have come up, you would have known about it since you've been living in the home for 'x' number of YEARS. Come on people, gimmie a break. And those are not the only 'fees' and 'services' tacked onto the end. They're all similar to the title search and all redundant crapola that adds up to anywhere from $500-$1,000. Well in this house, and in most houses in America today, that isn't small potatoes.

Bank people take note - if you are refinancing a home for people who make their payments on time and aren't late - you really should re-asses all the paperwork crapola 'required' for the refinance gig. There should be something for responsible behavior for heaven's sake. Oh, that's right. We're getting a better rate.

Sheesh, poor trees.