OCTOBER 3, 2011 10:57AM
Complaint Department
Several national banks are promoting extra fees, such as $5 per month for debit card use, to cover lost revenue with new regulations limiting certain fees.
This didn't hit home to me until my broker (rather, the administrative assistant) called to inform me that each monthly statement from each account would henceforth cost me $1 per statement per month. Like most people, my thirty pieces of silver are in diverse accounts, and we pay a fee for their management.
The broker then emailed an "application" to go paperless. It is fifteen steps! Fifteen. I'm 54 and half-intimidated and half-addled by computers. How will members of the generation ahead of us manage? I suspect their half-intimidated, half-addled Baby Boomer children will struggle through it with them.
I completely respect the idea to go paperless. What a good idea to reduce the number of mailings from these financial organizations! If I want a copy of a statement, I can print it out myself. It is also easy to review on-line, assuming I can remember where I put the passwords.
What I object to is the sudden addition of a fee that forces me to go on-line. One dollar per month per account adds up, and slowly erodes what is in the account. There are enough issues already eroding most people’s savings.
I understand the need to make a dollar, but I’m also beginning to understand why my paternal grandfather took $600 and buried it in the backyard during the Great Depression.
