Monday, June 15, 2009

The usury thing

Usury...banks....usury....banks. I was bitterly reminded of this sad association when I logged into my B of A account last week to see I was fined $35 for running a $4 in deficit when I preempted my automatic deposit by 1 day.

I was reminded of this - twice - by U.S. mail.

Kudos, then, to the SF Public Library which blew up any stereotype of governmental rigidity when, upon receiving my DVD 1 week late (the case of which I'd returned on time but unfortunately without the actual DVD which was securely in my player at home), simply proferred a benign shoulder shrug and made no attempt to fine.

Government or bank? I'm leaning left.


I'm a far happier camper being held hostage by the gvt than by B of A

2 comments:

Adam Spitz said...

Neither of those policies sounds good to me. The bank's policy sounds too harsh, and the library's policy too lenient. But if I want to switch to a bank that has better overdraft policies (like it looks like ING Direct has, though I'm just basing that on a quick look at their FAQ - I don't know what gotchas there might be), I can. What do I do if I want to switch to a cheaper library?

Tony said...

Adam:
1. There are private libraries too, although there's simply insufficient demand for them because public libraries are already so damn cheap, thanks to being publicly funded.
2. I use ING and their overdraft policy works exactly how they describe: awesome :-)