Predators in Banking; Why can't we keep our money in cookie jars?

Long ago our ancestors had a natural distrust of banks. Banks got robbed. You gave your money to strangers based on their reputations, often in security. Money was physically in danger from the highwayman or the thieving bank officer. Boy, I miss those days.

HUNTINGTON BANK
Recently our bank, whose customer service was fantastic, Union Federal Bank was bought by Sky bank. We weren't thrilled, but no lasting damage was done.  It was regrettable, but nothing we couldn't deal with that our bank had been swallowed up by the larger chain. We had a hiccup in debit card service, but our bank's management aggressively assisted us with Mastercard's wicked, wicked ways. We could live with this.

In the shark infested waters of high finance, good customer service is hard to find and longevity is almost non-existent. Within six months, our bank had yet again been sold. Huntington Bank swallowed whole every small branch of several different chains in our area like so many surfers on a beach in Mexico. Our account was now owned by the McDonald's of Banking, and Bob was deployed. We were trapped, but didn't yet recognize the dangers of Big Chain Banking. It wouldn't be long before our dreams of good customer service and happy banking would be crushed beneath the stone that was our new bank.

THE 4.95 DEBIT CARD FEE
Yes, we found quickly that it was true. We pay the bank a monthly fee to access our own money. This does not include the 25 cent per check fee attached to our "free" checking account. Our bank, no longer content with reaping the investment profit from offshore accounts worldwide and the hocus pocus that we allow them to do with our funds, began charging us for allowing them to invest our money each month with unimaginable fees.

INTERNET BANKING
Then we discovered the overage fee. OH BOY! The beauty of internet banking is that you see every transaction as it's made. The danger of it is that your bank has ultimate control on when those items actually post. So you see a tally that makes complete sense to you where they see an opportunity. Changing policy so that anything attached to Bill Pay was a danger to our account. If our deposit was made at midnight of the third, but the insurance bill was submitted prior to that by four minutes , suddenly there was wiggle room for when something posted. The result was a 37.00 fee for overage. Now, any business practice that makes payday loans look good has to be bad, and this one certainly does that. Needless to say, internet banking is a thing of the past for us. We'll probably get charged for the privilege of checking our balance online anyday now.

THE 10 Dollar Foreign ATM
My big pet peeve. Recently I took the kids to Missouri. There are, of course, no Huntingtons there. I withdrew one hundred dollars as planned to take care of incidentals. This week I got the bill for that transaction- 10.00. 8.00 was the audacity charge; How did I have the audacity to take out my money at a "foreign" ATM? This doesn't include the 2.50 charge by that bank. Then there was the 2.00 charge for the "foreign" bank's having the audacity to check the balance. How dare they just come in and willy-nilly check balances at a "foreign" bank? Of course, the bank is only 500 miles away from our Huntington, but it is indeed like another country altogether. AND I ask you, how is my deployed husband going to find a local branch of our bank on base?

Of course, all of these things aren't new, but they certainly are special. It's the lack of control that flabbergasts me. The fees seem to multiply like rabbits every time I check the account. I'm withdrawing large amounts and using cash whenever I can. We must have the account to get paid through the department of defense, so I can't just go shut it down with a satisfied, so there smirk on my face.  The temptation to put our money in a mason jar and bury it under a tree in the backyard grows daily. Banking has gone back to the old west days of highway robbery with a new twist, the gun's being held on the customer.