Hatin' on my Bank (Warning: Strong Language)

I should have seen this one coming. That once-a-month paycheck I mentioned a couple of posts ago? I had a bad feeling about that from the beginning, which was borne out by the company accountant sending it to the wrong office. Even after I deposited the check on Friday, I was uneasy, because we all know that banks can't be trusted with money any more than accountants can be trusted with money.

I check my account online on Monday, and sure enough my bank (which will remain unnamed, for a few sentences anyway) put a hold on my paycheck. Fuckers. Sure, we usually do direct deposit, but this check was a check from the same employer I've had for almost ten years. And we've deposited other checks in the past (some even larger than this one) without a hold being placed on the check.

I was pissed. Since I get paid once a month (Have I mentioned that already? Sorry.) I don't really have the luxury of time to sit around and wait an extra week to make sure my paycheck clears to start paying the bills. You see where this is going, right? Yeah, I had already mailed the house payment, car payments, etc. on Saturday. I could just see those NSF charges start racking up, followed by my commandeering a Caterpillar bulldozer and levelling this particular bank branch office to the ground as I laugh hysterically with glee, shouting Hold this!. That just wouldn't work out, because you have to commandeer major construction equipment late at night, and I really need my sleep or I get especially grumpy.

So my lovely wife volunteers to visit the fine people at the unnamed bank (It rhymes with "pompous") at 7:00 a.m. Monday morning. I would have done it, but there was at least a 40% chance that the police would have been called, and we don't need that.

Sure enough, they sort of hmmmed and hwwwed, saying something like "Yes, we really shouldn't have put a hold on this check." But then the bank employee said something that just confirmed what an idiot fucktard institution Compass Bank* really is.

"We tried to call you to tell you, but the phone numbers you provided weren't good numbers."

Oh sweet baby Jesus. Okay, one, you could have told me that you were going to put a hold on this check at the time I deposited it, so I could have reached through those pneumatic tubes and choked the drive-thru teller into submission on Friday. That would have saved everyone a lot of trouble. Two, the two phone numbers they had on file were :

1). Our home number, that we've had for over 7 years, that hasn't been disconnected. Yet.

2). My main office number, which I know for a fact from those dozens of annoying calls I get everyday is still a working number.

So either the bank employees wear mittens when they use the phone, hence making mis-dailing a not unexpected outcome. Or they are just lying idiot fucktards. For the record, I'll just say that my lovely wife made no mention of the bank employees wearing mittens during her visit.

They did promptly take the hold off of that check, just as those withdrawals here starting to hit. This isn't the first sucky episode we've had with Compass Bank. But I think it's the final straw. This weekend I'm going looking for a new bank. And you can bet I'll be checking the employees for mittens.

Again, in the end, everything worked out. I think it was Nietzsche who said

That which doesn't kill me, makes me want to commandeer large yellow construction equipment.

Or something like that.


* Compass Bank, so named because its policies and practices are as mysterious as that invisible force of magnetism.


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