Banks and their friendly smiles
Corporations like Walmart are no different because in their ways they are the same in their sentiment. And, speaking of banks, remembering Walmart wants to acquire Arvest Bank which is founded and headed by another Sam Walton son. An Arvest Bank branch in every Walmart and Sam's Club. Wouldn't that be nice? Considering how I feel about Walmart I wonder if I should be grateful to Congress for halting that merger for now. Maybe the merger would be a family picnic in their case and a convenience to us customers, who knows. I feel they will merge with Arvest some day, if not with the current generation then the next because I don't see them giving up on that one. There are several Walton grand kids possibly looking at Walmart careers.
I have a personal experience with a bank I would like to share. I had a checking account with this bank years ago, in 1974, and I strongly feel all banks would do what this bank did if they also feel the 'need', to any of us. I know banks as an institution fairly well even from my limited view. For 3 ½ years while going to college I was a computer operator for Wachovia Bank and Trust in Winston-Salem NC in their check processioning department. Later when I moved back to New Jersey I became a programmer for the check processing department of The Federal Reserve Bank Of New York, first for their North Jersey Check Processing Center then at their New York City offices. I was with them for 6 ½ years.
While at my Fed job one morning I received a call from the commercial bank where I had my checking account. They sounded very angry and demanded I come over as soon as possible. I left work and I drove over wondering what it was about.
When I arrived at 'my' bank branch I was escorted to the very angry “lady” branch manager by 2 guys in uniforms. She was SCREAMING, saying nasty things to me. She showed me ledgers and letters which listed my over $80,000, and climbing, worth of bad checks. She was also threatening “arrest”. Hold on, it gets better.
I was concerned of course but I knew I didn't do any of it. I asked her to call the micro fiche department of their bank because I knew every check in every bank goes through some kind of photo processing procedure as part of over all check processing. It is bank industry custom, maybe federal law, to have the images, recorded views of both sides of every check, for their files and maybe for the courts and/or banking investigations later. All it would have taken was a simple quick phone call to end all this right then and there, a simple courtesy. But, that is 'assuming' banks 'really' care about their customers and doing the right thing instead of..., wait, I am getting ahead of myself.
Well, her screaming response to my phone call request was, and I remember it as well as if it were right now, “WE DON'T MAKE MISTAKES SO I DONT NEED TO MAKE ANY DAMN PHONE CALLS”. WOW, I guess my head was reeling over that one. I couldn't believe she would say that but I have come to learn something that day about banks and, over the years, corporations in general. There are reasons for her attitude and actions, well, corporation reasons. I will explain those reasons later.
Back to the bank and their lovely branch manager. I knew I needed to be patient with her and not argue, especially with their bank guards right there – they really do carry guns, but I wanted to yell back at her. Instead I thought what I should do was leave as soon as possible and go on with the act of living. That and wait for my bank statement to arrive in my mail box at home. In those days all physical checks we wrote were still included in with the mailed statements. As I left I heard her scream -“WAIT FOR THE ARREST WARRENT”.
Since then I wished I had been arrested because, WOW, I would love to have sued that bank and this very sweet professional bank manager. See me in my 2012 $212,000 dollar Porsche 911 GT2 RS today?, LOL, and my Range Rover and whatever else I would want. I wish, :-))). Remember that was in 1974 and I could still be buying stuff today. The arrest warrant never came and I made sure I wasn't hard to find.
A couple of weeks later my bank statement finally arrived and I learned why the arrest warrant hadn’t come to take me away. This was so easy to figure out even apathetic bank CEOs could tell, well, maybe. The envelope was packed and way larger than usual. In it were my typical personal size checks and my huge bank statement for the previous month. And, there they were, what I didn't know specifically but I knew it was something like this. Working in the bank check departments as I have, I had a feeling it was this kind of thing.
Here it is... There were also a bunch of company size checks from some car dealership I never heard of with my routing and personal bank account numbers encoded on the bottom of the face of them. Again, 'WOW I WISH I WAS ARRESTED'. Yeah mom and dad, I wanted to be arrested, lol.
“WE DON'T MAKE MISTAKES SO I DONT HAVE TO MAKE ANY DAMN PHONE CALLS”. I will never forget her shrilling voice when she said that, kind of like the Wicked Witch of the West in “The Wizard Of Oz”, the original movie. :-))). She should have peaked behind her curtain before doing what she did, LOL.
Oh well, I asked a lawyer later if there was something that could be done but he said 'nothing really happened and what would you get for being yelled at'? Fair enough, and they did return the fees they charged me for the over drafts without my asking. Hhhhmmm. If that bank wasn't dissolved or absorbed a few years later I would like to publish this in their honor. They were the perfect 'Bank of who remembers where' but, they could still be any bank today. I wonder if what my lawyer was really saying, without saying it, "Nuisance lawsuits are when you don't get paid so forget it".
They never contacted me to apologize. Imagine that if you can. To bad banks are necessary evils or I would never use a bank again after that. All kidding aside I might not have spent all the money on 'Things'. I would fight in court to squelch any usually expected gag orders and write a book and tell all those willing to listen. I feel people should be aware.
Recently, I wrote an article about Walmart in which I quote a retiring Walmart Vice President in his last speech to our department. Our department meaning 'The Walmart Global Ethics Office'. Yep, I worked for Walmart for a while. That event was almost 3 years ago from this writing. In his speech he very unmistakably said “...the work was important but we should always remember it is ALL for the benefit and protection of 'BIG WALMART'”. That quote says it all for any corporation, large or small. Oh, the sentiment in this quote by the Walmart retiring VP is also the reason the bank branch manager did and said all those things to me with her “warm friendly smile” that New Jersey morning. She didn't have to hear our retiring VP in order to practice this sentiment for that bank because it is TIMELESS.
If you have time take a look in a site called Ripoff Report at http://ripoffreport.com/. When you get there, look on the right toward the top for the search entry slot titled “SEARCH COMPANY OR REPORT #” and enter 'Bank Of America' or any company you want to know about concerning “customer” opinions and dealings with that company. Have fun while there and maybe join so you too can share your 2 cents about your negative dealings with any company. It is free and this site has been around for years. You might not believe how many complaints there are on so many companies.
Well, that is it for this story, I had fun presenting it to you. What I am attempting to say is when you deal with a bank, any bank for any reason, PLEASE remember... “Let the bank customer beware” and watch out for their smiles. Just ask my friend who inspired this article. Cheers...
