Monday, April 29, 2019

Gratitude Monday: fiscal responsibility


Even though I closed barely two years ago on my house, my mortgage has been sold on twice, and it’s currently held by Wells Fargo Bank, an institution known for fraud, exploitation and deception in every corner of its operations. Its executives probably have corporate apartments in DC for all the time they spend lying testifying before Congressional committees looking into their malfeasance.

I live for the day when it becomes financially feasible to swap them out for an actual responsible financial institution.

As far as the mortgage goes, WF does everything possible to ensure that making my payments is a complete kludge. TBF, I think that if I had a WF bank account (which I will consider the twelfth day after never), it would be easy to set up regular recurring electronic payments. Since I don’t I had to manually go online, enter all my banking details and submit every month.

Well, eventually, I called their “customer service” number and managed to get it set up from their end. But clearly their intent is to drive mortgage customers to their other financial products, so they can more easily establish fraudulent accounts and levy fraudulent fees.

Anyhow, a month ago I received notification that my escrow account was short and I’d need to make up the difference. They enclosed a payment slip and envelope for my convenience. The shortage was $0.25.

Yes, they sent me the bill for twenty-five cents. And would no doubt ding my credit rating if they didn’t get it.

I considered what would be the most obnoxious, most expensive for them way to top up my account. And last Friday I walked over to a branch, handed over the bill and gave the teller two dimes and a nickel. He raised his eyebrows at the amount, but said nothing. Dude—I don’t make this shit up, your employer does.

So now I have the receipt, a couple of thousand steps on my pedometer and the satisfaction of having stuck it—even in a miniscule way—to those creeps. That’s what I’m grateful for today.

Suck it, Wells Fargo.



No comments: