Bank Tellers Steal My Money

No, they don’t for two reasons.

1. Online banking. There are few tellers now. My bank reduced them from 8 to three.

2. Alerts. Your phone pings every time you deposit or take out money, or when a mischievous hacker cleans out your account. Therefore you know the balance at every given moment.

Before online banking, bank tellers used to dread seeing us. They could read the frown on the face and knew the inevitable question.

Why is there no money in my account?

We don’t check bank statements. They are right there in the phone and laptop but we don’t scrutinize them. If we did, we would realize some bank rip-offs. During COVID-19 we were encouraged not to use cash. Debit was the safe way to go since the virus was lurking on doors, buses and even cash.

It was only when I scrutinized my statements that I realized there’s a penalty for using the debit card more than 20 times. Banks get away with extortion because we don’t check statements, and we don’t when all is well, we have a job and the business is doing well.

Does Tyler Perry and his friend Oprah Winfrey check their statements? Poor people do. We only check them when we are struggling to make ends meet. I do because of the rough patch that is getting rougher everyday.

By checking credit card statements, I discovered an item called a purchase charge. Please. I’m punished for bringing business to the store and to the credit card company? Believe it or not, I did not ask for a credit card. They gave it to me when I opened a bank account.

The bank explained everything about card fees, like withdrawing cash, using it abroad, failing to pay monthly bills etc. but they didn’t say anything about making me a criminal for using it. Purchase fees?

I got off that bus three years ago. The card has been gathering mold in an old handbag where I store things I call, ‘you should have known better.’

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.