banking 101

yesterday was fun. i made a little excursion to the bank to see if i could recoup some overdraft fees i'd managed to yet again accrue at the end of the month. i know, i know, at my age i should definitely have some fiscal safety net, but i don't. it's not like i'm some gucci/prada/louis vuitton-whoring fashionista who lives beyond her means. circumstances (read-college loans, overpriced property & assorted mishaps: automobile & health-induced) have led me to a life of scraping by on a monthly basis. anyroad, i digress, after changing jobs at the end of march, i basically went 6 weeks without a paycheck because my new employer only does payroll once a month. (over 3000 employees, can you imagine the 24/7 machine that would be printing paychecks if they did it every other week?) annoying, but that's university life. so on 4/28 i got a lovely $25 charge on my account, putting me another -25. one more check clears the next day, making the negative balance plunge deeper, so as banking logic has it, i'm now charged a $50 fee.
my mum has worked at a bank for ages, before i was born & again for the past 6 or 7 years. i asked if tellers ever take pity on poor wretches like me & reverse od fees and what excuses are plausible enough to do so. she told me it's been done & i meander into the bank with my pathetic 'well, i just started a new job where they only pay once a month & the end of this month just happened to fall over the weekend, so the paycheck wasn't deposited until monday... (stupid may 1st falling on a sunday!)'

and that's all it took.

the customer service guy tapped in a few keystrokes, looked at my account & said they were gone. i'll still be charged $12 for going under my $100 minimum balance, but $12 compared to $87 is chump change.

so folks, if you ever happen to find yourself in this situation, it never hurts to ask.

"Please know what I mean. I say nothing. I say nothing." ---Mason Jennings