By. James ClingmanNNPA Columnist
BlackonomicsRemember the old movies where the outlaws robbed banks for a living, or the gangsters did “bank jobs” as they moved from town to town? Noted bank robber, Willie “The Actor” Sutton is said to have responded to the question, “Why do you rob banks?” by saying, “Because that’s where he money is.” Indeed, banks are where the money was and still is. There was a time in history when men and women made careers and established reputations by robbing banks for various reasons. Now the tables have turned; in many cases, banks are now robbing the people, no doubt under the same rationale that Willie Sutton used: “That’s where the money is.”Yes, I said “robbing” the people, and I did not stutter – if that’s possible to do in writing. Your friendly local bank of the past has now become a monstrosity made up of impersonal, disingenuous, mega-merger, egomaniacal, greedy, discriminating hucksters, bent on squeezing every dime out of their customers – and anyone else who has the audacity to come into their bank asking for change for a dollar.Banks have become robbers of the poor and refuges for the rich. They have grown into bastions of powerful, angry, competitive bullies vying to see who can charge the most, rather than the least, for their services. If you are fortunate enough to be “accepted” as a customer, after having been subjected to a battery of questions that would make the Inquisition look like child’s play, you are saddled with a myriad of charges and fees. There are transaction fees, analysis fees, usage fees, over-usage fees, excess deposit fees, and a host of others that make your monthly statement look like your local telephone bill. Maybe banks are paying us back for being robbed in broad daylight by bold, brash, unremorseful fortune-seekers, by morphing into those same kinds of characters. They are so greedy and so arrogant with their greed and actually flaunt it for all to see. Remember when ATM’s came on the scene, how they were marketed as “conveniences for our valued customers.” Of course, we were all willing to pay an extra 50 cents for each transaction. But $3 per transaction in some cases? You can keep your ATM “convenience.”And have you heard about Check 21? In short, the banks can now process the checks you write almost instantaneously; no more “float” time for you. Folks who used to write their checks and make their deposits a couple of days later are now penalized for that practice even more than they were before. However, customers who deposit checks into their accounts, in many cases, still have to wait as many as seven days for those checks to “clear” before they can withdraw funds from them. Why doesn’t Check 21 apply in those cases? Could it be another way for the banks to rob people by holding on to their money for a few more days, accruing interest along the way of course? If all checks can now be cleared instantly, why doesn’t it apply to checks you deposit into your account?Let’s talk about a couple of the other fees that are strangling consumers. One is overdraft fees. I can understand charging a small penalty for the inconvenience of having to deal with a “rubber check,” especially by the person to whom it is written; believe me, I have had my share of folks giving me checks that did not have sufficient funds. A lady in Chattanooga wrote a $15 check for one of my books; the check bounced and I ended up losing $25. (All she had to do was ask and I would have given her the book, as I have on several occasions – and saved that $10 fee the bank charged me for depositing the bad check.) I can only imagine what that sister had to pay her bank for a measly $15 check. You cannot convince me that banks incur costs anywhere near the $30 charges they impose on some of their customers (the affluent customers, their “homies” and their families’ fees are waived of course) for bounced checks. And we won’t even go there when it comes to the multiplier effect, when other checks start bouncing and other charges start mounting up. You can pay hundreds of dollars for a $15 check if you are not careful. Now for the most dastardly fees banks are using to rob the people, the dreaded credit card interest rates, over-your-limit-fees, and late payment fees. If Black folks especially are not moving swiftly toward being “plastic surgeons” they should be. We all need to perform plastic surgery by cutting our credit cards in two. The fees are nothing short of usury, and to add insult to injury, banks will charge outlandish fees if you inadvertently exceed your limit, the same way they do if you withdraw more than you have in your savings account from an ATM. Can’t they deny the withdrawal if it exceeds the limit they gave you?Banks penalize you excessively if you are just a couple of days late on your credit card payment, and they charge a yearly “maintenance” fee even if you have no balance. By the way, have you ever tried to close one of those accounts? It’s next to impossible – and they keep charging you fees while you’re trying to get out their death grip.I could go on, but you get the picture I’m sure, and probably have first-hand experience. The recommendation: Use your collective leverage to stop these “bank robberies” in reverse. Ever heard of the Collective Banking Group? James E. Clingman, an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati’s African American Studies department, is former editor of the Cincinnati Herald Newspaper and founder of the Greater Cincinnati African American Chamber of Commerce. He hosts the radio program, ”Blackonomics,” and has written several books, including: Economic Empowerment or Economic Enslavement – We have a Choice; Blackonomics; and the recently published Black-o-Knowledge-Stuff . To book Clingman for a speech or purchase his s books, go to his Web site, www.blackonomics.com. He can be contacted by telephone at 513/ 489-4132.
