Robber Banks: All Banks are Robbers; but Some Banks are More Robbers

Robber Banks or Robberbanks.org

All Banks are Robbers; but Some Banks are More Robbers 

Edip Yuksel

"'A Debit-Card Nation' (July 31) missed an opportunity to warn consumers about the perils of overdraft loans provided through debit cards. It says one of the virtues of debit cards is that you spend only the money you actually have, but most banks now allow customers to use debit cards even when they don't have enough money in their accounts. Instead of rejecting a transaction, the bank covers the draft with a loan and charges a fee of $25 to $35. The interest rate often exceeds 1,000 percent, turning your debit card into the most expensive credit card on the market. Banks can enroll their customers without asking them, fail to disclose the interest rates and often don't warn customers before charging the fee." (Eric Halperin, Director Center for Responsible Lending, Washington, D.C., Letters to the Editor, Newsweek, August 14, 2006).

Every year, billions of dollars are stolen from bank customers not by criminals but by banks and other financial institutions through legalized robberies. They have created a number of ways to separate their customers from their money entrusted to them. One of the most lucrative ways of robbing their customers is through various fees, which are continuously increased far above the inflation rate. Early account-closing fees, paycheck fees, pay-card fees, account information fees, overdraft fees, overdraft protection fees, special fees such as for stopping payment on checks, ATM fees, and more fees. Unfortunately, our political system has been distorted through lobbies; banks have passed numerous laws to increase their exploitation and abuse.

One of the frequent financial abuses is their 30+ dollar fee for overdraft charges, which in reality is unconscionable usury for unsolicited short term loans. Every year, millions of bank customers become the victim of their manipulative computer programs that deliberately delay or prioritize certain payments and transfers in order to inflict such fees on their customers. I use debit card, and I do not want to be charged when I do not have money in my account. But, my bank will try its best to force-feed me a short term loan in order to charge me 30+ dollars per such a loan. Customers are occasionally charged 30+ dollars for a few cents overdraft or for a couple of dollars charge for coffee. 

They employ various programming tricks to charge as much as possible for nothing. For instance, I learned that they do deliberately charge the checking account service fees in 13th or 14th of each month if their robber-guided program learns that it is the lowest balance time in the account of their "customers" (read it, milked cows) account. They know that this will increase their chance to inflict an overdraft fee, which is a euphemism for "screw-the-customer" or "usury". When once I asked them to change the service charge date for my checking account to another date, they told me that it was "impossible." Even though I offered to pay them full service charge for an extra month, their "impossible" excuse did not change; they know that they statistically have more chance to hit me with their 1000+ percent usury once a while in the future.

Together with some of my friends we decided to launch, robberbanks.org or robberbanks.com so that we can provide a voice for millions of scammed citizens and start a real class action against banks that use their complex automated services to rob their customers, especially those who hardly make the ends meet. This site soon will become more active in providing useful information for bank customers who are forced to work with banks through our modern financial system. The site also will contribute to the political and legal efforts to battle these giant leaches. We will open forums, provide links, and campaign for legal protection against robber banks. Most importantly, we will expose these sharks, by ranking banks according to their skills in robbing their costumers.

We cannot have a healthy society if the gap between the haves and have-nots grow so much. Banks are contributing to this social malaise, and people need to be informed and organized to stop their taking advantage of those who can afford the least.

Most of the financial experts in the mainstream media prefer to give band-aid advice to consumers rather than focusing on how to stop the banks from screwing up their customers. For instance, the so-called Consumer Reports magazine in its May 2004 issue puts the burden of saving the deposited money from monster predators on customers: "Keep scrupulous track of your checking account balance so that you avoid any overdraft fees," says the expert. This is like telling an old lady: "Watch your purse scrupolously since the honorable and previleged thieves may snatch it!" They have swallowed the capitalistic dogma wholesale, together with its bait, sinker and hook. They are unable to question the basic tenets of wild capitalism where the wealthy are protected by corporate laws and the poor is left to their trickle down mercy and subjected to preaching how to watch out.

It is no wonder a poor person unable to pay his or her bills may loose all their properties, including their homes and chairs in their rooms. However, owners and CEO's of corporations can bail out with their mansions and bank accounts untouched. No wonder a petty thief stealing a few dollar worth of merchandize may get years of prison, while corporate thieves stealing millions or billions of dollars of their employees and stockholders may get away with a few months or no prison term at all.

Here are some excerpts from news and finance experts testifying to the fraud and robbery committed by banks, with the consent and support of "our" bankrolled politicians. The numbers given in the following excerpts are dated and they may not exactly reflect the current figures. However, you should expect that in most cases the amount of robbery and fraud committed by banks have increased not decreased:

"Worse, you need to park a lot of money in these accounts to avoid fees. The average minimum balance for an interest-bearing checking account is $2,295, Bankrate.com says. Maintaining that balance at a rate of 0.31% would earn you $7.11 a year. And if you falter, your interest won't even cover the fees. The average fee for falling below the minimum on interest checking accounts is $10.81 a month." (Sandra Block, A Buck Here, $30 There, ATM Fees, Bank Charges Add Up, USA Today, December 5, 2005)

"Consumers may be enjoying the lowest interest rates in 45 years, but they are also paying more bank fees than ever. Last year, according to the FDIC, banks collected $32.6 billion in service fees on checking and other deposit accounts. That’s 20 percent more than two years earlier. In many cases, individual fees for specific services have risen at a pace 33 to 165 percent faster than the rate of overall inflation since 1997. The last time Consumer Reports surveyed bank fees, in 1996, we counted at least 100 separate charges. Today new fees and methods of generating them have gained momentum. " (Sneaky Bank Charges, Consumer Reports, May 2004).

"'Large banks are increasingly allowing consumers to unwittingly overdraw their accounts and then hit them with hidden fees,' said Jean Ann Fox, director of consumer protection for Consumer Federation of America (CFA). 'A loophole in Federal rules actually permits this deceptive and abusive practice.' …. Big banks permit consumers to overdraw their accounts without warning them on more types of transactions. Many larger banks are also increasing the chances that consumers will overdraw their accounts by processing the largest checks ahead of smaller checks, whether or not they bank received the larger checks first. This can cause a larger number of smaller transactions to bounce for consumers with low account balances and increase fee revenue for banks." (Banks Levy Big Overdraft Loan Fees Without Permission, Study Finds, Consumeraffairs.com, June 13, 2005).

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