Maybe It Was Bernie Madoff

Despite my aversions to the latest breakthroughs in technology, as mentioned in an earlier post to this blog, I at least emerged myself years ago in the joys of online banking. There is no joy, however, when you log into your checking account and see parentheses around the number that’s listed in the ‘Available Balance’ column. At that moment there is only fear. Well, and panic. And some slight rage.

If you’ve never seen parentheses around your ‘Available Balance’ figure, it means you’ve never been overdrawn on your account. If you have seen the parentheses, your first thought is undoubtedly always the same as mine, “My bank is stealing from me.”

Sadly, if this were 2007, that would be seen as a joke. Now, that very well could be the case for a lot of people. But before I sought revenge by driving to my nearest branch and dropping off a busload of Hannah Montana concert-goers, I looked at my check book to see if my math was wrong or if I forgot to subtract an earlier transaction. Three and a half days later I discovered it was both of those things.

I think I would have enjoyed getting tangled up in a lengthy, bitter, expensive lawsuit with my bank (and ultimately losing) more than I enjoyed figuring out where my math went wrong. I also would have enjoyed getting tangled up in a lengthy, bitter, expensive alligator attack more too.

At this point, you’re probably wondering, “Why don’t you have overdraft protection?”

My response to that is, “Why don’t you shut up?”

Why would I want to deprive the bank of charging me $50 for kindly pointing out that my account has a negative balance? Besides, if I don’t have enough money to keep my account in the black, I can certainly afford to go another $50 into debt.

So pish to your overdraft protection. Pish, I say.