“and the banks are made of marble
with a guard at every door
and the vaults are filled with money
that the people sweated for…”
My bank account was recently compromised, as they put it in financial lingo. The first clue was a letter from an online clothing store I’d never heard of informing me there weren’t enough bucks in my checking account to fill an order I never placed. I called the store, and after almost half an hour on hold, took the e-mail route. They responded by telling me I had to deal with this situation via telephone only. When I called back, the holding operation recurred. Having too many other things to do with my time, I figured what the hell, they didn’t get anything out of me, hung up, and forgot the whole thing.
Then on the Friday after Thanksgiving, someone subscribed to an adult website on my dime—or rather, my $34.95, which I discovered Saturday when reconciling my account over the phone. After much time in the bank’s voicemail hell, I finally reached an operator in the Philippines, who informed me the Risk Operations Department was closed until Monday. She wasn’t completely useless, though: she gave me the name of the company who’d been paid with my money. They turned out to be a billing service that, unlike the bank, immediately began the refund process—without even asking for my mother’s maiden name.
The thing is, I’ve never worried about identity theft or my cards being used, figuring a thief would have to be pretty stupid to steal my data: I’ve got one low-limit and maxed out credit card, I get turned down for every credit card I apply for, I can’t get a bank loan, and my checking account is usually almost empty, except for about two minutes after a check gets deposited. I lived according to Dylan’s credo, When you ain’t got nuthin’ / you got nuthin’ to lose. But, as my son pointed out, I don’t have nuthin’, I have a little bit. And a little bit is what they took. Also, this credo is outdated: in Tryin’ To Get To Heaven on Dylan’s 1997’s Time Out Of Mind he said, When you think that you’ve lost everything/you find out you can always lose a little more…
But back to yesterday’s banking saga. Briefly, I had to shut down my account and open a new one—but since I’m expecting two automatic deposits, the old account was frozen, to be closed at a later date. Ergo, when I tried to withdraw the refund from the fraudulent check, along with the pending overdraft the bank was charging me because of it, the teller gave me a hard time, then called the manager, who gave me more of a hard time. When I got pissed—predictable for anyone undergoing this kind of stress, but particularly for someone like me who juggles every dollar every day—the manager pulled rank and got bitchy. Once my money was in my hot little hand I called to her at the desk to which she’d retreated and yelled, Hey Blondie, your kindness was overwhelming. She ignored me.
It makes me batshit that a thief can commit fraud with my bank account, while it’s a major ordeal for me to gain access to my own money—and not just in this crisis situation either; dealing with banks has always been a major source of stress. The holds on checks, the proof of identity, the 20 questions over the phone before an operator will deign to talk to me—how do crooks get past the industry’s insolence?
Quite honestly, I can’t recall a time when I didn’t hate banks, when just walking into one didn’t inflame me with revolutionary rage. Especially big city banks, with their marble pillars, gleaming floors, and wasted space—four or five unused work stations–not to mention an almost palpable reverence towards money (certainly not towards the customers). When I was a lot younger and a lot less in control of my emotions, I tended to get hysterical in banks. I was saved by the ATM machine, which I consider the greatest invention of the 20th century.
Thus, when I went muttering out of the bank yesterday like the crazy old lady I’ve become, it was with a new resolve. I have had it. I am going to figure out a way to live that entails using banks as little as possible.
I’m not ashamed to confess my incompetence at keeping my checking account straight. In my defense, it’s not just my lousy math skills that are at fault: it’s bullshit like holds on deposited checks, followed by overdraft fees on checks written against them. It’s hidden fees I didn’t know about until a check bounced because of them. It’s an overdraft because of a penny or two, followed by more overdraft fees on the overdrafts.
As I’m writing this, I’m recognizing that I am indeed to blame for these mishaps: I failed to educate myself about my bank’s policies; I didn’t dutifully balance my account each month; I didn’t compensate for my math weakness by using a calculator and being super vigilant. Okay, so I admit it: I’m a dunce when it comes to money, banking, and taking care of business. The truth is, I prefer to spend my time and mental energy writing rather than paying attention to my checking account. It’s not even as conscious as that: my personality is a lot like the stereotypical absent-minded professor–while I’m trying to take care of business I’m frequently distracted by thoughts of a line or phrase or some sticky problem in a story. I am a bad capitalist…which still doesn’t absolve me of responsibility for my pathetic financial situation.
I’ve committed every mistake they warn us about on the nightly news. I used my ATM card like it was cash, and half the time forgot to record the transactions. I didn’t shred or even tear up my mail, not even old bills or bogus credit card offers. I used my ATM and my checks online, including to an outfit somewhere in the old Soviet Union where I buy cheap cigarettes. I gave my SSN to PayPal. About the only electronic scam I’m hip to is e-mail investment offers from Nigeria.
Having acknowledged my failings, I should probably resolve here and now to scrupulously balance my checkbook, to stop using my ATM card instead of cash, to stop charging online, to buy a shredder. Instead, I’ve resolved to take my money out of the bank and keep it somewhere off the grid. I suppose I should keep a checking account to pay the rent and bills, but I plan to keep anything extra out of the hands of bankers. After all, how do you think they got rich in the first place?
I don’t buy lottery tickets—my version of gambling is, in fact, writing novels and entering them into the lottery of the publishing industry. Even so, I dream of winning free money, and lately I’ve been playing Patti Smith’s song of the same name, shouting along with her the double entendre phrase FREE MONEY! Although you really have to hear Patti sing it to get the full impact of the song, I leave you now with her brilliant lyrics:
Every night before I go to sleep
Find a ticket, win a lottery,
Scoop the pearls up from the sea
Cash them in and buy you all the things you need.
Every night before I rest my head
See those dollar bills go swirling ’round my bed.
I know they’re stolen, but I don’t feel bad.
I take that money, buy you things you never had.
Oh, baby, it would mean so much to me,
Oh, baby, to buy you all the things you need for free.
I’ll buy you a jet plane, baby,
Get you on a higher plane to a jet stream
And take you through the stratosphere
And check out the planets there and then take you down
Deep where it’s hot, hot in Arabia, baby, then cool, cold fields of snow
And we’ll roll, dream, roll, dream, roll, roll, dream, dream.
When we dream it, when we dream it, when we dream it,
We’ll dream it, dream it for free, free money,
Free money, free money, free money, free money, free money, free money.
Every night before I go to sleep
Find a ticket, win a lottery.
Every night before I rest my head
See those dollar bills go swirling ’round my bed.
Oh, baby, it would mean so much to me,
Baby, I know our troubles will be gone.
Oh, I know our troubles will be gone, goin’ gone
If we dream, dream, dream for free.
And when we dream it, when we dream it, when we dream it,
Let’s dream it, we’ll dream it for free, free money,
Free money, free money, free money, X7
Free money, free money, free money,
FREE.
