There's a line from a song I heard many many years ago that goes something like ”the large print giveth and the small print taketh away.”
Our local bank was recently absorbed by a larger west coast banking organization and the transitional period is being a bit of a pain in the butt.
It's not exactly that services are being taken away, just at the same services that were previously free now seem to come with some kind of a fee attached. Or, at least, some kind of restrictions.
For example, the other day I discovered that "instant transfers" from outside institutions are — in fact — no longer instant but show up in my account as "pending" till the end of the day, and thus the funds are not available to spend immediately. Which, in turn, defeats the whole purpose of paying extra at the sending institution for an "immediate" transfer.
Essentially, it means we can no longer add money same day to meet incoming withdrawals.
Naturally, it doesn't make it impossible to use the system... but it does set up a situation in which it becomes much easier for the banks to impose a $34 "overdraft fee."
Something similar happened to the one credit card I have for emergencies (especially while traveling) which has started to charge their annual fee in monthly payments.
Meaning, basically, that instead of a single $60 charge, there's now a $5 charge every 30 days. It might not sound like it's different, but the change has two functional implications. One, they just made it impossible to not carry a balance, meaning that while they say you have a 25-day interest free grace period for new charges on cards with no balance, it's actually impossible to not have a balance, so you'll always be charged interest on all purchases. Second, the monthly $5 charge means you have a much greater chance of incurring a $40 "late fee" if you forget that you have a balance even when you didn't buy anything...
Meanwhile, eBay keeps advertising to me about a "special deal" they're having where you can get five instant transfers for free as long as you use them before December. Or maybe it was Christmas? I forget now…
Regardless, it's useless, given the new situation with the bank.
As an aside, ever since eBay severed their direct connection with PayPal, the whole idea of getting paid instantly has become part of the historical records. It used to be somebody would buy something from you on eBay, pay by PayPal and you would immediately have access to the money. Now you have to wait at least a full business day, and the money is stored on the eBay website and then you have to allow a couple of business days for it to be transferred out to your bank account. Unless, of course, you pay extra for instant transfers. Which are meaningless, anyway.
I can't honestly say that I'm very fond of this particular agreement.
However this is part of a trend that seems to be part and parcel of everyday life in a lot of different fields. You get less service and you pay more for it.
I guess it's all part of "the big squeeze" we're seeing in the world where we're all more or less getting priced out of being alive. Which feels like a really sad state of affairs.
It also seems like a really sad state of affairs that's the last thing I bought at the supermarket were a couple of 20-lb just-in-case bags of rice.
Who would have thought that I ended up living here in the allegedly richest country in the world and I find myself worried about laying in basic food staples in case I can't afford to buy food. I haven't eaten "rice with ketchup" for dinner since my poverty stricken University days!
But hey, at least air is still free...
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2026.10.17 00:35 PDT
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