Shinn the Writer

The Last Step

 

A couple of months ago, I told you that after threatening to do so for decades, I was finally taking the needed steps to say goodbye to my bank, Wells Fargo. I’d decided to do this ever since they were found to be one of several banks who signed up their customers for a program which cost them money to be in, and which the customers had to take steps to opt out of. A class action suit followed and the banks doing this had to refund what they had collected in these “fees” as well as pay a healthy fine.

 

Even though I was not affected, having been ineligible for the particular program, it left a very bad taste in my mouth and I vowed to part company with Wells Fargo and all the mega-banks. Then I procrastinated. For months, then years, then decades. I had to admit that the big bank had given me good service all alone. All the services seemed to work fine, ATMs were plentiful and generally functional, the local reps were friendly and helpful, and I was always impressed with the security department that dealt with credit card fraud. It wasn’t until I couldn’t get a safe deposit box in the immediate area that I finally took active steps to make a change.

 

It was a pain in the neck to track down and transfer all the automatic deposits and payments to the new bank, but I did so, marking each off a list I had created for the purpose. I was surprisingly organized throughout the process. Just to be sure, I kept my old bank account and associated credit card open just in case. Nothing came in on either. I only missed one, ironically the monthly bill from my old employer, PG&E. It was easily caught and fixed. I finally decided it was time to pull the plug.

 

This last Friday, the last one in July, I went down to my local Wells Fargo branch and told them I wanted to clean out and close my account. Oh, and I have some “points” on my credit card that I wanted to cash in. The rep was very helpful. He was surprised looking at how long I’d been with the bank, but didn’t ask why I was leaving. I was just as glad that he didn’t. But the point thing was a small issue. If I cashed them in it would amount to a little over $22. Not enough to keep me from finishing the project if it was going to be a major project. We decided that I would clean out the existing balance, and then go home to see if the point balance was high enough to convert to cash. If it was, I’d make the conversion. If not, I’d have to write to the credit card people to get the money. 

 

So I took the check to my new Mechanics Bank branch, deposited it, and went home to deal with the credit card points which, as it turned out, converted into cash just fine, but it would take a few days for the money to reach my account. I could wait. But by the time I got home, what had appeared in my mailbox? A notice that I was delinquent on my water bill! I could have sworn that I’d converted it. I remembered how helpful their customer service people had been explaining how to convert to a new account from which they could grab the payments.

 

I went to look at my account on the water company’s website, but couldn’t piece it all together, so I waited for Monday and called them up for help. Again, the rep was very helpful and told me how to set up the auto payments. It turned out that I had done the hard part of linking my new checking account to my water account. But the easy part of simply pressing the button to start using said checking account to pay my bill automatically had been missed. I paid the delinquent amount manually and all was right with the world.​