Carmen's Psychicdonut.com Blog

Ha, it’s so good to be back, I am immediately going to share some more frustrations! This one is about banks and the crazy system here in the US.

About a week ago I called one of my banks, but I shall not say which one it was right now. They used to send me constantly 0%  APR offers for balance transfers and since I had paid down my credit cards quite a bit, I thought I should consolidate the two. I called said bank to find out what their current offers are on balance transfers, because the website seemed vague at best, not giving me any information noteworthy. 

I called the bank and got some guy with a heavy accent that made it almost impossible for me to understand him. I asked him about the current offers and he told me that their current offer is 15.99%!  I asked him to repeat the information and he had to check with his supervisor. So he comes back on the line and repeats the “offer.” I asked why their APR is that high when they usually offer 0% or 2.9%. The answer was mind blowing. He flat out tells me that the high APRs are due to our current economy. Again, I thought my ears had misunderstood and again he had to check with a supervisor before he came back on the line.

I started getting really angry but knew better than to take it out on some poor call center guy. So I asked him “let me get this straight?! So you are telling me that the banks are RAISING the interest rates because our economy is down the drain and people are unemployed left and right??” His answer “Yes, Ma’am.” Well, what does one say to that? I thanked him and hung up, outraged at a system that allows such rip off practices.

Don’t get me wrong! I remember when the wall came down in Germany and thousands of East Germans were offered loans from banks with high credit terms that allowed them to buy Mercedes’ or BMWs and other useless stuff, even though the banks knew that these people would often not be able to pay back the loans. What makes me angry is that banks are allowed to make a profit out of people’s hardships. That there will always be places, institution and people who will draw a profit from a tanked economy or people who are not doing well.

I remember looking at houses for sale recently. Almost half the houses in the magazine were bank-owned. Of course, one could argue some people clearly live over their means, but these are not the ones I am talking about. What about those people who worked hard their entire life and lost their job? Or what about people who got in a car accident, people who were diagnosed with cancer and had to stop working because they spent months in the hospital? Why is there seemingly no protection for people who always did contribute to the system?

And let’s take our 401ks! I spent almost 10 years paying into a 401k that is now down to a mere fraction of what was once in there, even though I did NOT invest aggressively, but quite conservatively. Of course, this didn’t save me from losing more than 50% of my hard earned cash.

People used to say that America is all about ideals and dreams and that people can literally start out washing dishes and become millionaires. This dream boat has long sailed away. The truth is that in our current system only the rich and the strongest survive well. The mom and pop stores are going under, ran into the ground by chains like Wal-Mart, parents who worked hard their entire life need to keep working in order to retire at 70, people cannot afford to be sick or go to an ER and those who have always contributed by paying taxes and working hard are now at times losing their homes.

I do hope that things will turn around but currently I can’t help but think that our system is down.