The Land of the Fee

My gym informed me today that it will start charging $1.50 extra each time I write them a check for my monthly membership and $10.00 if the check is more than five days after the due date. I overheard a bit of the explanation an employee gave to another member. Apparently, the gym owner is bothered by the amount of time his administrative assistants spend on processing payments (i.e. entering them onto a deposit slip and taking them to the bank). Naturally, he hopes that the fee will encourage us to allow him a monthly, automatic withdrawal from our checking accounts.

I don’t play that game. First, I will be the only person to take money from my account, and only I will determine when. Second, I don’t trust computers, and especially not hackers. Third, if I forget to log the automatic withdrawal in my check register, I’ll have less money than I think I have.

What I’d really like to know is, what happens if this scheme works? Say that the majority of members opt for the automatic withdrawal. Ergo, there will be fewer checks to log onto deposit slips and take to the bank. Will the owner cease with the $1.50 surcharge if fewer checks need to be processed? Somehow, I think not. I will be charged more money for his employees to do the same job they have been doing for over two years, except that it will be easier for them because fewer checks have to be handled.

My bank (a national conglomerate) works the same way. Call me distrusting, but I want to have my cancelled checks returned to me, as proof that my payments were accepted. Several years ago, my bank started charging me for this "extra" service, that they (and banks throughout the country) had been doing for their customers long before I was born. (As a bonus, I also have to pay state sales tax on this surcharge, because services are taxable.) Last year, the bank announced that it decided that it cost too much money to pay someone to stuff my checks into the same envelope as my statement, and they would send "photocopies" of the checks. (This causes the "cancelled check fee" to be erroneously named.) The photocopies add a page (double-sided) to my statement, which is already bloated at three pages. They could save money by reformatting their statements to fit on one, double-sided page and giving me my original checks back. Plus, the postage would still be within the 39-cent limit, as I don’t write many checks each month.

As you expect, I have a problem with the bank’s policy. First, the copies are shrunk to fit six to a page, which makes them difficult to read. Second, they are of a poor resolution, which makes them (again) difficult to read. (Try sending a copy of a copy to someone as proof that you paid.) Third, they don’t copy the backs of the checks, which is where the endorsements are stamped. What proof do I have that the check was accepted? For all the good it does me, I could just write up a check, set the copier to shrink, and send in a fuzzy, small photocopy to the recipient as proof that I paid. Meanwhile, my money actually never would have left the account. (I wonder how long I could get away with this before being arrested for fraud?) Fourth, does it take any more time to stuff checks into an envelope, rather than stand at a copier, make two-sided copies, and stuff the copies into the envelope instead (not to mention shredding -- I hope! -- my cancelled checks)?

In both of these examples, I am paying a company more money for its employees to perform less work. Whatever happened to customer service?