Re: U.S. Banks are not all that bad

As near as I can tell, there are spotty instances of the
behavior Lucky describes, but it is becoming more common,
especially wrt required ID.

I must say that I've had some absolutely amazingly bad experiences
with banks in Asia, Mexico and Central America, so I'm a skeptic
when it comes to assuming that non-US banks are light years better.
Although I have no direct experience of European banking, I do know that
the European banking industry, taken as a whole, is substantially
behind the US banking industry in automation and efficiency. Most of
the irritation that I hear reported about US banks is the result
of pushing customers too hard to change expensive banking habits or
erecting policies that eliminate money-losing practices without regard
to their impact on customer goodwill.

At First Interstate recently, I had to make a withdrawal from
the teller, as the ATM was broken. Their policy _does_
reqiure a "counter check", and normally they charge, but when
I explained that the ATM was kaput they did it for free.
It is _much_ cheaper for them if you use the ATM, and this
kind of policy is designed to encourage you to do this. It's
the kind of thing that the market will sort out nicely --
if it irritates people and loses them money more than it
saves them money, they will stop doing it.

Remember, the US has an absolutely fantastic amount of competition
wrt banking services, especially when compared to other countries.

Douglas Barnes writes:
>At First Interstate recently, I had to make a withdrawal from
>the teller, as the ATM was broken. Their policy _does_
>reqiure a "counter check", and normally they charge, but when
>I explained that the ATM was kaput they did it for free.
>It is _much_ cheaper for them if you use the ATM, and this
>kind of policy is designed to encourage you to do this. It's
>the kind of thing that the market will sort out nicely --
>if it irritates people and loses them money more than it
>saves them money, they will stop doing it.

Sure they're happier if you use the ATM.  It costs them less
per transaction, plus they *charge* you to use the damn thing.
How many people do you think would put up with $1.00 or $1.25
to do a transaction at a human teller?  Most banks charge about
that much for "foreign" (other than those they own) ATM use.
Some even charge that much for *all* ATM use if you don't get
the "premium" accounts.