20/7/98

Crying all the way to the you-know-what

    Remember a couple of years ago the banks were hit with a rash of robberies? I was rooting for the robbers.
    The Israeli bank is no place to put your money if you ever want to get it back. At least when a robber takes it, there's a good chance he'll be caught and the money returned. But the banks are never caught at it.
    I first became aware I was being taken to the cleaners by the banks when I discovered I was being charged for deposits.
    Now, I am no whiz at high finance, so I have to simplify things to understand them. I put money in my checking account. The bank takes that money and finagles a bit and earns a profit on my deposit. It makes the bank richer. Then shouldn't they be paying me?
    They get away with it because the bank cartel owns us, and they know it. What are we going to do, take our business elsewhere? They're almost carbon copies of each other, from the wall-to-wall posters assuring you they'll do anything to please you, to the surly clerks who make you wish you were still waiting in line, to the charges and commissions for every conceivable transaction, including using their bathroom (check your statement.)
    OK, I didn't check, and maybe you can flush for free. But I'll bet you didn't know they skim off NIS 7 for any month you don't use your account.
    Are these banks in cahoots with each other or what? If not, they'd be reading their own posters and giving us what they claim they do, service with a twinkly smile. They'd be tripping over themselves trying to win our clientele.
    A notable exception can be made for at least one bank, the First International, which really does pare down its charges. And the Postal Bank, which is almost completely free, because by law, it cannot charge commissions. The downside is that it is not a full-service bank.

ONE OF 'em at least tries to fool us into thinking they understand the concept of fair competition. It names itself "Discount."
    Discount?!
    If they'd give 10 percent off of any of their services I'd give them some credit. (I only give them debit.) If there's anything they discount, it's service. 
    I have had accounts at all the biggies -- Hapoalim, Leumi and Discount -- and I seriously think I'd have been better off all these years stashing my money with the Wakf.
    I'll give you an example. I opened an account for my friendly neighborhood Scrabble club. It is not the Clal Corporation. The account, at Discount, lived for less than half a year, from January 9 to June 30. In that time, I made four deposits -- mixed cash and checks -- plus three withdrawals. I wrote four checks (one bounced). You know how much they siphoned off from such a modest account before I closed it in disgust? Seventy-one shekels and ninety-two agorot. A big chunk of it was for something they call Administrative Commission: NIS 37. What exactly do they do, sit and count every agora every day?
    They even wanted to charge me a shekel for every 100 coins I ran through their coin-counting machine. I sarcastically asked for a discount, and they didn't even smile.
    Then it occurred to me: if my club shelled out NIS 71.92 for 11 transactions, how much am I spending -- gulp -- on my personal account? I mean, what am I paying more, income tax or bank charges?
    It was close.
    I took a closer look at my statement. Everything seemed to be in order: huge amounts for this, huge amounts for that. Just about what I expected. Then I got my Visa statement. Gas, food, car repairs, some stuff that's none of your business. And membership.
    Membership?
    Yeah, it seems I'm a member of the Visa Gold Club.
    They billed me NIS 186.05 -- plus another NIS 222.42 for a second card that had expired.
    Hereג€™s what happened: A year ago, I got a call from someone at my Leumi branch. He hollered at me, with the charm of an onion vendor, to come pick up my card.
    "What card?"
    "Your Visa Gold."
    As if I knew what the hell he was talking about. With all the impatience he could muster, he volunteered no information but only answered questions, and I squeezed out of him that the bank was giving me a free Visa Gold card for a year.
    "But I don't want one. I didn't ask for one. And I'm not paying for one. And anyway, why me?"
    He assured me it was absolutely free, no strings attached. For a year.
    I knew there had to be a catch, and there was.
    Did the bank, or Visa, really expect me to remember 365 days later that I had an active credit card that was suddenly no longer free? Of course not.
    Did they warn me?
    Of course not.
    Did they ask if I'd like to continue owning the card, and then tell me what it cost?
    Hah.
    They simply billed me. 
    This is what separates the companies from the corporations.
    I might have been a lot madder about this trickery, deception and chicanery, but my bank manager, Tamira Yair, was overbearingly pleasant when I complained to her. She gave me no chance to throw a ferocious tantrum by smiling and agreeing that NIS 408-and-change is a bit much to spend for one operational Visa card. She readily reduced the charges to nearly nothing.
    Yair was unaware of a recent story in the Post about a new law requiring banks to tell customers of charges. She smiled again. No problem. She showed me a display of all the charges. It ran to 34 pages. (I could not find on the list anything about Credit Allocation, which appeared on my latest statement, and Yair could not convince me the NIS 5.40 I spend on this every  three months is money well spent.)
    Her predecessor at my Leumi branch in Jerusalem's German Colony can be found in Banking's Believe It Or Not. I was once walking in the neighborhood. A shopkeeper yelled out to me from across the street: "Hey! The bank manager says he wants you to see him immediately! Your overdraft is too high!"
    This happened twice.
    I shouldn't complain, really. I'm sure the manager was only trying to save me the cost of his telephone call.