We Make Money the Old-Fashioned Way: We Nickel-and-Dime You to Death

Better to get the fee structure out in the open than the way it currently stands, where you get whacked with all these hidden fees every time you do something new with your account. At least that way you can see the blood suckers coming and have some control over the situation.

One of the most distressing aspects of the new economy is the way merchants try their best to hide the true cost of their services. The airline industry is a prime example: my mother recently paid $75.00 to check a single bag on three legs of her flight when she came to visit my sister and me.

So if half the bank’s accounts aren’t profitable, then OK, institute a maintenance fee for those accounts. I’d much rather know up front that I’ll be paying $10.00 a month than find myself victim to all the sneaky methods they’re used ’till now to squeeze their customers for cash. Transparency is good.

@Serolf Divad: When I started my Black Account at the local community bank for guy stuff and sporting goods, the women at the bank said “We’re telling Mrs RML!”

“Go ahead,” I said coolly. “She’s the one who said to set it up.” Apparently she got tired of asking “what’s this $65 charge at High Desert Anglers?” and wondering exactly how many times a month I bought ammo, etc.

Or just taking their fucking money and going to a fucking credit union. This piece of shit Cotty needs to be kicked to death and shat on. Oh, hey, I know what America needs to do: kneel and thank BofA for a savage face-fucking every month. Fuck you, you worthless piece of shit, you need to have your fucking head torn from your body and enjoy a savage stump fucking by customers on the way out the door to a real bank or a credit union. Just fucking go. You qualify for something and if you don’t lie and tell them, yes, you are a Polish sailor from East Baltimore and therefore are entitled to accounts at the E Baltimore Polish Sailors Credit Union and Liquor Mart. Just get the fuck out of BofA and banks like it and remember to fuck the stump on the way the fuck out.

Bad for America

What the fuck is City Holding? Thirty percent of their income on fees? Do they actually do any fucking banking? Obama needs to have places like this burned to the ground and their executives crucified in the rubble.

Service Charges as a Percentage of Overall Core Revenue

For the 30 banks with the highest percentage, as ranked by Sandler O’Neill + Partners
Bank Percentage
City Holding Co. 28%
TCF Financial Corp. 26%
Regions Financial Corp. 18%
Capital City Bank Group Inc. 17%
Webster Financial Corp. 15%
North Valley Bancorp 15%
Community Trust Bancorp Inc. 15%
F.N.B. Corp. 15%
M&T Bank Corp. 14%
Old National Bancorp 14%
Renasant Corp. 14%
Prosperity Bancshares Inc. 14%
TriCo Bancshares 13%
StellarOne Corp. 13%
Glacier Bancorp Inc. 13%
Bank of America Corp. 12%
Farmers Capital Bank Corp. 12%
Hancock Holding Co. 12%
Huntington Bancshares Inc. 12%
United Bankshares Inc. 12%
FirstMerit Corp. 12%
Home BancShares Inc. 11%
Associated Banc-Corp. 11%
Wilshire Bancorp Inc. 11%
Great Southern Bancorp Inc. 11%
SunTrust Banks Inc. 11%
SCBT Financial Corp. 11%
United Community Banks Inc. 11%
Trustmark Corp. 11%
Comerica Inc. 11%

Note: Overall core revenue excludes securities gains and losses.

Source: Sandler O’Neill + Partners

@FlyingChainSaw: That’s a better rate of return than the Mob gets on “fees”

@FlyingChainSaw:

This is the busyness revenue model that corporate bankers have been pushing since the late 90s:

30% NSF fees (no fucking joke-the bounced cheque industry is ah-boomin)
30% Services (and I use this term loosely, especially in B of A’s case)
40% Net interest spread on loans (ex. bank borrows the money at 3%, loans it to the borrower at 7% & keeps the difference)

@SanFranLefty: It’s insane. It’s not banking. These fuckers would do payday loans but they’re too sackless to say they’re sharks – so they loan wholesale to payday loans operations. In fact, street loan sharks are much cheaper than payday loans outfits in many instances, especially in rolled-over loans that can accrue interest upwards of 400%. This is innovation in the financial services industry!

@Original Andrew: Right, it’s a financial services version of throwing clubbing someone unconscious in a parking lot and robbing them. Innovation.

@FlyingChainSaw:

I recently read that 75% (!) of Goldman’s recent huuuuge profits were from the taxpayers’ TARP bailout trading fees. Now, they’re an investment bank, not a retail bank, so no checking, savings, consumer loans, etc., generating income, but still 75% from trading fees? Like commissions and buy/sell ticket charges? What the wut?

I mean, even for the stone-cold morans who’re still Goldman clients (and there’s lots of ’em–their client retention rate is pact-with-Satan unreal), the disclosure of that figure should give even the most disinterested investor pause.

I had to do some research on GS back in 2005, and I did a total spit-take when I saw their fees. Most of their clients appear to be governments and large corporations, so I guess no one gives a shit when they’re gambling with taxpayers’ and shareholders’ hard-earned ca$h.

@Original Andrew:

Yeah.

It’s called churning.

But it takes a complaint to get the SEC to do anything and they’re too busy schlong gobbling every firm on the street.

Did you see BofA turn state’s evidence and admit to participating in bid rigging on municipal bond issues? Yeah, every last one of them should be crucified, live on ESPN. Hey, fucking, Ken, you must want to fucking die, eh, asshole? Eh? Too fucking bad, because the doc says you could go on for fucking days, yeah, fucking days you piece of shit and there are millions and millions of fucking people digging on every fucking every moan out of your broken body. See you in fucking hell.

Now that would be innovation in entertainment.

@FlyingChainSaw: Attorney General Moonbeam needs to translate eMeg’s churning her shares with Goldman Sachs into something pithy and understandable to the regular person. A five second talking point that explains what she did and why it’s so evil.

@SanFranLefty: You mean sMegMa’s IPO participation through GS? It’s not churning. It is just 1) not nice to the newly public company to sell them and 2) in multiple iterations gives the appearance of improprietous relationship between a large company director and an oft-contracted underwriter.

@FlyingChainSaw: Thanks to you I’m with a credit union. What is this thing with insurance companies selling a kind of delayed payment, best day investment ‘instrument’? I don’t understand it but it seems to pay 6% right now? Is that vague enough for you?

@FlyingChainSaw: Okay, but help me help Moonbeam. Translate whatever the fuck you said into a five second talking point that I can hand peeps who know peeps who talk to Moonbeam. He dropped the Nazi bomb this week and that was not a good thing.
@Benedick: Credit unions are the bomb. Is it a term life insurance policy? In a long ago former life I knew this shit.

@SanFranLefty: Let me see if I can find people who got indicted for this kind of shit and/or find a FCSish way to explain the crime. I owe it to sMeg.

@FlyingChainSaw: We’ll need you as Investment Counselor/Pirate Booty Operator on the Ark. I think we may just need to have skullfucking sewn into the flag.

That M&T bank that comes in the Top Ten above? They bill themselves as a community bank. Ya know how much they love my little community back home?

They bought out a mom ‘n pop ice cream stand, a place that had attracted droves of chillun and their parents five months out of the year for about 40 years, prime corner real estate, bought them out and leveled the place to put in another branch only 2 miles from their other branch.

We have an account with a small market and local commercial bank, but for really small bills. Basically because my credit union is out of state and to get our mortgage I needed someone local to turn a personal check into a cashier’s check for the downpayment. The Big Boys (including M&T) wouldn’t do it without requiring a pound of flesh, all this Local Bank asked for was the promise of at least getting a couple hundred dollars a month in cash flow from us. They get Ma Nabisco’s slave wages from State U, and we pay for groceries and Redbox rentals with it.