Charged and Fingerprinted
Wednesday, 03 March 2010 09:25
I like to think of myself as someone who stays pretty current with the times. Digital devices, satellite TV, pocket computers, Facebook, etc., are not foreign to me. I watch the news and read newspapers, and I know who J'Lo is, and I can recognize Johnny Depp without a menu.
Somehow, I completely missed the memo that the police department was being replaced with the local bank staff.
I've used two or three different banks in the last 30 years. My personal business has always been with NBC (now called Cadence; I got that memo), and for the most part, they've been a good bank staff to work with. In business and civic work, I've dealt with other banks, and they've all been just as nice as they could be. Until last week, that is.
Last week I had a check that I needed to cash. It wasn't on one of my usual banks, it was on a bank I'll call the XYZ bank. The bank location has been around almost as long as Starkville, though they've changed names many times. They're now a large bank, and they don't pretend to be a hometown entity.
So, I stroll into XYZ at 9:35 in the morning. There were several teller windows in a line, but only three tellers, and only one of those was not occupied. I walked up to the teller, said "Good morning, I'd like to cash a check", and she glanced up at me briefly. Looking back down at the paperwork the was filling out, she said "It'll be a minute, my terminal isn't up yet.". Keep in mind the bank has been open for 35 minutes, and although she's at her window, she's not ready to help a customer. After several minutes, she looks up.
"Can I help you?"
"Yes, please, I'd like to cash this check."
(I pull out my driver's license.)
"Do you have an account here?"
"No, I don't, but this check is on your bank."
"I'll have to charge you $5 to cash the check, since you don't have an account here."
This is the first memo I missed, that the XYZ bank doesn't honor checks written on their bank, unless both the check writer and the check receiver have accounts at the bank. Feeling like something was amiss, I asked what seemed to be a logical question.
"Is this check any good?"
"Yes, the check is good today."
I caught the meaning. It's good today. It might not be good tomorrow, but it's good today. Right now.
"I really don't want to pay you $5 to cash a check on your bank, when you know it's good."
"You can always deposit it in your bank if you'd like."
Oh, yeah. That's right, I can put it in my bank, and hope it's still good when it gets back here to your bank. The $5 charge, even though I thought it was unreasonable, was starting to sound like a cheap bribe for making sure I actually got my money.This new system reminded me of my last trip to Mexico. "I'm sorry, Senor, but we do not have a seat for you and your wife on the train. You may stand between two cars and hang on for dear life, if you would like." After producing 500 pesos for the conductor, and 500 pesos for the head conductor, we had not only a seat, but a Pullman sleeper room all to ourselves. "Oh, Senor, I think we just had a room come open. Come, I will show it to you.". Did I mention the whole Pullman car had only one other room occupied, and all the other rooms were empty? In Mexico, the level of service you receive depends on how much you're willing to pay in bribes.
"I'll pay the $5, please cash the check."
Now comes the part where I really, really wish I'd seen the memo about the bank taking over the police duties. I would have been prepared for what happened next. The teller slid an ink pad over to me.
"Ink your right thumb, and put your right thumbprint on the check."
The conversation slowed down significantly at this point. I was too flabbergasted to come up with a good response, and was already so put off with the casual disregard the XYZ teller had for anything that even remotely resembled customer service or traditional banking practices that I had trouble responding to what she was telling me. When I objected to being fingerprinted, she gave me that tired old excuse used by under-the-gun clerks everywhere:
"I'm just doing what I'm told to do."
As I stood there under the watchful gaze of the seven closed circuit cameras fanned overhead, staring at the accusatory ink pad, I could come up with only one reply that seemed appropriate at the moment:
"Do you need a DNA sample, too?"
Without skipping a beat, the XYZ teller looked up and said, with a straight face, "No sir." I could tell, though, that behind that expressionless stare, she was really saying "Not yet, buddy. Not - quite - yet."
Humiliated, and feeling like a criminal, I surrendered my personal imprint to the agent of the new dominant social order. As I pocketed my money, minus the $5 bribe, the teller finally smiled and gave me a chirpy "Have a nice day!". As I shoved my cash into my jeans pocket, I walked away demoralized, and wondered how George Orwell would feel, knowing he'd hit so close to the mark.
To add insult to humiliation, I passed a bank manager I recognized while I was on my way out. When I related my dissatisfaction to him, he immediately looked at me with that practiced look of tolerance that comes only from years of experience in talking to idiots far below one's own level, and gave me several practiced bank lines about why fingerprinting me was good thing for everyone.
Looking back this week at last weeks experience, I can say I've found the silver lining in that transaction. I've learned that even a below standard experience at Cadence is better than a standard experience at the XYZ Bank. I've learned a new appreciation for the folks over at my hometown bank. And, maybe the most important lesson of the day: I will never, ever, under any circumstance, keep any of my personal, business, or civic accounts at the XYZ bank.
For me, that was a lesson well worth the five bucks I was charged. I could still have passed on being fingerprinted, though.
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