First National Bank of WTF?

When I sat down to write this entry, it was going to be about how the banks use technology to screw us over. But as I was thinking, it's really society that's screwed itself over.

People have become so focused on instant gratification that they will use whatever technological advances they can without thinking about the complications. For example, Debit cards. I remember back before they were popular and were in their infancy among the common man. You would have to go to the bank, either use the ATM or *GASP* interact with a teller to get your money. Sometimes it wasn't convenient to carry a couple hundred around for a big purchase, so we used checks. But that became cumbersome and took time that people just didn't want to waste.

Enter the Debit Card. Using the same technology of the ATM, it linked your bank account directly to almost every merchant on earth. Now instead of lugging around a check book in your pocket and holding onto a pen or hoping your friendly shop keep had one, one swipe and several button pushes later, your transaction is complete.

This was great, till the banks started to capitalize on that. The biggest one is deciding the order in which the transactions resolved. With checks it was FiFo. First in, First out. With the debit and online purchases it's become WDCWWFiMETFo; "We Don't Care What Was First in, Most Expensive Transaction First out." This allows for maximum dinging of overdraft fees. Which brings me to the other issue, overdraft fees.

Back in the day, checks would bounce, and credit cards would get declined. Now the checks bouncing is fine, it's not a real time system. I'm fairly certain that in beginning, debit cards would also get declined, but that would end in embarrassment. I'm sure enough people called and bitched saying how mortified to have their debit cards declined that they made the banks do something else. Then someone had the brilliant idea of "Hmmmm, well we'll charge them the money we know they don't have!" /headdesk.

With the way they resolve transactions, 6 transactions could have gone through, and then the really big one resolves and you don't have enough so they ding you. Now they resolve the big one first, and ding you 6 times.

If we just slowed things down a little bit, you wouldn't have to worry about an overdraft fee on a shopping spree. I've started using cash a LOT more than I used to and I haven't had any issues, I recommend doing the same internet peoples.