Online Banking Brain Dead

I myself am no good at keeping records of my purchases. I have to rely on online banking. I have to be able to come home and see how much money i have, what i spent it on, and how much I spent. I can not see myself spending 43 on a hotdog and a soda and chips and asking for a reciept and then tucking it away in my pocket.

Every bank I have tried boasted about some wonderful online checking they have. I find a bank and set up an account and begin to trust it. After about a month, the online portion of the account seems to crap out. It takes like 4 days for transactions to show up, or some times the transactions show up then disappear. What ever  it is I end up thinking I have more money than I really do. I end up with 7 overdrafts at $30 each. There goes my paycheck. Now I have to start the next paycheck at less than I should. This of course sets me back in all of my bills. So now I am forced to make the decision to willingly make myself go into overdraft again, just to make my bills. Now That I am behind and my checks are sent to me via direct deposit, I am stuck in an endless loop of debt for like 3 months before I can dig myself back out.

Well, angry I have to call the bank and scream to let some poor schlum hear what’s on my mind. This is pointless, he/she has heard it a million times and can’t do anything about it. The answer they give you is “I’m very sorry. It is up to you to take care of your records, our online system is not a perfect system and is just there to look at” . To look at? It’s just a fricken picture? A scenery ? Why do they call in it online checking? why don’t they say ” we have an online personal log in so you can look at a buncha stuff that could be current, could be old doesn’t matter we will squeeze money out of you some how”.  I NEED THE ONLINE ACCOUNT STATUS BECAUSE I AM CRAPPY AT BOOK KEEPING!.

My solution to this is if they supply anything like checks for free, I report that mine got damaged and I request more. Then a week after I get a refill, I call them back and tell them my dog at them. One week later I tell them my grand mother thought they where napkins and soaked up dog  pooh with them. Of course I drag it out till I get bored with it, or until my account stabilizes. I then close my account and hand them a huge stack of brand new checks to shred. Let them pay that guy to waste the time it takes to destroy the checks.

Now I go and tell a friend or an aquatint what I have been through, they always tell me to use their bank and then tell me how they never had a problem. Every single person has done this so far. Then I later see they are obsessive about keeping their records….. So um. their opinion on this sucks. Congrats on taking the time to do the math. Neat but really… I am looking for a bank that does that for me. a bank  that does not charge me 95% of my check once a month.

All the bank has to do is be legit, not a scam and have a good online banking service that actually updates after every single transaction. That is not impossible. That is not unimaginable. The only thing that makes it impossible is the barrier of reality  that is  and the reality they make you believe. Just be current. Don’t steal my money with shuffling my cash around with disappearing and reappearing transaction.