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The illusion is that corporations exist to serve our needs, but the simple fact of the matter is that they are self serving. It's not wrong or selfish, just a matter of course in a capitalist society. However, ethics do come into play when corporations manipulate the delusion to take advantage of trusting customers. Bank of the West revealed just such a deceptive, greedy facet when it used its position of privilege and responsibility to strip me of funds it had not earned.

Weekly, I received my payroll check and duly deposited it in my account to meet my financial responsibilities which were all automatically and electronically handled. Being a construction foreman, I was on the road and spending my summer in North Platte, Nebraska 5 hours from home. On October 22, 2007, I deposited my weekly check via ATM. On October 25, 2007, I purchased some books at WaldenBooks for the sum of approximately $68. After swiping my debit card, the clerk of the store informed me that there was an online coupon available and I opted to utilize it. Canceling the transaction, she swiped my card, but apparently there was some sort of mistake so she canceled again and ran my card a third and final time. I had my books and was on my way.
A couple weeks later, consistently depositing my checks each consecutive week, I noticed on my receipt a major incongruence with the balance. Making my way to a retailer offering free WiFi, I accessed my bank account on my laptop and noticed that 3 days after my October 22 deposit, I had been assessed a $99 fee on my account. I immediately called the bank and waded through confusion with a representative until I was able to get a Supervisor on the line who was able to inform me that it was my 2 canceled transactions totaling approximately $130 from WaldenBooks that was the source of the problem. Unfortunately, when a transaction is canceled, the funds are still put on hold - a common and understandable process, in itself. With those funds on hold, the account lacked sufficient funds to support 3 debit card purchases with respective amounts of $2.78, $5.11 and $10.83. In other words, I had incurred a $99 fee for minute purchases because a debiting program associated with Bank of the West accounts failed to recognize the difference between insufficient funds and practical precautions. Hearing this absurd revelation, I informed the supervisor that I wished to challenge the fee as well as the incidental $264 in cumulative fees the following 2 weeks due

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