by Jyoti Hariharan

Created on: March 27, 2008   Last Updated: February 18, 2010

Of Course banks are making money at our expense by imposing penalty fees! And How!

Banks today are charging the poor consumer who trusts them with their life's savings with endless penalty fees for things mostly beyond their control.

I have a house which I rent out to a tenant who makes a living by playing the piano. Before you wonder why would I rent out my apartment to a unsteady income earning pianist, let me tell you his rent was paid by his father who was overseas and sent him money including the rent for his stay here.

In a country where direct debit doesn't exist, I take post dated cheques and diligently deposit them on the said date into my bank. Only to find on many occasions the so called father has not sent the money and the cheque bounces. Not only does that the bank charges me 250 rupees as penalty, but also 30 rupees as courier charges for sending me the bounced cheque. When this happened more than once I had to immediately call my broker, and add a new clause in the rent agreement about the tenant having to pay for these bank charges and also a penalty fee to the owner to compensate for the trouble caused for late payments.

Another very irritating fee is the non maintenance of requisite minimum balance' penalty fees. Its my account, I own it, I need all the money in it in an emergency and I mean to the last penny, and the bank charges me a cool 500 as penalty the minute I replenish my account.

And in the day of plastic money , my ATM card, which my very own bank has conferred upon me , considering that I am an important customer, also causes me to pay penalty fees. Why? Because I cannot find an ATM of my bank in the vicinity so I use my ATM card to withdraw money at another bank's ATM. So I am charged a fee for that too.

So coming back to what was said earlier, is it my fault that my tenant has no money in his account? or that I can withdraw amounts afterward carefully making sure that I leave the minimum balance in my account? or that the places I visit don't have an ATM of my blessed bank! And in spite of all this I am as loyal to my bank having had an account in it for the last 20 years and all I get are penalty fees! So much for loyalty!

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