John Brazell

Is There Joy In Dormancy? Don't Bank On It



Posted: Friday, July 17, 2009

by John Brazell

I received a letter from my bank threatening to charge a fee if I didn't show some activity.

Hey, most of us can get this kind of treatment lying on the couch at home. I'm your average extinctosaurus and know first hand there's just so much activity left in people my age.

This new approach to customer relations might have something to do with the Candy-Store Legislation that gave away 700 gazillion of your hard earned dollars a few months ago. You know -- the bill no one read until after they doled out the peppermint.

Lest you think I've overdosed on fiber, or Milk Duds, here's a quote from the letter: "Accounts that do not have customer-generated activity are considered dormant and may be subject to a dormancy fee." I was unsure of the "fine print" definition of "dormant" and went to my online Webster (aptly named) for meaning and more discomfort.

First definition that caught my eye was, "Latent and able to be aroused." Just as I thought, banks are getting entirely too personal and they're wrong again. Ha lf of what they claim is blatantly untrue.

Here's the story.

About nine months ago when I thought the world was coming to an end, and did, I opened an account and bought a few insured securities. My first plan was to bury my nickels and dimes in the backyard but the last coffee-can got tossed in the garbage.

So down I go to one of a hundred banks all in a row along our main drag, all in Chapter Something, and all still operating as though they had a rich uncle in DC. Since there are only 10-15 thousand people in the immediate area -- many of whom are children, indigents and people with buried coffee-cans -- some banks only have ten or fifteen customers.

The one I chose had the best rate going, more employees than customers and lost only a few billion last year. Looking to make them solvent one-dollar-at-a-time, and me happy with a new roller-ball pen, I signed up.

I don't remember agreeing to love, cherish and lavish my personal attention and limited energies upon the bank staff, though a comely group they are. Neither did I promise to make periodic entries into my account to prove I was not dead, or worse yet, dormant.

Yesterday with my letter in hand, I toddled off to the bank and asked (nicely) for the Manager of the Confused Customer Department. Nicole, the banker, smiled and searched my face for dilated pupils and flared nostrils. All visible employees strained to hear.

Me: "See if I understand -- you're going to charge me a fee, yet unnamed, for Not coming into your bank, Not bothering you, Not writing a check and Not taking money from my little coffer and your big one. That's sort of, ah, different don't you think? You're charging me because I didn't cause work for you and lose a dribble of your liquid assets in the process.

Isn't that like charging politicians a fine for making good legislation, hypothetically speaking, of course?"

Nicole: "But sir it's a rule of the, ah, FDIC, the insurance company. They require proof the account is active and that you are a, uh, real live person. If the account is dormant we don't know, and ..."

Me: "Ma'am, may I get my camera? We'll make a photo together and send it to the insurance company, along with my last EKG. How's that?

Nic ole: (Smiling) "Uh, okay."

Rather, I signed a form that said, "By signing this, I am declaring that I am aware of the account, am its rightful owner, and intend that it remain active." Nowhere did it ask if I was still alive.

Too bad the battery on my camera went dead, er, dormant.

: )

"The surest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it in your pocket." My Grandpop

" An ounce of common sense is greater than a ton of legislation." His grandson

John L. Brazell is a native Texan and resides in the beautiful Hill Country near Austin, Texas. He's a retired corporate executive. John’s love for writing can be traced to high school typing class when he first typed, "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party." As the only boy in class he took the instruction literally and fell in love with a forty-pound Royal Typewriter and every girl in the class. 

He is a member of several writing groups and has been published in ezines, newsletters/newspapers, community and corporate publications. His unfinished version of the next "Great American Novel" is entitled, The Unfinished Great American Novel.

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