topic Re: Senior Citizen's Letter to Bank-get ready to laugh! in Community Chat

Senior Citizen's Letter to Bank-get ready to laugh!

chi5925 — Thu, 06 Oct 2016 23:51:37 GMT

I don't the source of this, but it was forwarded to me in an email a while ago. And can't we all relate in some way to the contents of this letter.....

Dear Sir:

I am writing to thank you for bouncing my check with which I endeavored to pay my plumber last month.

By my calculations, three nanoseconds must have elapsed between his presenting the check and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honor it.

I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly deposit of my entire pension, an arrangement which, I admit, has been in place for only eight years.

You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account $30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank.

My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways. I noticed that whereas I personally answer your telephone calls and letters, — when I try to contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal, overcharging, pre-recorded, faceless entity which your bank has become.

From now on, I, like you, choose only to deal with a flesh-and-blood person.

My mortgage and loan repayments will therefore and hereafter no longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank, by check, addressed personally and confidentially to an employee at your bank whom you must nominate.

Be aware that it is an OFFENSE under the Postal Act for any other person to open such an envelope.

Please find attached an Application Contact which I require your chosen employee to complete.

I am sorry it runs to eight pages, but in order that I know as much about him or her as your bank knows about me, there is no alternative.

Please note that all copies of his or her medical history must be countersigned by a Notary Public, and the mandatory details of his/her financial situation (income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by documented proof.

In due course, at MY convenience, I will issue your employee with a PIN number which he/she must quote in dealings with me.

I regret that it cannot be shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modeled it on the number of button presses required of me to access my account balance on your phone bank service.

As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Let me level the playing field even further.

When you call me, press buttons as follows:

IMMEDIATELY AFTER DIALING, PRESS THE STAR (*) BUTTON FOR ENGLISH

#1. To make an appointment to see me

#2. To query a missing payment.

#3. To transfer the call to my living room in case I am there.

#4 To transfer the call to my bedroom in case I am sleeping.

#5. To transfer the call to my toilet in case I am attending to nature.

#6. To transfer the call to my mobile phone if I am not at home.

#7. To leave a message on my computer, a password to access my computer is required.

Password will be communicated to you at a later date to that Authorized Contact mentioned earlier.

#8. To return to the main menu and to listen to options 1 through 7

#9. To make a general complaint or inquiry.

The contact will then be put on hold, pending the attention of my automated answering service.

#10. This is a second reminder to press* for English.

While this may, on occasion, involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music will play for the duration of the call.

Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy an establishment fee to cover the setting up of this new arrangement.

Your Humble Client

And remember:

Don’t make old people mad.

We don’t like being old in the first place, so it doesn’t take much to pi$$ us off.

Re: Senior Citizen's Letter to Bank-get ready to laugh!

maestra — Thu, 06 Oct 2016 23:55:01 GMT

My kinda guy!!

Re: Senior Citizen's Letter to Bank-get ready to laugh!

Bhvbum — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 00:07:10 GMT

You think a man wrote this? My reaction, that only a woman could have produced such a well-written letter, with details, humor and steel.

Re: Senior Citizen's Letter to Bank-get ready to laugh!

sidsmom — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 00:13:48 GMT

If true, maybe all that time & detail should be spent on his/her

account as not to bounce said check in the first place.

Pssst: Check Kiting is fraud.

Re: Senior Citizen's Letter to Bank-get ready to laugh!

Wayne-QVC — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 00:19:40 GMT

This post has been removed by QVC because it's argumentative

Re: Senior Citizen's Letter to Bank-get ready to laugh!

Cakers3 — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 00:21:21 GMT

@sidsmom wrote:
If true, maybe all that time & detail should be spent on his/her
account as not to bounce said check in the first place.
Pssst: Check Kiting is fraud.

@sidsmom I agree. It would have taken more than a nano second for his check to bounce.

He had to have known (after 8 years) the date or day of the month that his pension check is deposited. The plumber took the check and deposited his earned payment most likely the same day. The pension could not have possibly been available that same day or the check would not have bounced.

He doesn't understand the flow of $$ through the bank.

While the letter is "clever" at best it won't happen.

Re: Senior Citizen's Letter to Bank-get ready to laugh!

Bridgegal — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 01:02:02 GMT

@Bhvbum wrote:
You think a man wrote this? My reaction, that only a woman could have produced such a well-written letter, with details, humor and steel.

OH I agree. As I read it, I could only see a woman writing it.

Re: Senior Citizen's Letter to Bank-get ready to laugh!

DJP — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 01:09:16 GMT

That's priceless !!!!!

Re: Senior Citizen's Letter to Bank-get ready to laugh!

mstyrion 1 — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 01:15:55 GMT

@sidsmom wrote:
If true, maybe all that time & detail should be spent on his/her
account as not to bounce said check in the first place.
Pssst: Check Kiting is fraud.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Senior Citizen's Letter to Bank-get ready to laugh!

SunValley — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 01:17:56 GMT

While I appreciate the irony and humor of the letter, I have to agree that writing checks without funds available is not a sound financial practice. The letter writer should close what accounts they can and go to another financial institution if this one is too difficult to work with, but existing mortgages, loans, and auto deposits will make this a cumbersome and somewhat difficult maneuver. Easier solution, just don't write bad checks.

Re: Senior Citizen's Letter to Bank-get ready to laugh!

Sooner — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 01:37:22 GMT

Seems to be an exercise in cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.

Re: Senior Citizen's Letter to Bank-get ready to laugh!

KYToby — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 02:28:15 GMT

While I know this is supposed to be funny, I find no humor in it at al. In fact, I find the writer of the letter to be a jerk.

The moral of the story is that he wrote a bad chek. He did not have money in the account when he wrote it. He deserves the penalty.

As for sending loan payments to one specific person, he could try thaet; however, his loan agreements (surely) stipulate where the payments must be made. Sending t to a speifi person would only serve to delay the payments (and possibly have them lost) resulting in penalties.

If he wants to be a jerk, go for it, but maybe he should accept responsibility for doing something he should not have done.

Re: Senior Citizen's Letter to Bank-get ready to laugh!

Barbara-QVC — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 02:35:32 GMT

This post has been removed by QVC because it is unkind.

Re: Senior Citizen's Letter to Bank-get ready to laugh!

kivah — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 02:37:48 GMT

@Bridgegal

This was definitely written by a woman. I could have written it myself. So aggravating to try to call ur local bank with so many button choices and options. Sometimes I just hang up - in tears.

Re: Senior Citizen's Letter to Bank-get ready to laugh!

chi5925 — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 02:36:55 GMT

@KYToby wrote:
While I know this is supposed to be funny, I find no humor in it at al. In fact, I find the writer of the letter to be a jerk.

The moral of the story is that he wrote a bad chek. He did not have money in the account when he wrote it. He deserves the penalty.

As for sending loan payments to one specific person, he could try thaet; however, his loan agreements (surely) stipulate where the payments must be made. Sending t to a speifi person would only serve to delay the payments (and possibly have them lost) resulting in penalties.

If he wants to be a jerk, go for it, but maybe he should accept responsibility for doing something he should not have done.

Good grief! The letter is a joke. As I said to another poster....how about finding your sense of humor?

Re: Senior Citizen's Letter to Bank-get ready to laugh!

sidsmom — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 02:45:20 GMT

Snopes.com (Legand)

Origins: Although cast as a humor piece, this item is also a sardonic expression of the frustrations we've all felt in dealing with mindless bureaucracy, rigidly-enforced rules, and unreasoning electronic attendants in conducting business transactions. ATMs are great when they work properly, but when they fail to dispense the correct amount of cash or we push the wrong buttons, we can't straighten matters out by talking to them; even worse, when we call the bank to discuss the issue, we have to run a gauntlet of menu options and automated responses before reaching a human being who may or may not be able to solve our problem. Our checks are processed by machines that don't catch many of the errors a real person would notice (e.g., no entry on the "Pay to" line, missing signatures, postdating). We get dinged for writing checks that bounce, and we get dinged for depositing checks that bounce (even when the latter isn't our fault). All of this adds up to a frustrating system with no leeway and no tolerance for variation or unusual circumstances, and if something doesn't go exactly right, we customers usually end up with the short end of the stick (and spend aggravating amounts of time and effort trying to rectify the problem).

The letter quoted above was one man's method of blowing off steam at having to deal with some of these exasperating aspects of modern banking. It was penned by Peter Wear, a columnist for the Courier Mail in Brisbane, Australia, for that publication's "Perspectives" column. The letter was not actually sent to a bank; it was a humor piece from start to finish, albeit one inspired by the author's actually having had one of his checks bounce.

Though the item did appear in an actual newspaper, it was not, however (as claimed in the Internet-circulated version's prologue), published in the New York Times. Mr. Wear's sardonic offering about the over-mechanized joys of banking as experienced by the consumer was written in January 1999, and since then, anonymous rewriters have been moved to alter his original to make it better fit with a primarily American audience.

Although the event which supposedly triggered this letter (i.e., a check's bouncing because it was presented for payment shortly before a direct deposit of the funds necessary to cover the check was credited to the payer's account) may be irksome, that situation might be more the customer's fault than the bank's. One should always verify with his bank that his account holds sufficient funds before issuing a check that could potentially exceed the amount on deposit; writing a check on faith that the necessary funds will be in the account before the check is presented for payment is a very bad practice.

Even if the bank knows a particular customer's employer regularly credits a specified amount to his account every two weeks through direct deposit, they can't be expected to act on the assumption the next deposit will arrive as usual: for all they know the customer could have been fired or laid off since the last deposit, his employer might have gone belly-up, or the employer's business might be in financial straits and unable to meet its payroll. Making sure enough money is on hand to pay the plumber is the customer's responsibility, not the bank's.

Variations: In March 2003, some versions in circulation credited the letter to "a 96 year old woman."

Last updated: 8 September 2015

Re: Senior Citizen's Letter to Bank-get ready to laugh!

pattypeep — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 14:12:28 GMT

I'm sure this was just someone writing a funny not unlike the letter I wrote my boss on April Fools day which was enjoyed hysterically by the whole office. The line that got the most roars was when I said "I get pisster and pisster".

Re: Senior Citizen's Letter to Bank-get ready to laugh!

wvumountiefan — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 14:19:06 GMT

I was LOL, especially when he started about calling a bank and having to press certain numbers! 😂 I have felt his frustration so many times. We all know that it's not just banks, it's everywhere!

Re: Senior Citizen's Letter to Bank-get ready to laugh!

beckyb1012 — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 14:24:09 GMT

@pattypeep wrote:
I'm sure this was just someone writing a funny not unlike the letter I wrote my boss on April Fools day which was enjoyed hysterically by the whole office. The line that got the most roars was when I said "I get pisster and pisster".

Love the letter!

@pattypeepMy favorite April's Fools Day was in 1998 fell before my boss was going on a month long trip to Europe and we were swamped that last day to get him off. I told him I had to give him my two weeks notice. The man almost fainted. I kept it going for about 20 minutes then just reminded him of the joke he pulled on me with the bloody robotic rat that moved voice activated. I had just quit smoking and it was Halloween. I told him I would get him back one day. It was a hoot. He was picking up the phone to change his plans. Worked for him until he passed unexpectedly in 2012 and now it is just me and his brother.

Re: Senior Citizen's Letter to Bank-get ready to laugh!

pattypeep — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 14:29:04 GMT

@beckyb1012 wrote:
@pattypeep wrote:
I'm sure this was just someone writing a funny not unlike the letter I wrote my boss on April Fools day which was enjoyed hysterically by the whole office. The line that got the most roars was when I said "I get pisster and pisster".
Love the letter!
@pattypeepMy favorite April's Fools Day was in 1998 fell before my boss was going on a month long trip to Europe and we were swamped that last day to get him off. I told him I had to give him my two weeks notice. The man almost fainted. I kept it going for about 20 minutes then just reminded him of the joke he pulled on me with the bloody robotic rat that moved voice activated. I had just quit smoking and it was Halloween. I told him I would get him back one day. It was a hoot. He was picking up the phone to change his plans. Worked for him until he passed unexpectedly in 2012 and now it is just me and his brother.

That is just too funny. The letter I wrote was also a letter of resignation. You got your boss good !!