Should Ally Bank Penalize Me for 6 Months over a $1.63 Mistake?

[Igel]

59. First, the penalty is by algorithm.

The computer is programmed, and isn't programmed with discretionary authority.

Being "repeatedly overdrawn" can include, according to the regulation you cite, when "On six or more banking days during the previous six months the account had a negative balance, or would have had a negative balance had checks and charges been paid".

You view that as one instance, the act of overdrawing your account. But if the overdrawn status is reviewed nightly and isn't an act but a state: On day one your account is overdrawn, on day 2 your account is overdrawn, on day 3 your account is overdrawn. So the status of your account is repeated day after day, and that's "overdrawn."

Yes, it's semantics. Searlean, in fact, and types of verbs. Do you regard "overdrawn" for a week as the result of a single action or is it a state that is determined daily? The regulation is clear: It's the state. For most people there's little enough awareness of how their own language works to see the difference, often even after working at it.


Put this into the "zero tolerance" movement. There have always been regs like this--back in the '80s there were regs like that, my roommate was often hit by fees he deemed excessive. We're zero-tolerant of "them," and so they're zero-tolerant of "us."


My sister-in-law worked as a bank manager and this kind of stuff left her really pissed off. Because most of the people complaining about fairly small consequences over fairly small infractions treat them as major events. She routinely suspended penalties for people who once in a year would overdraw their account by a small amount if they came in, presented their case in a clear and non-combative manner, and asked if something could be done. She'd routinely scowl and say "no" if they came in on the rampage and treated her as a personal enemy. That's where the lack of computer discretion meets reality and customer relations and the fact that the people on both sides of the counter or desk are actually people. Except that by and large those who knew the system could use the system, while a lot of people assumed that the banks and managers were enemies and either went in with claws out and teeth bared or simply refused to even entertain the idea.

More than once I've missed my credit card payment deadline, very seldom by more than a few hours. That said, we're talking perhaps 8 or 9 times in a dozen years. I've never had the credit card company fail to reverse the interest payment or reset the credit card interest amount back to "good client" levels when I've called, explained, and asked. (Again, my roommate's experience was different, but when you call the poor woman on the other end a "bitch" and "whore" working for a "cut-throat" and "greedy" company, you don't promote the kind of humanist solidarity that engenders a willingness to bend the rules even a bit.)

You catch more flies with honey than with M-16s. The easiest way to reap a truckload of ill-will is to go in and dump a bushel of ill-will on another person with little warning.