Bank-bombed and hit with a stinking parking fine in one week!
THERE are weeks when everything goes your way and others when you wish you’d just stayed in bed. Last week was one of the latter. Among my pet hates of overcharged coffee at rip-off cafe franchises, bad quality coffee, parking tickets parsnips and cleverly disguised Turkish Delight sweets, I can now add inexplicable bank charges.
Having emptied my savings to put towards a car and braced myself for the repayments, I was shocked and horrified to get a statement from my bank telling me that I had paid a documents charge of around €70 for taking out a loan for thousands of euros, for which I am paying over 8 per cent in interest.
Having thanked me for taking out the loan, the bank had the audacity to slip in a charge like this €70 to print off a few pages and post them to me!
Having read the letter with eyes of furious anger I even went on to a ‘switch your bank’ website only to find that the sweetheart free banking deals of old are now a thing of the past. Unless you’re on mega bucks, you’re going to have to pay in most scenarios.
As someone who straddles the fine line between extravagant spending and poverty on an all-too-frequent basis, this development does not sit at all well with me. I want my pound of flesh for having been screwed.
Lo and behold the next day I get a letter from my bank outlining bank charges as if to hammer home the financial injustice being inflicted on me. There were charges for standing orders, ATM withdrawls, lodgements, loans, overdrafts. Having gone through the list I felt ill.
Back in the good old days banks looked after their customers. Now they’re gleefully screwing us! If I had the time I’d be their number one thorn in the ass or whatever the phrase is.
Having made a landmark decision recently to change electricity provider after discovering that for my loyalty I was receiving no reward.
I made an even more momentous decision to downgrade my Sky TV to a more affordable option, I felt I was getting somewhere.
It’s amazing how like the proverbial hamster on the wheel we can be, racing from one task to the next without moving forward in our lives. I ended up working late one night last week and I brought the laptop home. Having wrestled it from The Little Fella who wanted to play video games and watch ‘ The Big Bad Wolf ’, I managed to get some work done.
I drove to work with my encumbrance (the laptop) the next morning and parked up before turning into a hamster with tunnel vision when I got to work, completely forgetting about the car. I walked home to find no car and by the time I got into the yoke and turned the ignition I was greeted by the sight of a purple parking ticket cleaning my windscreen. Engulfed in flames of rage I vowed never to drive again to work and to never buy another car!