push(@mattress, $money)

WARNING: The following writing violates my "no obscenity on my front page rule" and for very good reason. Tonight I read in horror as my beloved bank sank under the waves of a merger, only to be replaced by one of the most truly despicable banks in the history of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. If you've got money in Citizens Bank, I urge you, for the love of all that is good and holy, to take it out and put it somewhere where it'll be respected. Your mattress may very well turn out to be the best place.

This is put me in a real foul, stinky mood tonight. During the course of the evening I stomped around, threw stuff, inadvertently scared the cats, and said lots of phrases that rhymed with things like "plucking stunts" and "dock-poking brother-truckers".

I have a checking account with a local bank called USTrust. For those not around the Boston area, UST is sort of the white hat bank. They're the ones who offer the free checking accounts, free ATM use (even non-UST ATMs) and a generally wonderful attitude. Customer service top-notch. I've lost my debit card before, and one call later, I've blocked it and gotten a new one sent on its way, for free. Good people. They're a refreshing bank in the face of banks like BankBoston and Fleet (which just merged, BTW) who love setting up odd tiered bank accounts that sock you with surcharges every time you dare even ask what your balance is (it doesn't really cost $1.00 of the computer's time to report back to you in a mechanized voice how much money you've got, does it? Mine does that for free but I gotta tell it what to say.) USTrust has been the favorite of students and other twentysomethings in the Boston area for precisely this reason.

Enter Citizen's Bank. I didn't know much about Citizen's until tonight. Tonight, I learned that they are probably one of the most evil banking entities out there since, say, BankAmerica in the 60s (remember? Hippies loved protesting BankAmerica. I could never figure out why. Fear of global economic domination? Today, of course, these self-same hippies are daytraders past full mid-life crisis mode, so I don't know what to think.)

Citizen's bought USTrust earlier this year for a lot of money. "Bought" is the kind word the happy media puts on the story. "Acquired" is a less happy word -- it's more or less 'acquired' in the same way a hawk 'acquires' a bunny rabbit. Citizen's is not doing what a hawk does after it acquires the bunny rabbit, though. No, sir. Hawks do not anally rape the nice bunnies before eating them.

I got a big pamphlet in the mail describing the changes Citizen's is imposing on us former USTrust customers. It's a big, glossy pamphlet, full of happy sentences like "As a community-focused bank, Citizens is proud to have the opportunity to build upon USTrust's commitment to providing you with exceptional personal service and convenience, paying close attention to the needs of your community." Of course, they could very well be repeating the word "solidified cattle dung" in Swahili over and over for all those words mean. The real message the pamphlet is giving, as determined from the numerous questions it puts in our mouths and the answers it gives, is this: HOWDY, KID. YOU'RE MY BITCH NOW.

They've divided up the old USTrust customers by bank balance and put them in different checking account "options". Yes, they say, options are good for us. Options are always good, right! More options means more freedom to choose, right? Sure. But the options we want aren't there. I have been moved from the "Free Checking" (notice that first word) to the "Combined Checking" account. I only have one account open with USTrust; there's nothing to combine. So, naturally, I am pretty darn confused.

Citizens feels that as a member of this Combined Checking community, I should be grateful. All I need to do is maintain a minimum balance of $1500. Daily. If I fall below that limit, as I often do when rent and car payments roll 'round, Citizens will gently deduct $14 from my account monthly until I wise up and earn more money. Thankfully, check-writing for me is still free.

Others don't fare so well. The "Basic Checking" account, which Citizens calls "low-cost" and a "good value", lets you write up to twelve withdrawals a month and only pay $2.50 a month in tribute. $1 per additional withdrawal will sock you if you dare write more than 12.

Keep in mind all of us good people before were under one checking account plan -- no monthly fee, no minimum monthly balance, no maximum number of withdrawals (check OR ATM, mind you), no nothing. We just had our money in the bank and could get at it whenever we wanted to. For Citizens to start imposing fees and telling us they're good values and low-cost is a real condescending slap in the face, I feel. It's like getting probed by the aliens who keep telling you it's a wonderful thing you're doing for science. And, frankly, it makes me furious.

But here's the kicker. Here's the whipped shit topping on the crap pie they're feeding us.

A few years ago, banks in Massachusetts started charging ATM surcharges on non-bank customers using their ATMs. If I as a USTrust customer use a BankBoston ATM, say, they charge me an extra $1.00 for the privilege of using their ATM.

Well, a group of banks (mostly smaller local chains) got together and made a pledge not to charge any foreign customers for using the ATM. They're called SUM, and they have bright friendly logos around all the ATMs they support. If your bank is a member of SUM, then you can use any SUM ATM free of charge. This saves me, on average, 75 cents a transaction.

Citizens has joined SUM. It did so because it wanted to make the merger look more appealing to the state. You know, making a deal to move the big deal along quicker. It's a token gesture, really, but one that apparently played a role in getting the merger approved and finalized and all that.

So non-Citizens customers, if their bank is affiliated with SUM, can come on over to the Citizens ATM, do all their banking there, and not get socked by Citizens. Fine and dandy, you say. Then you read the part of the pamphlet that says:

As a Citizens customer, you may use any of 1,000 SUM ATMs operated by other banks in Massachusetts, without a surcharge from that other bank. Please note that Citizens charges a $1.50 fee for using another bank's ATM, including the ATMs within SUM.

Didja hear that?

Did you hear that whisper?

It's saying "...and we're not even going to lube you up before we have our way with you. Now bend over and grab your knees and hope we're in a benevolent mood tonight."

Could this not be the most insulting, most stupid, most incredibly illogically rotten thing a bank's done to new customers? Performing a token gesture to get its way, then turning around and completely spitting upon those it claims to serve?! What insane syphilis-addled brain came up with this wonderful idea? Offsetting the projected "loss" of fee-less transactions by making the actual accountholders pay. How wonderful. How simply and truly wonderful. Words fail to describe the unspeakable horrors I've wished upon the Citizens executives for deciding to completely trash their customer base, while trying to tell us that it's "a great value". How stupid do they think we are, anyway?

Well, to Citizen's credit, they're not going to start socking this bank account with a $14 monthly under-balance fee for another year. Which is fine and dandy with me. Next Monday I'm going down to the Digital Credit Union and opening me an account. Then I'm taking all my money out of the hellpits and putting it in another bank -- which may or may not be another hellpit, but that's the risk I'm going to take.

But first, I'm going to go down to my local USTrust branch -- while it still is a USTrust branch -- and see what I can do to comiserate with these employees, to give them some kind of token of my esteem. And say "I'm sorry this had to happen to you."

It couldn't have happened to a nicer bank.

Citizens claims their slogan is "not your typical bank". And for that, I say, thank God. I'm sure given enough time and distance I won't so thoroughly detest them. But right now, expect a wonderful batch of Catatonic Comix next week. My main problem right now is figuring out how to depict Citizens CEO Jeff Fish (yes, that is his real name) gleefully masturbating on a pile of money while his harem of underaged Thai prostitutes clap and cheer him on.

I mean, if I gotta wonder what in the world he plans to do with $14/mo plus $1.50 for every foreign ATM transaction I make, I might as well use my imagination and think big.

Take care, and don't eat anything you shouldn't.