Statement of Fees

I have just received from my bank a two-page letter entitled Statement of Fees. Its bottom line is that I have paid £0.00 in fees and £0.00 in interest. This got me wondering what it costs the bank to print out and post these Fee Statements, and what it would cost them to get their programmer to wrap the relevant procedure call in a simple conditional:

for customer in customer_dbase do
  if customer.feetotal > 0 then
     send-fee-letter (customer)
  end -- if
end -- for

Opt for online communications. I get my statements and bank account-related letters when I log into my account, with an email to notify me when something new is available to look at.

I have just received from my bank a two-page letter entitled Statement of Fees. Its bottom line is that I have paid £0.00 in fees and £0.00 in interest. This got me wondering what it costs the bank to print out and post these Fee Statements, and what it would cost them to get their programmer to wrap the relevant procedure call in a simple conditional:

They did exactly this, but due to a rounding error, that fee of £0.004 resulted in a letter posted to you :-)

due to a rounding error

I thought banking software only used integer arithmetic for cash :-). Of course, the inclusion of the conditional may be trivial modification for a programmer, but getting somebody responsible to authorize a software update sounds like a more intractable matter.

I had to visit my bank this morning to order another chequebook, there being nothing about that, as far as I can see, on my bank’s website. I use one cheque each month, for the milkman. The milk suppliers used to have a website that I could log onto to order all manner of goods and to pay my milk bill. Then they upgraded the website, and I, with no doubt hundreds of thousands of other customers, could no longer use it, as when it came to authorizing payment their bank’s website refused to recognize me. I complained about this. In vain. Eventually my only way of communicating with them was through the offices of my milkman, Mark. I leave a note for orders, and my payment cheques, in an empty milk bottle for his collection. This is a true parable about the digital revolution.

It’s a legal thing. I think the EU introduced it because some banks were heaping on all sorts of charges, so now every year you will get a letter stating how much you paid in fees and how much interest.

The letter is not as dumb as it seems. Paying zero is a valid response.

I got one of those too. Paid about fifty or so euros in fees (banking isn’t free…) last year.
I filed it on the pile of assorted papers on the table. A pile that, thanks to the events since last autumn, is over a foot tall. :-/

Opt for online communications.

I bluntly refuse, as things like statements and utility bills are used as “proof of residence” (both in being here, and being specifically there). When the bank asked me, a while back, why I kept refusing their requests for online banking (complete with a demonstration PDF statement), I went back the next day with the bank statement of Mickey Mouse showing a lot of purchases from Fromage-Direct. The man wasn’t sure if he should be horrified at what I did or amused by it. But the point was made. He asked how I got around the document edit security. I said I just zoomed it up big and took screenshots, pasted all the bits into a word processor, took ages getting the text to match up, and then filled in the rest.
If it’s on their headed paper, it’s official. If it’s something I fart out my inkjet printer, it’s meaningless.

I thought banking software only used integer arithmetic for cash :-)

Probably the same as petrol pumps that price fuel to a tenth of a penny, yet still manage to skip from 11,99 to 12,01.

[wow – you still have a milkman…]

This is a true parable about the digital revolution.

It’s more a parable about management. The way I see it, there are three simple tasks that need to be performed.

1. Order stuff
2. Have stuff delivered
3. Pay for it

Admittedly the paying part might be harder these days with bank paranoia, but still…

I rather suspect management got taken with shiny-shiny and the fact that it may well be an impediment rather than an aid? Easily swept under the carpet. It’s your computer, reinstall Windows, it’ll be fine.

Yes, it annoys me when companies take stuff that works and replace it with new and improved versions that are a crock of… A prime example here is Amazon’s wishlist. I used to like to browse stuff I’d put on a while back to see if prices are something I’m happier with. The old wishlist was numbered pages with something like 10 or 20 items per page. It was pretty straightforward.
Then they throw that away for this self-updating-page paradigm rubbish. Scroll to the bottom, more stuff is added. Which doesn’t sound bad until you realise that all the “before” stuff is still there. Get to a hundred or so items and the browser starts to crawl (PC, Android) or crashes out because of excessive resource use (iOS). Gee…thanks.

wow – you still have a milkman…

Dad always maintained that the milkman and the postman were a visiting lifeline for some elderly and isolated folk so when I got my own house I did the same and encouraged the continuation of the delivery service and check visits for that group in my “sphere of influence”

In truth if David Tooth finally retires then bringing milk from the supermarket on the way home wouldn’t be a hardship but what about the largely house bound?
What about those little (slightly nosy) daily checks?
Social Services have “under performed” for years and what the Tories have done to them makes things worse.

I rather suspect management got taken with shiny-shiny

It’s a feature of the career managers mind¹ and bells & whistles will always win over useful features in their minds. I could give examples that would fill this page and I wouldn’t even have to feature anything from last year.

¹ Such as it is.

Yes, we still have a milkman, Mark. He took over a few years ago from Mick-the-milk, whom we first met when we moved into the house in 1975. His little boy would accompany him on the float. By the time he retired it was his grandson on the float. When his employer was taken over by a bigger company he got the push, and joined a small rival company. Everybody in the village then moved their accounts to the rival company, so that Mick could continue his rounds. When he retired the village put on a party for him, with a cake in the shape of a milk float, with marzipan milk churns.