Just need to vent about US Bank.

This old thread is № 1.

№ 2:

About 25 years ago I was moving away from the suburbs of Denver. Over many years of living there, I had built up a lot of loose change. I gathered it all up and it big-filled a gallon-size freezer bag.

I took the bag of change and a few checks to my bank, a local one called 1stBank (this was back when those still existed; I think they got bought out by Wells-Fargo or one of the other big scummy ones). They didn't have an automatic change sorter; all they could offer was those paper coin sleeves and a chair where I could sit and hand-roll all those coins. Don't think so. Their branch across town had a sorter, but it was approaching rush hour, so driving there and back would have been a multiple-hours-in-traffic pain.

There was a Wells Fargo bank across the street that had previously been another local bank called Columbia Savings. My bank called the Wells Fargo for me and asked if they had a change sorter: yes, for customers only.

Even back then, before the last two decades' worth of revelations about just how slimy Wells Fargo is, there were good reasons why I wasn't interested in being a WF customer.

'Tis the season: remember that scene where the Grinch gets this big ѕhіt-eatin' grin across his face? Yeah, I got an idea.

I deposited my checks at 1stBank less a $100 bill, which I shoved in my pocket. Went across to Wells Fargo, put my bag of change on the front desk, and asked for it to be converted to bills.

The lady goes, "Do you have an account here? The change sorter is only for Wells Fargo account holders."

Sez me: "I would like to open an account", and those were apparently the magic words; I was brought to the desk of the account manager, who went over the account options with me. I like accounts that don't have service fees or minimum balances, so I chose their "Incredible Free Checking" or whatever, which required only that the account be opened with $100.

Well! Habbout that; I just happened to have a $100 bill right here!

The account manager ran two soft credit checks and some other kind of a background check. All three came back clear, and all three must've cost the bank some measure of money. She spent a good 15 minutes doing the setup on her computer, filling forms, and then printing up 20 starter checks. I begged off on ordering real checks because I was moving and didn't yet know my new address.

So 25 minutes later, I had a brand-new Incredible Free Checking account and 20 specially-printed starter checks. I was still well ahead on time spent, compared to sitting in a traffic jam.

I thanked Ms. Manager, got up from her desk and went over to the teller line, put up my bag of change, and forty seconds later got $71 worth of $2 bills (I asked for them specifically), a new dollar coin, 77¢, and a few foreign coins. Will there be anything else? Yes, thanks, I'd like to withdraw $100—just a hundred-dollar bill will be fine, thanks—from my Incredible Free Checking account.

Then back over to the account manager's desk and I asked her to please close my account. She said "But you just opened it!" I said "Yep, and now I'd like to close it, please." She did a bunch of key punching and digging forms out of trays (every minute spent on me was costing WF money), then said "Okay, I've closed it, but may I know why?"

I said "I became a customer nine minutes ago because of your customers-only rule for the change sorter. My time as a customer cost you whatever-all administrative time and effort it took to open the account, and whatever fees you were charged for those background checks on me, and the material and operating costs to print up the starter checks, and the time and effort it took you to close my account. And it also cost you any possibility of my ever becoming a Wells Fargo customer for more than the nine minutes."

She didn't seem to know what to say. I went back across the street to 1stBank and deposited my $172.77, where the tellers got a real hoot out of my story.

Wells-Fargo sent me a statement on that account ("Initial balance: $100. Withdrawals total: $100", blah blah blah, blah blah, two pages of +$100, -$100, +$100, -$100), which drove their costs even higher. Maybe I should have withdrawn $99.99 from this no- minimum-balance account and just walked away from it, and see how long they spend money to generate monthly statements for $0.01.