Here was the response I got to the e-mail I sent to my bank about the three bounced payments last weekend:

NSF fees are imposed to offset the handling of items presented for payments for which there are not sufficient funds. We do offer two types of overdraft protection to assist customers in the event of an overdraft. These services include the Personal Line of Credit (PLOC) and Retail Overdraft Service. Information about the PLOC is available through our website. The Retail Overdraft Transfer Service is available to customers who are not eligible for a PLOC and who have an existing savings account with us.

As you did not have any overdraft protection established for this account, the NSF fee remains your responsibility. To apply for overdraft protection or for more information about either one of these services, please call a New Account Specialist at the numbers below.

Here’s my response:

Thank you for your explanation, but I’m afraid I still have questions. In your e-mail, you reference “a” (single) NSF payment. Was I only supposed to be charged one for the payments which processed on Friday? (I was charged three). If I was only supposed to be charged one (I was charged three), please feel free to ignore the rest of this e-mail.

Otherwise, perhaps you can explain to me why Chevy Chase Bank processed the payments in the order that they did. I’m sure, if you check, you’ll notice that if the payments had been processed in the reverse order, only one of the payments would have neccessitated the “handling of items presented for payments for which there are not sufficient funds.” I mean, call me crazy, but it almost seems like Chevy Chase Bank wanted me to bounce as many payments as possible so as to require me to pay as much in NSF fees as possible. This is why, as in my original e-mail, I only requested the forgiveness of two of the NSF fees, because I was certainly at fault for the third (and I’m not trying to contest that third NSF, it’s the first two that concern me).

Like I said in my original e-mail to you, I’m a poor college student. I really feel like I’m being nickel and dimed here. I’ve been a long-standing customer of Chevy Chase Bank. I really don’t feel, given my current financial situation that I’ve described in my original e-mail, that I warrant this treatment from this bank, or that I’m asking for anything outrageous.

Notice the lack of any form of the word “fuck” in my attempt at persuasion.

UPDATE:

Epiph, good point. I bank — although for how much longer is in question — with Chevy Chase.

I need to determine if I am, indeed, a helpless sap.

Last week, I blogged about choking up at the end of Love Actually. Saturday night, when I got home after a long day working at both jobs, Netflix had Click, the Adam Sandler/Chris Walken flick about a magic remote control, waiting for me in my mailbox. So I put some Lean Pockets in the oven, poured myself a glass of milk, and stuck the movie in my DVD player. After figuring out what tray I’d put it in (I have a 5-disc changer), I watched it. And while the movie is billed as a comedy, and starts as a comedy, it quickly turns into a tear jerker as the remote control begins taking Sandler farther and farther into his future life, with no possibility for his return.

So, there I am, sitting in my reclining IKEA chair, laptop in my lap, empty plate of Lean Pockets to the left of me, empty glass of milk to the right of me, and it isn’t that I’m choking back, mind you, it isn’t like I can choke back the tears threatening their way out of me; nope, I’m heaving and wheezing, the tears are running down my cheeks, my nose is running, and wiping the back of my hand across my face isn’t doing much to improve the situation. I’m sure any neighbors coming or going that early morning would have wondered what it was exactly I’d done to put myself in such a state, but as Old Adam is laying in that parking lot, his family gathered around him, imploring his son not to repeat his own mistakes, I just couldn’t help but bawl.

Am I just a complete sap? I’m leaning towards “yes.”

Maybe it’s just me, but with the spring-like weather of Saturday replaced by the cold, bitter, windy stuff today and yesterday, I’m really thinking Mother Nature is a spring-fever tease.

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