Money For Nothing (and your chicks for free)

This week we received a couple of charges from our Canadian Bank. We have been with the Bank for about 3 decades now. In fact, long ago, I used to work for them. While we live here in the U.S., we still maintain the Canadian account to pay for gifts for relatives, and to pay Canadian tuition for my son.

This month we were greeted with a $2.50 "maintenance charge" and a $1 "statement charge" - for an idle account.

They aren't keeping up with customer expectations in the world of Web 2.0.

I can blog at a dozen sites for free. I can have personal websites hosted for free. I can use any of a dozen free email services. I can publish e-books for free. I can store photos, download and view videos, join social networks - for free.

There was a time when having idle accounts actually did cost the Bank money - back in a time when we had to balance the accounts to ledgers BY HAND!

I think the Bank's customers are saavy enough to figure out that these charges are remnants of past business practices and don't have a place in the 21st Century.

It's nothing but gouging.

If they don't understand it now, they'll get the message when I ask them to close my account.