Will Anyone Ever Be Able to Get Rid of the Bank Lobby in Washington?

Why You Should Be Concerned About What the Banks Can Do

It happens millions of times each day.  Someone pays $2.00, and then another $2.00 just to use an ATM machine that does not belong to their bank, but belongs to a "service" such as Visa or another network of ATM machines that will recognize it.  And millions of times each day, common, everyday consumers do absolutely nothing about it.  Stop and think about that for a moment.  Every day, banks make MILLIONS of dollars just for giving you access to your money.  So what justifies that?

Originally, the lobby for banks argued that it was for maintenance on the machines used to distribute the money. And no one was happy, but back then, the fee was about $0.25 to $0.50 per transaction.  Back then, the fee was charged one time by the bank that owned the machine, and we began to accept it.  I mean, who thinks about fifty cents when you withdraw fifty dollars?  Then at some point, our own banks started charging an identical fee.  Why?  Because they had to "process" the transactions.

Let's think about that for a moment.  "Process the transactions"?  So the computer systems they ALREADY had (Banking systems are alomst always the fastest to update their software to make it easier to transfer funds) in place were doing an AUTOMATED task, and yet we were required to pay an additional, identical fee so they could process it?  Well, OK, that was the mid 90's and after all, computers were not quite the fast machines they are now.  Ok, Let's not do anything about it now because it seems reasonable.