I know one bank around here that is making an offer that's really making me scratch my head.

If you open an account with them, you get a free Snuggie. As Jay Leno said -- why not just wear your bathrobe backwards?

What's with that? What a crazy offer.

Here is a link that might be useful: Bank here! Get a Snuggie!

My company where I have (what's left of) my 401(k) insists on mailing me the prospectus (prospecti?) every quarter, but lets me get my statement via email. Why not just email me the blasted prospectus?

That's hilarious! Open an acct and get a $15.00 backwards blanket!

I got several letters a few years ago from the IRS over less than $2. They were trying to figure out whether I wanted it refunded to me, or just applied to my estimated taxes. It took several letters from me (and my accountant, which I had to pay his services for) to get the whole matter straightened out. The initial letter from them was about $0.72, but then they sent a letter saying they owed me a little over a dollar, then they decided I owed them about $1.50. The whole thing was really ridiculous because we spent way more than that in postage, plus had to pay our accountant to take care of the whole thing. In the end, it was all dropped because it was just an error on their part and we didn't even get our $0.72 refund!

We have a small local bank that is offering a 10% apy 12 month $1000 CD. People are flocking to buy these things because the bank has not put an upper limit on number you can buy.

I'm not at all sure how they are going to be paying that interest rate with the credit market still so tight....

We received a letter from our cc (from a major bank), informing us that our interest rate would change from 18% to 29% in 30 days (just in time for Christmas). We've had the card for about 10 years and always paid on time. I know, that makes us less than ideal customers from the banks point of view. We chose to call the company to opt out which means that when my card expires, the account will be closed. Fortunately, I had lost my card a few months ago (to the dryer) so they sent a new one with a later expiration date. We have 2+ more years on this one.
Hard to see how they are going broke.
Jo

What happened to those days where you would get a credit card in the mail that was interest free for 6 months? And would let you transfer your old credit card balance to it...
I would use that as sort of a "revolving debt" card for big purchases.
But where did they find that $.24 after a year? Perhaps more than a year I don't remember.
Linda C

Lindac: It might have been interest earned before the account was closed, but applied to the account after the it was closed. For instance, if you closed the account on the second day of the month, but the dividend was typically applied to accounts at the end of the month, and it's been sitting in the closed account until the bank finally cleared it out. I've been carrying 19 cents on a savings account that I closed out for that reason. It's just sitting there.
I once received a US Treasuring check from the IRS for 37 cents! No explanation! I should have framed it.

I may frame these....but the frames would cost more than the checks are for...
Forgot to take them to the bank...
Maybe I'll just stash them and derive the accountants crazy!
Linda c

Stash them in a strong box and let your heirs wonder, "what was she thinking"? That's what I hope to do. I want to drive those circling sharks crazy with aunt "annie's" eccentricities!! I wish I still had that IRS check to put into a box! How funny would that be!!
Annie1971

We received monthly statement on a line of credit that was closed for over a year afterward!!! Mind you, we owed nothing on the line of credit when we closed it. A year + of statements saying we owed nothing! Every month we'd call them and tell them the account was closed and to stop sending statements. They'd say the same thing, "Yes, we can see the account is closed. So that should be your last statement."

I come from a banking family, with many bank presidents among my uncles, but I do not have a banking story to tell. My bureaucratic story is from when I was getting my design degree from UT Austin. I already had a B.A. from Rice University with a double major - German/English and had taken summer graduate courses in German at UT Austin while I was at Rice (Rice does not have summer classes, due to the oppressive Houston summer weather), but I was still required to take two classes listed at "writing components" in order to get a B.S. in Interior Design! I didn't matter that I was a published author - I had to take classes designated as writing components to prove I was literate!

The Interior Design department was in the Homemaking Department, which was in the Social Sciences School, meaning that I had to take two semesters of biological science to get an ID degree! Of course it would have been better if I could have gotten a graduate degree, but that was not offered. While at UT I took a graduate course in History of Architecture to help fill the ID requirement, but I was then told that graduate courses could not count toward an undergraduate degree. The degree I ended up getting was a B.S., which was fortunate because they would not have allowed me to get an additional B.A. degree. I still have nightmares about this - including last night. At Rice, everything was negotiable (It is a private school), and Rice allowed me to take graduate courses for my undergraduate degree with no questions asked. For my UT degree, I had to have the professor of the graduate level History of Architecture class (where I made the highest grade in the class) write a note saying that it was acceptable to downgrade the course to undergraduate. Even she thought that was silly, but at UT rules are unbendable. I learned a lot about bureaucracy there. I'm glad I took the graduate course, however, as it allowed me to do some interesting research.

Lars

LOL! Hopefully everyone saw the news of our bailout babies running misbranded mortgages out of the Cayman Islands while buying CDOs to cover them during the coming collapse they were causing.

A world wide economic depression caused by plain crooks.

: (
lyra

The banks are going broke because they're liars, crooks and idiots to boot.

And that's all I've got to say about that..... (name that movie!!)

:-)

Deanna

I don't 'have a bank story, but the State of Michigan once mailed me a refund of $21.00, saying they had reviewed my tax return and I had made a mistake. Cool.

Two weeks later I got a bill from the State of Michigan saying that I owed them $21 plus interest. I called, told them they could have the check back, explained the situation. They said OK, they didn't know what the problem was.

A couple of weeks later I got a $21 check for over payment. And a couple of weeks later a bill for $21.

We did this three times before they stopped sending me checks or bills, and I think we broke even, I was right in the first place.

Annie

OOA: What frightens me is that at some point I'm not going to be in a position to challenge them!! (I.e., what's the 37 cents for; why are you sending me this bill, etc., etc.)
We babyboomers need to stand up now before our generation cannot speak for themselves!!
What would you all ask for if given the opportunity at your age and stage in life?
annie1971