Money for nothing.

The last few weeks, financially, have been my own little corner of hell. I had decided that although I had been with the same bank for almost five years, it was time for a change. My bank, as it were, sucked. Still sucks, I'm sure, so I went to Shiny New Bank with high hopes of finding bank nirvana. SNB was fabulous. The special new accounts person couldn't have been more friendly, and she made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. She told me tales of automatic checking to savings transfers and lines of credit for overdraft protection and no monthly fees and just all sorts of goodness. She let me pick out some snazzy "Napa Valley" checks for free (whereas Ghetto Old Bank charged me for even the plainest of checks) and gave me a Mastercard debit card that was pretty. I left satisfied that I had made the right decision, and not at all daunted by the fact that I now needed to transfer the 50 kazillion automatic debits that come out of my checking account each month to my new account. Having just a touch of the OCD, I made a list, complete with phone numbers to call and dates to make the switch and charged forth with the changing. Most went smoothly. Gym? No problem. Car payment? Check. Netflix? Without a hitch. Student loans? Um, yeah, not so well. The neat folks at Big Bad Student Loan Place decided to ignore my request to change bank accounts and used the old bank account. Where there was no money. And where overdraft fees were incurred. When I realized what they had done, I thought, no problem, I'm sure they'll rectify it and refund the overdraft charges with a big fat sheepish apology. But not so much. It's frightening that I've found myself literally yelling into the phone to yet another "supervisor" who is telling me that they can't possible reverse it, even though they've double charged me for the month. I went to GW, where I paid a pretty penny for my education, so the student loan payments? Not so small. I've cursed at them. I may have even called one or two of them a not so nice name (this after a week of playing nice and professional). I still don't have any resolution.
And SNB? Not so shiny. They've decided to not extend the overdraft protection to me, which, well, sucks. Not that I'm out there bouncing checks left and right, but when something like the aforementioned student loan fiasco happens, I like to know I have a little back-up. Also? When my paycheck is direct deposited into my account, I have to wait 24 hours to use it. Um, people? I live in fucking Santa Barbara. It is expensive here. When it gets close to payday, I am just itching for that check to be deposited, and now I have to wait another 24 hours?? Fuck me. I'm totally going to keep my money under my mattress from now on.