Bank of America and the $168 Pizza

anyone who has experienced moving to a new apartment-- especially with new roommates-- knows there is this acrobatic financial act that happens a few weeks before the move; before everything is decided and forms are filled, you sit in a sort of pow-wow and outwardly admit how much money you have and how much you make/can make [legally or illegally] by the time the lease needs to be signed.

of course none of us factor in the price of toilet paper, stamps, or chaos.

what happened is this: we were all set to have the right amount of money-- even if carmen the cat required a $500 deposit.

and we began the process of paper-signing. it was a grueling process and unnecessarily long. of course, during the process of signing our names and forging some of our parents' one of my two roommates unofficially lost his job. he never formally lost it and may, in all technicality, still work for the same seedy bosses he'd been hating since i met him. but, long story short, they stopped giving him hours and that cut his budget in all kinds of halves.

and then his mom spent his $500 tax return which he had factored into his dollar-count.

the remaining two of us looked at our bank statements and our counterfeiting abilities before deciding we could cover his expenses so long as we could each survive on $100 for a week-- which shouldn't have been hard.

this was all done in the name of friendship and in the name of a new apartment.

but i was in no way prepared to be so broke so immediately. i've been broke my entire life, minus the last three years. since 2007, i have been so financially comfortable i've had no need to prepare for poordom and-- needless to say-- had not prepared.

that $100 was $18 from gone by tuesday.

and tuesday is the day i underwent that maniacal pizza experience, which caused an overdraft.

when i wrote that article, i had believed the second pizza would cost me a $35 dollar overdraft fee and i would whine about the price, but ultimately get over it.

a few days later, i found things to be worse.

you see, when i ordered the first pizza (which never came) i was left with a balance of $3.46 and a series of pending charges. those charges-- pending or not-- were factored into my balance and even if they were processed, i should have still had $3.46-- but the important thing is, i was in no way in danger of overdrafting.

the second [last-minute emergency] pizza was $28 and a sure overdraft-- but i knew that. when you're forced to entertain the requests of millionaires for nine hours and haven't eaten in twelve, you do some silly things just to get food into your belly. if you don't understand, perhaps one day you will-- but hopefully not.

however, in bank of america's eyes, what happened was entirely different.

because the pizza charge was processed immediately, i overdrafted immediately. and then came the pending coffee charges and the rest. the coffee which was bought three days prior was processed after the pizza and tacked on another $35 in overdraft fees.

the cigarettes from a week ago came next: another $35.

benny & joon, a used johnny depp dvd from two weeks ago: $35.

overdraft, overdraft, overdraft... overdraft.

i wound up with $140 in fees because of one pizza and one devious bank. a $168 pizza.

i had assumed that the bank would be respectable enough to say, "he purchased all those little things well before the pizza. the pizza was the only overdraft." and left me owing $35.

what they chose to say was, "we recognize you spent all of that weeks ago and really only overdrafted with the pizza, but those charges were processed after the pizza so they all count as overdrafts and you now owe $140 in fees."

i really did not want to spend my saturday (your wednesday) inside a bank, but i wanted that slightly less than paying over a hundred dollars because the owner of lagos pizza lost his dad and my bank is an asshole.

what gets me is that i was aiming to help my new roommate with money trouble, i ordered from a delivery service i have outwardly advertised for and i used my bank that i have stood up for time after time and it seems the end result was everyone winning except for me.

unnacceptable.

so, i was in the bank.

after a few meaningless sentences about the weather in san jose (where the teller lives and where i grew up), she removed one of my four overdraft fees. apparently it was more of the computer's doing than her doing and she explained she did not have enough power to veto the computer's remaining three overdrafts.

the facts were this:

1. only a manager could remove the remaining overdraft fees.
2. the manager was not in.
3. every manager of every bank of america in san francisco (58 of them) is not in because there is a city-wide manager meeting taking place.
4. it would be best to come back the next day.

i will get my money back.

i really did not want to spend my sunday (your thursday) inside a bank, but i wanted that slightly less than paying over a hundred dollars because the owner of lagos pizza lost his dad and my bank is an asshole.

so i was in the bank. again.

the second trip was only slightly worse than the first. in fact, the only good part of the second trip was finding out that the $35 i was supposedly refunded on the first trip was not actually "finalized" but would be due to my second questioning.

but again, it was a situation where the computers had more control than the people with ties and name-tags. and i'd find that a tiny bit less disturbing if we weren't talking about $105 of mine.

"the good news is you were actually charged with five overdrafts," the manager said with a smile, "not four."

"that's the good news? how is that good news?"

"well, because the first overdraft was under $10, we didn't process it as an overdraft! but, the next three were a charge of $6.50, then $5.70, then $2.00-- we wouldn't have charged you for the rest, but they added up to more than $10."

"if that's the case," i started, "why didn't you choose to start with the $2.00 and the $5.70 which would still not add up to $10, but would've saved me $70 in fees?"

"it's just the order the transactions came through."

"that's not even the order in which i purchased those items. what i'm asking is that you look at this from a human point of view and realize that the pizza was the overdraft and the remaining three charges came from things purchased prior to the pizza."

"yeah," he said slowly, "i'd like to, it's just the computer doesn't see it like that. all it sees is how many times you overdrafted."

"reason with me," i begged, "do you honestly believe that i bought a pizza knowing i'd overdraft and then woke up the next day and said, 'you know what would be nice? a cup of coffee, a pack of cigarettes and a used johnny depp dvd' knowing i didn't have the money?"

"not conciously."

ooh. "not consciously." that fucking dick. there is no point in a conversation with a man controlled by a computer-- especially the minute he starts with lawyer speak ("not consciously" referring to the idea that he believes i did purchase all those items without having the money-- i just wasn't aware i was overdrafting.)

on the first trip to the bank i was told i had to come back the following day to speak with the right person. the second trip ended with "the right person" telling me he was not in fact the right person and that the right person would contact me in 3-4 business days by phone or email.

you've got to be kidding me.

look, i know we've all battled overdrafts and i know that some of the times it's just our own stupid mistake. i know that even when it's our fault we like to see if we can pin the blame on somewhere else. hell, we're american, it's what we do.

but this is different.

i had seen the pending charges of my coffee, cigarettes and dvd before purchasing my pizza. i knew that even after they were processed i'd be left with $3.46 in my account. and i knew the pizza would overdraft. if i made any mistake it was assuming that the bank would be logical enough to keep in mind the order in which i spent my money.

so i have one more mighty debate to have with one more banker (hopefully the right person this time) and depending on how it ends i may just be in the market for one of those hollow dictionaries that store all of your savings.

at least hollow dictionaries don't lie to you about how much money you have.

and at least if someone steals from your hollow dictionary you can find them and punch them in face.

plus, i really want to hollow out a dictionary-- it seems fun.

at this point, the entire thing almost makes me laugh. i never thought one medium-sized pepperoni pizza would spawn such an epic adventure.

i feel like harold crick in stranger than fiction except instead of a wristwatch changing my entire life and resulting in my imminent death, it's a god damn pizza.