The Redbox Overdraw

For some unknown reason, banks tend to have this stereotype of being sly, ready to pull your pants down to you ankles and give you the old 'in-out'. Why they have this stigma, who knows? I mean, it's not like they charge you thirty-one dollars for each overdraw to your account, no matter how minimal.

Speaking completely hypothetically, of course, if one were to take advantage of the "Free Night Rental" for purchasing any large drink at McDonald's, one would need a credit or debit card. Now let's say this same individual happens to rent this DVD a couple minutes before midnight, and does not bring it back before 7:00 pm the next day. This poor old chap would have a dollar and ten cents charge tagged on, even though he only had the DVD for not even 24 hours. (Let Jack Bauer take care of this one!)

Of course, I have no problem with this system Micky D's has set up; in fact, I really think it's genius: taking advantage of the drive through mentality already in place, now giving out DVDs as well. However, when you get that extra buck charged onto your account, which may happen to be dangerously close to empty, so dangerously close, in fact, that many would say you happen to be "broke", that puts our little hypothetical renter in a bit of a pickle now, doesn't it?

I overdrew my account by one dollar (UNO PESO for our bilingual friends), and I owed my bank $31. Now, of course, I always have to outdo myself, so I made sure I overdrew another dollar, for the second free-rental DVD I got that night. I mean, if you overdraw once, you're irresponsible; you overdraw twice, and you're a man with a plan.

So I make my weekly journey to the bank to deposit a couple pay checks from a couple jobs, and as the girl behind the counter makes the transaction, she speaks those seductive words:
"You know you're negative......right?"
"As a matter of fact, I didn't know, but let's sort this out."
"OK, well after those two checks, your new balance is negative fourteen (some random change)."
"Ah, damn. Well here's fifteen bucks; we good now?"

That my friends, is the magic of Capitalist Banking. They spent maybe a little more than $2.20, and they managed to get about $65 dollars back. It's like dealing with the mob.

I probably would have tried to argue my way out of it, but I really didn't want that little girl behind the counter to have to pull out a baseball bat and break my kneecaps.