Sure, $5 to Use an ATM Seems Reasonable

Soon it may be cheaper just to overdraw your bank account: J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., TD Bank Financial Group, and PNC Financial Services Group are the first three belles at the $5-ATM-fee ball, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The good news is that this fee is for non-customers: those hapless folk who find themselves twenty bucks short of a cab ride, and no sign of their own bank’s ATM anywhere. The bad news (besides Julie Taymor’s leaving Spiderman: The Musical: Turn Off the Dark: Fiasco – I mean, she’s an artist you guys, and no one understands her): though safe from ATM fees if you’re a J.P. Morgan Chase/TD Bank/PNC Financial customer, you’re not safe from a whole host of other fees on the horizon. This article from DailyFinance.com suggests that customers could see close to $150 in additional fees – charges for checking accounts, transfers, and other old-time perquisites – just for trusting their bank to hold their money.

It’s one of those scenarios where I’m situationally angry. Flush with paper money, I make concerned listening faces at people riled up over what some see as an insidious form of extortion. “But you didn’t have to use that ATM, right?” I’ll say, still making the concerned listening face, only now with a hint of condescending judgment. “You’re just kind of lazy, right? You and your generation and it’s instant gratification taking too long.”

Then, of course, there are those scenarios where the dry cleaners won’t release the only suit jacket I own that doesn’t look like a game show host’s because they still won’t take credit or debit cards, and then I’m all about the Righteous Struggle Against Inequity.

So how much is too much? Mount your prosecution (or defense) in the comments below.