Gosh I hate to post this in public, but I need to rant because I am absolutely furious with our bank (Insert giant-corporate banking conglomerate name here).  We do much of our banking in one locale, and when Craig quit his job to start working on Crowd Fusion last summer, we took out a home equity line of credit in case we needed to dip into it to cover us in between "official" jobs.  Shortly after we got the line, our primary mortgage also was purchased by the same bank, putting too many of our eggs in one basket, in my opinion.  But what are you going to do?

Back in January I noticed a $25 debit to our checking account and questioned it in an email to them.  Somehow I let it slip through the cracks.  We keep tabs on our accounts mostly electronically, and it takes a few months to catch up sometimes.  I really don't know how I let it slip under the radar that they have been charging us $25/month for our checking account, which used to be FREE before we gave them more of our business.  The return message I was sent (and just read, 3 months later--that part is 'my bad'), tells me that we need a combined total debt and/or savings in our accounts of $250,000 in order to avoid the $25 fee!!!!!  Where the heck did that come from? 

I have a couple of accounts elsewhere that will charge me $5 if I go below a $500 balance.  That seems reasonable to me.  These guys have a half dozen assorted accounts with us, and a very long relationship with us.  My first credit card I got when I turned 18 is still with them--20 years, folks!!  Now they have decided they need to nickel and dime us to death.   Leave it to corporate America to screw you for giving them a bigger piece of the pie.