Scarcer than hen’s teeth – that’s something you don’t hear much anymore.  Maybe it’s what your Grand-parents or Great-Grand-parents said when things began to disappear.  I think we should start using it again.  So many things are becoming ‘scarcer than hen’s teeth’. 

I got a letter from our bank recently.  We’ve been with them for about 12 years now.  We had been with our previous bank for over 20 years.  We had opened an account as a young married couple.  Through good times and bad, we had stayed with our bank.  I guess the main reason was, we liked the people who worked there.  They were pleasant.  The employees at the two branches we used regularly remembered our names and were very courteous.  It wasn’t because we had lots of money – quite the opposite.  We were like many couples of our generation.  We were living with our parents until we married and started our household.  We were both working, but neither was making bundles of money.  But, we could afford to eat out once or twice a month and went to the movies every so often.

Then, one day, we got a letter from our bank.  It seemed that they were ‘merging’ into another bank – larger, more services – and nothing would change for us.  All the same friendly employees and the branches we used would remain open.  So, we stayed on.  Not many years later, another letter arrived from the new bank.  Again, they were merging into another, larger bank – with more services.  But nothing was to change for us.  Well, a couple of things changed.  We had to start using another location because they closed some branches.  The larger bank already had branches in some areas, so the ones we went to closed and we began using the other established locations.  But our account stayed the same and some of the employees moved to the other offices and there were familiar faces.  And so we stayed.

I guess you can see where this may be going.  One day, we decided to buy a car.  We’d never had a car loan before.  We had just saved money and traded in whatever we were driving and paid for the next car, or truck.  We found a car we thought we could afford to make the payments.  And so, I went to the bank.  Our account was well established.  They could see how much we could afford to pay and we were steady, hard-working people.  No problem.  Except, there was a problem.  The Loan Officer said “I’m sorry.  We can’t approve a car loan for you.  You haven’t been with our bank long enough.”  I was stunned.  “What?  We’ve had this same account for 20 years.”  Her reply sent my temperature through the roof!  “Yes, but you’ve only been with us 18 months.  I’m sorry.”  So, at that moment, I told her to close the account and give me my money.  They weren’t the people I thought they were and I didn’t want to do business with them again.  I walked out and went to the bank next door and opened a new account.  The car dealership arranged for a loan for our car . . . through the same bank at which I had just closed the account.

Back to the latest letter.  No, the bank is not merging with a larger bank.  They are the larger bank.  But with the country in its current state, things have to change.  The government has told banking they cannot charge ‘loan-shark’ interest on credit cards.  More people are defaulting on the cards they had.  Mortgages are failing.  So, because banks NEED money to operate and it’s not enough that most people have some type of account and our money is there for them to loan to others and make interest money on it, things have to change.  No more free checking or use of your ATM check cards UNLESS you have a boatload of money anyway, then it’s free.  Fees for printing a statement – gone up.  Fees for NSF checks – gone up.  You name it, the fees have gone up or there are new fees if you don’t write bad checks or ask for copies.

Customer services, pleasant employees, convenient locations – all are getting scarcer than hen’s teeth.  What would grandma say!?