Ok, so we know ATM charges are rip-offs! This could become a rant very quickly.

Let me see, we pay monthly service charges on our accounts so we can have a place to store our money for a ridiculous low interest rate if you can call it that. The banking system in Canada, the best in the world, has recorded record profits even in this economy, go figure. They take your money, give you low interest rates, won’t loan out money and charge you for everything till the cows come home.

I go to my favourite pub (there’s another blog to come) and decide to take out some money from their ATM. So here’s the deal, I use their machine to get $40 bucks; it costs me $1.75 to use their machine. Ok, so the convenience of getting cash is worth something but it really doesn’t stop there.

My bank statement comes and of course, there is the Scotiabank surcharge on top of the pub’s fee. It has now cost me $3.25 (almost 10%) to get MY cash. Correct me if I am wrong but compounded this would be up there with shylocks or Canadian Tire MasterCard fees (another blog).

There’s also a transaction fee attached to this activity, ahghgh.

How do they get away with it? It’s because they have more power than God, but not as much as Oil Companies (oh no another blog topic). It seems to me the federal government at one point had looked at legislation to curb this gouging but where did it lead?

Write your Member of Parliament and tell them that “you’re sick and tired and you’re not going to take it anymore”. Here’s a complete list http://webinfo.parl.gc.ca/MembersOfParliament/MainMPsCompleteList.aspx?TimePeriod=Current&Language=E

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