Grizzed Out - Memphis' One Good Thing

First, I'm not gonna lie, when we first moved here and heard about the Memphis Grizzlies, my immediate reaction was, "Aw, that's cute, are they like a college team here or something?" Someone corrected me rather grumpily, that they are, in fact, an NBA team. I swear, I'd never heard of them in my life. Now, I've lived in Boston and in the vicinity of Miami long enough to be well aware of the Celtics and the Heat, which are both really good and somewhat iconic teams. My immediate thought was "Wow, the Grizzlies must suck really bad for me to never have heard of them".

So after that, I didn't hear about them again until: HOLY CRAP, THE GRIZZLIES ARE IN THE PLAYOFFS. And not only that, it looks like they're sending the Spurs home. Well, and that's when it happened. I became a bandwagon-jumper. I started watching the games, even know a few names of players like Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph, but it wasn't until we just went to the Forum this week to see game 3 against the Thunder until it occurred to me: THE GRIZZLIES ARE THE ONE GOOD THING THAT MEMPHIS HAS GOING FOR ITSELF.

Since we went to the Forum for that game, it became quite clear to me as I looked around: Memphis has a new Religion. Not the preachy kind that the South is so unfortunately known for. It's called Grizz-Nation. It seems like every man, woman and child is soaking up this team and all the news around it, and it does something good for both the city and it's inhabitants. Suddenly, there is a reason to take pride in this godforsaken town. It's really quite amazing to watch, the faces light up by the mere mention of "the Grizz", finally something that causes everyone to get on the same page and believe in. Fittingly, the house slogan of the Grizzlies is "Believe, Memphis".

In the middle of it all, I watched myself morph into a towel-waving, high-fiving and opponent-boo-ing (not my finest moment, I agree) FAN. Despite the fact that nobody (including myself) believed in them before, I think after the game I saw at the Forum, even the last sceptic in that stadium (which might well have been me) was convinced that this team is something worth believing in.  Loss after TRIPLE overtime was the outcome, only happened 5 times in the history of the NBA, but this was a good loss if I've ever seen one. The Grizz fans of Memphis walked out, their heads held high, as if they had just witnessed the grandest win in the history of basketball.

And then they went out and spread the word. Religion, I'm telling you. The good kind. This entire week you can see on people's faces that they're following every game. Why do I know this? It's the collective Zombie look after Monday's game that went until almost 1.30 in the morning. Nobody cared, everybody is tired, we all feel as if we've played the games ourselves, even talk about it as though we did. Now, there's no doubt the players are tired and worn down, which the Wednesday game and it's massive loss made quite apparent.

Now is not the time to give up though! Now more than ever is the time to dig deep and BELIEVE, MEMPHIS. Believe, that they can pull it off on Friday and send this series into game 7. Believe, that if anyone can do it, its OUR Grizz.

This is an opportunity for you Memphis, don't mess this up. Even if they lose, and go home (which they most likely would, facing the Mavericks, or after that the Heat), this is when we have to keep up the spirit that this team has given this entire city and continue to keep the momentum going. Memphis is a city that long ago seems to have given up, so the Grizzlies are as good a reason as any to continue to believe that something can be made out of this town, if we all just tried a little harder.

On that note, I end my post. I believe. Go Grizzlies.

    

The Power of Many

This is a long one, folks, brace yourselves. I've had my eye on the banks, mostly my own, Bank of America, for a while now. As I'm being hit with more and more fees, most recently a new $20 monthly account maintenance fee, I've had it. I started not only informing myself about banking in the US in general, but also about the Federal Reserve, their business practices and any news stories about banks, most of all Bank of America that I can find on independent websites.

About that particular $20 fee, I called Bank of America up when it first happened, and asked what the fee was about. The response was that I was a "preferred" customer, who holds several different types of accounts and hence that was my fee... Preferred customer? What does that even mean? I asked them, what it would take to "un-prefer" myself, to get rid of the charge! The nice BOA rep was of course happy to help me with losing my "preferred" status, resulting in a lowering of the fee to $14 a month. Still high, but better. Believe it or not, I feel just the same now, not being a preferred customer, as I did before when I was so very preferred, I never even knew the difference.

Prior to that was the $35 overdraft fee. Another stunt BOA pulled and thank goodness was finally held accountable for in a court. I personally did not go overdrawn more than once or twice in my 10 years as BOA customer, but things happen, you don't pay attention, don't make a transfer on time, while still going ahead and sending your rent check. At the same time you go to home depot really quick and buy a couple of things for the yard, stop for gas on the way home, see a Starbucks on your way back and get a coffee. Here's what used to happen: BOA made the choice for you, to put your rent check through first, sending you overdrawn: here goes your first $35 charge. Then, Home Depot comes out, again, $35 charged for overdraft, and then the gas station, $35 courtesy of BOA, and, you guessed it, Starbucks for your $3 tall Chai latte, another $35 charge for using your debit card. Have you been counting? $140 in fees and I am somebody, who is actually on top of my accounts ALL THE TIME. It still happened to me on one or two occasions.  Now, in all honesty, this practice is over, but only after many complaints, government intervention and a $410 million class action settlement did we get rid of this practice. Shame on you BOA!

Do we really have to go this far, just to not be cheated? That settlement cost millions in legal fees not to mention the amount of time wasted. If you had put that money and effort into something that really matters, we may actually have cured cancer or some infectious disease by now.

Now we're all realistic here, no customer asks to be rewarded for going overdrawn, but honestly, I've had a business, do you think I'd have any customers left if I treated them like that?

After this experience, I couldn't help but ask myself: what else have I missed? And what else are busy mom's with two jobs missing? Or small business owners, who run the whole show, working all the time, what are they missing?

If you don't have the time to put in, to read all the letters and "full disclosures" BOA sends you on a regular basis, filled with legal jibberish that any normal person takes hours to decode, what you may be missing in those "new policies" may cost you a bunch of money before you even realize it is happening. The seed of suspicion was planted with the overdraft fee debacle, and you better believe, since then, I scrutinize my account statements every month. The slightest inconsistency, I call them up or go to the branch until I get to the bottom of charges and changes.

Luckily, if you're looking for it, the information is not hard to come by, since the big banks are making news almost daily. Either they are crying about million dollar losses, announcing new fees to cover for those "losses" and of course, their last quarterly bottom lines are public knowledge and readily available. If you actually care to obtain said information, you find that BOA has no reason to cry about anything. They are sitting on billions of profits, courtesy of you and me.

But, since the financial industry is always good for another whammy against those very people, who keep them in business, on came the $5 debit card fee. Once again, as soon as I heard, I dragged my butt to the branch, this time ready for confrontation. I asked the very nice BOA rep what the fee was about and if I'm affected by it. Mind you, I was fully ready and prepared to launch the "I've been a customer for 10 years, but I've had it, I'm taking all my accounts out of BOA"-speech, when I was informed that, lucky me, I was an "advantage" customer, who of course is exempt from the fee. Again, no clue what that even means, advantage, but I'm pretty sure it boils down to this: I had the "advantage" of having had the time to go to the branch and investigate and was pissed-off enough to leave my banking institution, so I did not get a fee.

Just recently we are seeing other people, people just like me, folks, who have had it with the games and gimmicks, take action and succeed. Much like my own experience with BOA, many have thought to themselves: you know what, I didn't do anything wrong. I never even had my account overdrawn, I always keep the minimum balance, pay my bills on time, but yet, I still get all these new fees from my bank, never did anything to deserve it, but here I am, at the mercy of my credit institution. 

Where does that leave us? It leaves us with this day that marks the first breakthrough that "the power of many, the power of "the people" has achieved, on November 1st, 2011. When BOA first announced the $5 fee, and many other banks were due to follow suit shortly thereafter, Wells Fargo, Regions, etc, there was no longer just a silent grumbling acceptance in response to fees being introduced.  Instead there was an uproar. That fee, although comparatively small, was a drop on an already full barrel, leading to the rise of not only the individual, but whole groups of people. Protesting on the streets (Occupy wall street, who were already there, got involved), on facebook, you found groups such as "Bank Transfer Day" calling for people to pull their accounts from the big banks, and thus reducing their power and influence, even setting an ultimatum, as to when to pull the money out collectively, on November 5th (a play on Guy Fawke's night, remembering the plot to blow up parliament in England in 1605). With the result: Bank of America's stock plummeted by 6% in a day and counting, as investors heed the people's warning. Enough achieved right there. This, was both a warning and a reminder of the power of the masses. Imagine what else we can do, if we just get on the same page.

Here are a few links, in case you're interested in joining the cause, or just informing yourself on your own time.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Bank-of-America-drops-5-debit-rb-2224200831.html?x=0

http://www.facebook.com/Nov.Fifth

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/113719/big-banks-new-card-fees-wsj?mod=bb-budgeting

I have a feeling that nobody at BOA will have trouble remembering the 5th of November this year. ;-)