
A Man Walks into a Bank (2001) - bootload
https://www.ft.com/content/93a47a62-daf0-11e1-8074-00144feab49a#axzz22d06itxz?src=longreads
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ntumlin
To spoil the ending he mentions telling at shows, he ends up giving the money
back knowing the bank was in the wrong [0].

I wonder how much of the story is true, surely over years of telling the story
for audiences he's found that slight modifications have made it more
entertaining. Combine that with the fact that our memories are already not
that great, and I'd imagine that while the overall story is probably true, a
lot of the specifics aren't.

[0]
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-08-13/performer...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-08-13/performer-
dines-out-on-fake-check-tale-for-10-years)

~~~
GuiA
You are entirely correct, but it does not diminish his core message in any
way:

 _" Banks don’t do business like the rest of us do business. Banks don’t do
lunch to resolve an issue. They send a lawyer. Banks don’t care about your
rights. They care about their rights. (Read your bank’s provided explanation
of your banking rights, if you don’t believe me.) Banks don’t care about your
bank balance. They care about their bank balance. And what banks really don’t
do is take responsibility for their mistakes. They enforce penalties for
ours."_

~~~
mcguire
I'm not sure I really get the bank hatred in the story.

Look at it from their side: a man knowingly commits fraud in a way that, for
whatever reason, isn't immediately caught, and they likely knew that he knew
he was committing fraud due to his conversations with bank employees before he
took the money out of the account. They would have started an investigation
when their settlement accounts didn't balance. That takes time. When they
track it back to him, he refuses to return the money.

No one does lunch to resolve issues. No one cares about the rights of people
stealing from them. Banks may not have the best customer service, but they're
not Google.

Around here, people who write bad checks get arrest warrants and their
pictures posted above the cash register.

~~~
literallycancer
Bank rips off people who don't read contracts. Business as usual.

Man rips off a bank that signs contracts without reading them. Fraud.

\----

And it's not about poor customer service. I went to a bank to create an
account. They offered me some savings scheme. It rounds up purchases and puts
the difference into a "savings jar". If you want to use the money, it takes
like 3 days to change them to regular balance. Now, why would anyone use that?
It limits their options, and doesn't offer anything in return. The bank most
likely gives the clerks a premium on every person they sign up for this thing,
but still, the clerk wasn't able to explain the benefits (because there
weren't any). The best thing she could say about it was literally "you can opt
out through the internet banking app".

This is a trivial matter, but nonetheless, illustrates their attitude well.
They convince people who don't know any better to agree to contracts that
aren't beneficial for them.

How's that better than fraud?

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a_imho
Reminds me of the Russian man who changed a credit card offer in his favor
(unlimited credit, 0% interest) and sent it back to the bank who signed. The
bank did not own the mistake in that case neither.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/dmitry-agarkov-sues-
tinkoff-c...](http://www.businessinsider.com/dmitry-agarkov-sues-tinkoff-
credit-systems-2013-8)

------
iconjack
It was a really fun time in internet history. Patrick "live blogged" his bank
misadventure, and for a couple of weeks his site was the first thing I'd check
every day. Very exciting. It felt downright pioneering.

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czep
Please edit title: the date is 2012, not 2001.

