When Did Personal Responsibility Become A Lost Art?
I was talking to my grandparents the other day and I posed this question to them. I’ll get to the story that lead to the question in just a minute, but I wanted to find out what their take was.
According to my grandfather, in his day (why do they always phrase it like that?) people took responsibility for their actions. Sure, there were a few bad apples in the bunch, those looking for the easy ride and a way to skate by, but the majority of folks where good, honest, and hard working people. They didn’t spend more then they had, mostly because credit wasn’t really an option, but also because they knew the consequences affected more then just themselves.
But, the one thing that stuck out for me was that my grandfather said people in his day didn’t spend a lot of time blaming other people for their problems. He said there was too much to do and blaming others didn’t solve the problem, especially when it was no one else’s fault but the individual’s. Seems like we need to get back to that frame of mind, if you ask me.
I look around at where we stand in the economy, both globally and on the home front, and it’s amazing to me how much finger-pointing is going on. Folks who bought into homes they knew they couldn’t afford are blaming the banks for lying to them or falsifying the paperwork. Banks who took on risky loans are blaming the public who started to rely on credit as a viable cash flow. The credit industry is blaming the subprime mess for their current problems. And a group from every sector seems to be blaming the government.
Maybe I’m naive, and that’s ok, but it seems to me that each group needs to take responsibility for their part in the problem. Only then can we really find a solution that works for everyone and not just a band aid to fix the immediate needs while leaving the root causes to fester under the surface. But, in truth, this article wasn’t meant to be about the economy, so I’ll leave it there for now.
What I really wanted to talk about was people taking personal responsibility for their actions involving personal finance.
Here’s a little story to get you thinking.
I recently had a member come into the credit union upset because she had opened a checking account and was now overdrawn. Prior to the checking account she had a savings account only with a debit card. When she opened the checking account, we explained to her that her purchases would be coming from the checking account rather then the savings account and to make sure she had the funds in the checking. If she didn’t, the savings would act as an overdraft protection account, but it was a $3 fee. She said she understood that.
When she came back, she was overdrawn in her checking and the savings account was depleted. She said that no one ever told her the funds would go through her checking account and that her direct deposit went to the savings account. So, I again explained what we told her initially and that we had given her the information. She insisted we didn’t and that we should have to pay the fees since it was our job to make sure she understood the account, not hers.
Let me repeat that. It was OUR job to make sure she understood her account. Not HERS.
If you’ve been reading this blog awhile, you know that I’m a big advocate of personal responsibility and I’d be lying if I said this didn’t rile me. So, I explained to her that we are there to assist her with her accounts, but that understanding how they work was her responsibility, in fact, when she signed the account application, she signed an agreement to that very statement. Furthermore, regardless of which account the funds came from, she still spent more money then she had because she wasn’t keeping track of what she was spending – again something she needed to be responsible for, not the credit union – and she could have saved herself a lot of trouble had she simply taken the time to understand what we had told her and the information we had given her from the beginning.
The conversation continued like that for several minutes. She stubbornly denying she had any responsibility in the matter and me adamantly refusing to return any fees. I would have been more then willing to help her out had she admitted some personal responsibility to the matter, but coming in and blaming the credit union for her actions was not going to win my sympathy. The reality is, it would take us probably a good hour to sit down and talk to someone about every detail of their account. If we explained that to someone, they’d turn around and leave. Consider it, if you walked in to a bank to open an account and they told you it would be about an hour, would you do it? Most likely not. So, we have to tell you as much as we can in the 15 minutes or so that we have your attention, but we also have to be careful not to overwhelm you. Hence the reason we give you the disclosures – which, by the way, too many people never read.
Part of my job is to help educate people, and sometimes, paying the fee is the only way they learn. Now, don’t misunderstand me, I’m not a total grouch who just wants to argue and make people pay unnecessary money. I probably return more fees then most when I feel it’s appropriate. But, in a situation where someone refuses to take responsibility for their own actions, I’m not going to help out. And, I realize this is probably a touchy subject for a lot of folks who’ve had trouble with their banks. But, the truth is, a large majority of the time that something goes wrong, it’s because of something you did, not the bank. I don’t agree with the overdraft fees being as high as they are, nor do I agree with some of the policies out there regulating them. However, don’t confuse the issues. Take responsibility for your actions rather then blaming them all on the bank.
It’s easy for us to get wrapped up in the “reasons” we don’t achieve something with our finances. It’s easy to come up with excuses as to why we don’t save, why we don’t put anything towards retirement, or why we spend so much money. But, the fact is, until we’re ready to take personal responsibility for our actions and choices, we’re not going to get ahead. Blaming others won’t get us anywhere, but it will keep us from getting ahead. So, I hope that more people learn to accept their responsibility in the choices they make and use that constructively in their personal finances.
Tough love moment here: When it comes to the state of your finances, you have no one to blame but yourself.
Do you agree or disagree? Is there ever a time that it’s ok to blame your misfortunes on someone else?
Photo by mamamusings
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On Saturday I logged into my online accounts and was upset (with myself) to see a $40 negative balance in my USAA checking account. I had just paid many bills several days prior and carefully noted the running total in my paper checkbook ledger, with a pen, doing calculations via calculator all the way down.
Since I couldn’t immediately identify the discrepancy, I printed out the online detail, got out another pen and calculator and went though my ledger line by line again. Sure enough, I plain old wrote down an incorrect figure in the middle of my line of running totals. Or I pressed the wrong button on the calculator – at any rate, I mistakenly thought 155 minus 45 equaled 145 or some such egregious math mistake. What I should have done was run through the list of bills twice in the first place, double-checking my figures so that I would catch my mistake.
Furthermore, I had ironically almost added overdraft the week prior by linking this account to my savings, but neglected to do so. I only have a few dollar in savings right now so it was a moot point, but still…
I called up customer service and humbly admitted that I was completely responsible for having made a mathematical error when I try to be so careful and should have taken the time to double-check. Since I’ve never done that before, they kindly and cheerfully refunded the $29 fee without even a scolding I thought I would get about how important it is to monitor accounts. I love USAA.
I’ve done the same with my local bank. I realize that they should only be expected to be so courteous once every so often, though, so recently we just ate a fee (gulp) – it was my husband’s account, but he had been granted mercy a few months prior. Bottom line is that we totally take responsibility and it’s nice when the bank is kind enough to reverse a fee as a goodwill gesture. After all, they pay the check (or ACH payment or whatever it is) and they’re not using my money at that point, they’re using their money! Which is pretty courteous of them, if you ask me. I guess I’m the polar opposite of the lady in the article, huh?
As a former CU MSR (Member Service Rep) I can agree with you to a point.
“Back in the day” we did not have the massive tree-killing disclosure requirements we do today. That doesn’t mean a member shouldn’t read them but it is deceptive, IMHO, of that’s their only option and to think that they will.
I don’t expect them to sit for an hour as we drone on about the rules either. I agree, I’d leave. Where I think we need to be is somewhere in the happy middle ground. Marketing brochures, for the most part, are useless. We were taught somewhere along the way to talk features and benefits rather than – how the dang thing works!
I worked for Portland Teachers CU in the late 80s. We were the first in the state to offer a debit card. No matter how many times we tried to explain that it came out of your checking account – they saw the word VISA on there and went crazy! We were so thankful when B of A introduced their cards – you see, they had a great marketing budget and started running commercials explaining this great new convenience.
We switched to telling members ‘It’s just like B of A’s card.” Of course we’d never compare ourselves to them today – LOL.
Anyway – I really do think marketing needs to create “toos” for MSRs to help them explain how the products work. One of my pet peeves? All the hoops you have to jump through to get signed on to home banking, bill pay and the phone teller. I was really put off when an exasperated MSR told me after I couldn’t figure out how to log in: “Your temporary password is the last four digits of your SS#” as if this was somehow so logical and how did I not figure that out.
So, I think we need to rephrase the way we explain the accounts to members – then they are on their own.
Brochure: Now you can save time and money with automatic bill pay!
Sign-up tool: The first time you log into bill pay use the last four digits of your SS# as your password – then you can change it if you like. Oh, and you’ll save yourself a stamp – duh!
I agree, you need to take responsibility for your actions – once you can actually use the product!
I have to agree with your grandfather about people taking responsibility for their actions. Too bad few are responsible. I hate to add my two cents but lately I’ve come to think of banks as drug dealers doling out the highly addictive drug called credit to those who have no willpower to use credit responsibly. I know it’s an extreme comparison but that’s how I feel these days.
Besides the lack of personal responsibility, what’s jarring in this case is a sense of entitlement of this customer.
whatever happened to the not guilty until proven guilty or the customer is always right. I mean if this was the first time that customer had this happen then why give them a hard time, it is entirely possible that she is indeed telling the truth that she did not know or was not properly informed about her new account. She is already having a hard day with this unexpected issue and why cant she get the benefit of a doubt ? True that what she said/how she said it riled you and true that she could have said it better, but who knows maybe she is just having one of those days when everything is not going right. It would have been a break for her if she was given some slack especially if its her first violation, If this was the second time then yeah I would definitely give her a piece of my mind.
of course if I were in your shoes I could have given her a piece of my mind anyway if I am in one of my bad moods.
Interesting. When I had something on the order of $140 in overdraft fees a while back because one of my debt collectors withdrew a payment two weeks early, I wrote a lengthy email to the bank. In it, I explained the reason for the overdraft, took full responsibility for the situation (even though it wasn’t entirely my fault), and explained that I fully understand the purpose of overdraft fees – so that people learn not to do it again. The only thing I argued over was the excessiveness and timing of the fees. $35 per debit is outrageous, especially when they sort the transactions in the order that most favors them. End result? I got one $35 credit back. Better than nothing, but my offer was to pay only one overdraft fee.