Canada @lemmy.ca Avid Amoeba @lemmy.ca 2 mo. ago

Hidden cameras reveal how big banks are upselling you (Marketplace)

I'm not old enough to know, have Canadian banks been less profit driven and corrupt in the decades past?

I've seen none of this from the credit union I switched to a few years ago.

Also that was a pretty shitty look for the finance minister dodging the CBC. She could've stopped and spared a few words, even if just lip service. Perhaps as a finance minister, she's got the Big 5 permanently in one of her ears.

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I am old enough, and my mom was a banker (retired now) from the early 1960s.

Banks have always been scummy, but they used to fear the government and competition. Now that the government has almost no hold and "competition" has been replaced with a collusive oligopoly, they fear nothing - and will do anything to squeeze another penny out of you.

Back in the early days of ATMs, BMO sent out a letter to their customers, on behalf of the CEO. It said in no uncertain terms that BMO would NEVER charge for access to a human being. I wish I'd kept it, because I'd like to throw it back in their face.

Based on my mom's stories, they probably started the aggressive up-selling in the 1990s. That's when they started to implement and enforce quotas for opening accounts, etc..

They get in trouble for it every year and occasionally get fined, but they never have to either change their behaviour or pay more than a tiny fraction of the profit they made by this practice.

Here's the other thing: The bank doesn't even want you. Your financial dealings are too small to make enough profit per interaction for the bank. They'd be happier if they could get rid of their bottom 70%, and focus only on customers with large amounts of money. Since they can't legally throw out customers for being poor, they keep increasing the fees to those customers.

Banks in Canada are scum, pure and simple.
Reason #4218 why you should always look into joining a credit union instead.
- I've never had an issue with Scotiabank, but my parents switched to envision a few years ago and have had nothing but trouble. Now they're in the process of moving everything back to Scotiabank.
  
  I get the same rates, but more features and easier access.
  
  It takes my mom 3-4 weeks to get an appointment with an advisor at envision whereas I can get one in two days at Scotiabank.
  
  That sounds more like an Envision problem instead of a credit union problem.
  
  Don't let your experience with a single credit union define your thoughts about all of them. There are literally hundreds of them.
  
  There are undoubtedly better and worse credit unions.
  
  What if the advisor you get from Scotia is just a sales person with really poor understanding of the products they sell and not your interest in mind? You should see some of the staggering examples of incompetence shown by advisors in the report.
  
  Never had an issue with them, except for the systematic disabling of democracy in the name of a few dollars more.
I've never had an issue, and only really once or twice had them try to sell me a credit card and a quick "not interested" completely ends it.

At this point I just expect that any customer service interaction is likely not in my best interest, and treat it with the skepticism it deserves. There just isn't enough enforcement to trust that laws will protect you, so it is your responsibility to protect yourself.
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