Althouse: "Did Chase Bank Delete a Tweet Taunting People Who Ask ‘Why Is My Balance So Low’?"

May 1, 2019

"Did Chase Bank Delete a Tweet Taunting People Who Ask ‘Why Is My Balance So Low’?"

Yes!

It looked like this:

49 comments:

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...: Lectures can only source from the chosen few.; 5/1/19, 1:21 PM
Mr Wibble said...: Meh, the tweet is correct, but after the past twenty years I don't want to hear banks lecturing people about their spending habits.; 5/1/19, 1:25 PM
Amadeus 48 said...: Why in heaven's name would anyone ever try any of those things? It's like living a thrifty, bourgeois, middle class life leading to family stability and financial security. Who would want that?; 5/1/19, 1:25 PM
Nonapod said...: A while back I remember reading that Chase Bank was suspending account access to certain prominent conservatives. I haven't heard anyting about it since though.; 5/1/19, 1:27 PM
Amadeus 48 said...: By the way, I reject the characterization of that tweet as "taunting."

I'd say amusingly ironic.; 5/1/19, 1:27 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Great advice. Lousy P.R.; 5/1/19, 1:28 PM
rehajm said...: Chase sucks. There are far superior mega banks for retail customers.

People what can’t spend within their means also suck. Can nobody win here?; 5/1/19, 1:28 PM
gilbar said...: that seems INCREDIBLY racist! or sexist , or ageist, or; i don't know, but WOW is that offensive! Acting like the reason people don't have money is because they spent it already!!!

It is Corporations' (as well as the governement's) RESPONSIBILITY to provide all things for ALL people! NO ONE should EVER have to work, EVERYTHING should be provided!!

{this is fun! Try writing the most absolutely idiotic things you can in response to a post, and then see if you can tell which other poster you are sounding like :}; 5/1/19, 1:30 PM
mockturtle said...: I roll my eyes at my kids and grandkids who think nothing of spending $5 on a coffee every day on their way to work. I always took a thermos and took my lunch. Yes, I could write a book on thrifty living but no one would read it. If they can't save, it's probably their own fault. Unfortunately, they think Mom is made of money.; 5/1/19, 1:30 PM
n.n said...: Atrophy. That said, a bank account should not appropriate the developmental responsibilities of the mama and papa.; 5/1/19, 1:31 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Chase forgot to add....Balance your check book once in a while, stupid.; 5/1/19, 1:33 PM
gilbar said...: Mockturtle said... I roll my eyes at my kids and grandkids who think nothing of spending $5 on a coffee every day

There's the old parable about the two twin brothers.
They did everything the same; same job, same houses, same everything: EXCEPT!
brother A spent $5 more than he had each month
bother B spent $5 less than he had each month
$10 difference leads quickly to ruin for brother A. that's 2 coffees a month difference; 5/1/19, 1:36 PM
whitney said...: I read all the comments first just to make sure. No one's bothered by the fact that banks are tweeting??; 5/1/19, 1:51 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Ignorance is Bliss nails it! Good advice, terrible PR.; 5/1/19, 1:54 PM
CJinPA said...: Meh, the tweet is correct, but after the past twenty years I don't want to hear banks lecturing people about their spending habits.

Exactly. Leave the sermon-making to those who are qualified: clergy and multi-national razor companies.

(You are right, of course.); 5/1/19, 1:55 PM
Known Unknown said...: People claim it's Poor Shaming, which sounds like a great Monty Python skit.

"It's 10 am Saturday. Time to shame the poor!"; 5/1/19, 1:55 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: gilbar said...

b[r]other B spent $5 less than he had each month

Banking only $60 a year is not a sound financial strategy...; 5/1/19, 1:57 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Banking +$60/year is sounder than -$60/year.; 5/1/19, 2:06 PM
gilbar said...: Ignorance misses the point, saying...
Banking only $60 a year is not a sound financial strategy...

It's amazing how many people draw on Brother B as the problem, and IGNORE (through Ignorance?) Brother A; 5/1/19, 2:08 PM
ThreeG said...: Elizabeth Warren's reply may have had something to do with it: https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1122954072867450880?s=19&fbclid=IwAR3JYR-RYPSzvLGD9bLsR97Sp06LWlzPZIt0Y77OKzou0TbyF3ZTe3VweDY; 5/1/19, 2:17 PM
Rick.T. said...: Dust Bunny Queen said...

"Chase forgot to add....Balance your check book once in a while, stupid."

Neither on the app for my personal bank account nor the one for the HOA for which I write bills can I find functionality to access a bank statement or activity. I have to go online and log in for that.

I once asked a someone around 30 about that and he was stunned at the concept of balancing his account.; 5/1/19, 2:17 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: gilbar said...
Ignorance misses the point, saying...
Banking only $60 a year is not a sound financial strategy...

It's amazing how many people draw on Brother B as the problem, and IGNORE (through Ignorance?) Brother A

I didn't ignore Brother A. I simply didn't comment on Brother A, because I had nothing to add on the subject. My point is that there are a lot of people living like Brother B, who think they are doing okay because they skip two cups of coffee a week and are not going into debt. Then they get hit with a major auto repair bill, or their kid needs glasses, or whatever, and they end in ruin, almost as surely as Brother A, if not quite as quickly.; 5/1/19, 2:18 PM
gspencer said...: Translation, Spend less than your means.

"Champagne tastes on beer budgets adversely effect available cash balances"; 5/1/19, 2:19 PM
Rick said...: Lectures can only source from the chosen few.

Compare to drinking soda.

Lectures from people without the power to compel are offensive. Lectures from people coupled with the power to compel their paternalistic authoritarianism are welcome.

It's a strange priority.; 5/1/19, 2:25 PM
Rick.T. said...: Yancey Ward said...

"Banking +$60/year is sounder than -$60/year."

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield; 5/1/19, 2:27 PM
stlcdr said...: Blogger Ignorance is Bliss said...
gilbar said...
Ignorance misses the point, saying...
Banking only $60 a year is not a sound financial strategy...

It's amazing how many people draw on Brother B as the problem, and IGNORE (through Ignorance?) Brother A

I didn't ignore Brother A. I simply didn't comment on Brother A, because I had nothing to add on the subject. My point is that there are a lot of people living like Brother B, who think they are doing okay because they skip two cups of coffee a week and are not going into debt. Then they get hit with a major auto repair bill, or their kid needs glasses, or whatever, and they end in ruin, almost as surely as Brother A, if not quite as quickly.

5/1/19, 2:18 PM

Yes, it has everything to do with it: $5 a month has a habit of turning into $50 or $500 a month, whether you are saving or spending. You are focusing on the wrong thing and taking the amount too literally.

It's also the attitude the problems faced by poor people today are caused by rich people. They focus on the wrong thing.; 5/1/19, 2:29 PM
tim in vermont said...: I don’t read Czech, so I don’t know if this is true or not, but I think it is true:

Facebook deactivated hundreds of Trump ads because he said "Ladies"; 5/1/19, 2:34 PM
Bill Peschel said...: I've heard this story again and again: A person decides to write down what they spend their money on for a week.

They're astonished at how much they spend on crap. Coffee drinks that don't satisfy. Snacks that leave them bloated and unhappy. Habitual purchases that don't make them happy.

Nowadays, they'll check their account balance and discover they're signed up to services they no longer use, but drains money every month.

A few years back, the New York Times circulation manager bragged that people would buy the newspaper at the low rate and then be subjected to repeated rate increases and not realize it.

Put it this way: We dropped cable TV in 1995 when our TV broke. We have Internet, but still not TV, no streaming service, nothing. Calculate how much money we saved.

This is why I live in a paid-for house and write books for a living.; 5/1/19, 2:35 PM
stlcdr said...: I'll also add that every one of the posters above who (appear to have) no compassion for people struggling financially, have most likely been in that situation where they have to evaluate what is necessity to balance their - personal - budget.

No amount of 'there, there' or sympathy stops the debt collector from coming to the door. Facts are harsh.; 5/1/19, 2:35 PM
Maillard Reactionary said...: Of course they deleted it. The last thing they want to do is have people stop putting their coffee, Uber rides, groceries, smart phone upgrades, and beer on the charge card where the bank makes 20-30% on the unpaid balance, while the customers struggle to make the minimum payment each month. On each of their 10-15 cards.

I know people like that. (Hi hon, if you're reading, it's Dad!)

The guy who sent that one out gets no bonus.; 5/1/19, 2:39 PM
Big Mike said...: I think that if I was accessing my account to find out why it was lower than my calculations showed, thinking that perhaps there had been unauthorized withdrawals, and I got the responses in that image, I think my local branch manager would be getting earful at a high decibel volume.

I don't keep much money in accounts that do not earn me interest, so if the bank assumes that it has all my money, or even a decent fraction thereof, then they're idiots.; 5/1/19, 2:40 PM
rehajm said...: I know people like that. (Hi hon, if you're reading, it's Dad!)

Oh that’s so funny...and so sad..:; 5/1/19, 2:41 PM
rhhardin said...: Use a credit card, not a debit card.; 5/1/19, 2:45 PM
JaimeRoberto said...: That's not taunting. That's good sound advice.; 5/1/19, 2:47 PM
mockturtle said...: Per Rick T: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

Was that Mr. Micawber?; 5/1/19, 3:00 PM
mockturtle said...: It's also the attitude the problems faced by poor people today are caused by rich people. They focus on the wrong thing.

Exactly! Most problems of 'poor' people in this country are caused by poor choices.; 5/1/19, 3:02 PM
mockturtle said...: 'Nobody' confesses: I don’t read Czech

What are you, some kind of Neanderthal??!!; 5/1/19, 3:05 PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: From what I've personally seen, there isn't enough money in America to protect people from their own shitty choices. Which is why a GMI without the the rest of the welfare bennies will never work.; 5/1/19, 3:10 PM
Earnest Prole said...: They failed to mention avocado toast.

The wisdom in that tweet is one of the most important lessons kids can learn. I remember the shock of my twenty-something colleagues when I bought my first Bay Area house while they were struggling with 100k in credit card debt. As best we could determine the sole difference in our behaviors was that they ate at restaurants five days out of seven while I ate at home every night and pocketed the savings.; 5/1/19, 3:35 PM
JAORE said...: Three of our four kids have learned this lesson early. The last one, still struggling at 29, is coming around.

When my wife and I wed we divided the financial duties as hers was day to day and mine was long term. Started by mandating 10% of every paycheck invested. Then, with every raise we used 1/3 for Uncle Sam, 1/3 for the future and 1/3 for us. Kept our cars longer than most yet still lived pretty well.

It allowed us to pay off our home before retirement, help my MIL financially for the last 7 years of her life and help all four kids get into houses.

We don't consider ourselves rich. But have a nice income stream and a pretty fair nest egg.; 5/1/19, 3:57 PM
Wince said...: People in Glass Steagalls shouldn't throw stones?; 5/1/19, 4:07 PM
MikeR said...: I thought it was cute.; 5/1/19, 4:17 PM
Molly said...: Of course I'm preaching to the choir here. But:

1. Thanks to Rick T and Yancey Ward and others for the Dickens reference.
2. When I was married in a two ($100K + each) income household, we had so much money (and we both had lifetime habits of relative parsimony) that we never needed to ask, "Can we afford this?" But when we separated (and divorced) I was very worried about how much I could save (pre-tax) for retirement (and this was a factor I could control up to $50K a year). So I started keeping a detailed budget. That was so helpful as the years went on, to allow me to determine whether and when I could afford to retire, because I knew exactly how much I could live on comfortably, and even with a cushion above comfort. So I've seen both sides, and I now see how important it could be to a young person to keep a budget. So: Thanks Bill Peschel. And Earnest Prole really brings the point home in a realistic way. I would only add to his eating out example, vacation costs (see point 4 below).
3. And Philipidus makes the essential point here: the bank's message is actually against it's own interest; imagine the bank had put out an ad that was the opposite: "you're only young once; now's the time to use that credit card; you can pay it off when you are older and less socially active and richer."
4. But, finally, my own contribution: too often, those of us baby boomers who are reaching retirement age in comfort are regarded as "lucky". But I (for one, and I suspect many others like me) lived a lot of years with an eye towards what I could afford. (So vacations shared with other families in beach homes and home-cooked meals, rather than vacations in hotels with meals in restaurants. Or non-luxury cars, kept for 10 years, rather than swapping out a luxury leased car every 3 years. And especially, preparing food at home instead of eating out.) (I'm not complaining, and my life has been very comfortable. But is a life lived with an eye to financial constraints.); 5/1/19, 4:17 PM
Rick.T. said...: mockturtle said...

"Was that Mr. Micawber?"

Yes! Side note: If you are a Dickens fans and enjoy fairly wholesome movies, one could do worse than this. Had not heard of it until I stumbled across it from a Netflix recommendation.

https://www.bleeckerstreetmedia.com/themanwhoinventedchristmas; 5/1/19, 5:01 PM
mockturtle said...: Thanks, Rick!; 5/1/19, 5:33 PM
Big Mike said...: But, finally, my own contribution: too often, those of us baby boomers who are reaching retirement age in comfort are regarded as "lucky". But I (for one, and I suspect many others like me) lived a lot of years with an eye towards what I could afford. (So vacations shared with other families in beach homes and home-cooked meals, rather than vacations in hotels with meals in restaurants. Or non-luxury cars, kept for 10 years, rather than swapping out a luxury leased car every 3 years. And especially, preparing food at home instead of eating out.)

Yes to all of that. I was helped by working much of my career for a firm that didn’t have a pension plan but did have a generous 401K. Given a choice between working for a company with what appears to be a good pension and a firm with a good 401K, take the latter every time.; 5/1/19, 5:33 PM
mockturtle said...: Of course, if banks really wanted people to save, they'd start paying us interest!; 5/1/19, 5:34 PM
Maillard Reactionary said...: Molly said: " ...But I (for one, and I suspect many others like me) lived a lot of years with an eye towards what I could afford. ..."

Exactly. My wife and I started out with exactly nothing when we married. One week, when we were at college getting by on part-time minimum wage jobs, before the food stamps kicked in, we ate nothing but potatoes. Second hand furniture. No car-- walk or take the bus to work. When I started to make semi-decent money, I went all-in with the company's 401K plan. Full matching up to 5% of income. Free money! Incredible. Every raise went in the savings until I was maxed out. S&P 500 index funds served me well over the years.

Drove my used Toyota for 12 years, my rusty Volvo for 16 years, my Maxima for 11 years. Nine and counting so far on my Subaru.

We were financially ready to retire at 62 but the genii in DC wrecked the private medical insurance industry just in time, so we had to wait until 65.

We live in comfortable but not gaudy circumstances and I don't count my change. We enjoy a few pieces of heirloom furniture in the home, my wife's custom jewelry, my guns, cameras, darkroom, and garden. No debt, no worries. Our grandchildren and certain worthy charities will enjoy the leftovers in the fullness of time.; 5/1/19, 5:50 PM
n.n said...: taunt (v.)

mid-15c. (implied in tauntingly), possibly [Skeat] from Middle French tanter, tenter "to tempt, try, provoke," variant of tempter "to try" (see tempt). Or from Middle French tant pour tant "so much for so much, tit for tat," on notion of "sarcastic rejoinder" (considered by OED the "most likely suggestion"). Related: Taunted; taunting.

taunt (n.)

1520s, "bitter invective," probably from taunt (v.).

Snoops: 1-1/2 straw clowns. Educate a non-specific class of fiscally liberal "persons".; 5/1/19, 8:01 PM