Malicious compliance in response to weaponized incompetence

[u/snickerdoodlesrule]

Okay, I’m new to the page! I want to hear all of your stories or moments of malicious compliance in marriage.

Mine is when I asked my husband to move money from another shared bank account to our checking for bills. You guessed it, he didn’t move the money. This was the 3rd time that he “forgot about it” and I was tired of asking. I watched our checking account go into the negatives/ with overdraft fees. I confronted him and he said that I didn’t tell him which account, but we only have one main account for both of us to pay bills from. The account is connected to our debit cards!

The next day he went for lunch at chipotle. As he was checking out he realized that he didn’t have cash or money on his debit card. He called me at least 5 times asking me to transfer money, since I was near the bank that day. I did transfer money, but not to the account with the debit card, because he didn’t say which account 😉

We haven’t had any problems with him transferring money, since.

Edit: We share all of our bank accounts. I crunch the numbers and can’t always be responsible for budgeting and going to the bank/ doing transfers!

[u/EHP42]

In Europe, and I'm sure a lot of the rest of the world, this is standard.

It's standard here too. I have no idea why OP and her husband are making it seem like some huge deal to "set up" ACH transfers by registering target accounts just once, and I believe even OP doesn't know that you can just set up a recurring transfer without having to go into a physical bank location since she mentions that her husband has not set up his deposits to split between accounts yet while she has, as if that is the only way to get money into the billing bank account without going into a bank.

We're blown away by apps like Venmo because our banks...just do that.

Yeah, Venmo exists because American banks were too lazy to implement some way to easily and digitally transfer money between users without using some proprietary bullshit. Zelle tried to make some in-roads but it's basically a third party service that banks have to implement, and not all have.

[u/Beginning_Alps_1817 → u/EHP42]

It depends on your bank too. The bank account we have for my work is not that advanced. Our online banking is basically an online check register. If we need to move money between the different accounts, we have to call or go to the bank to do it. ACH is a huge process that needs to be approved ahead of time and there’s so much paperwork it’s ridiculous. We also don’t have online bill pay. Honestly, I’m surprised we have bank cards that aren’t just ATM cards like back in the day.

[u/EHP42 → u/Beginning_Alps_1817]

But why? Like, why are you still with them if it's that much of a hassle?

[u/Beginning_Alps_1817 → u/EHP42]

We have been with this bank for over 20 years. We have a relationship with them, an actual personal relationship. We have an account manager that knows us, knows our business, knows our needs. That’s something that can’t be said when you are just an account number. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

[u/EHP42 → u/Beginning_Alps_1817]

What does that relationship get you in real terms? I hear about "personal relationships" with banks and businesses all the time, but I wonder what that means in real benefit.

[u/Beginning_Alps_1817 → u/EHP42]

There are a lot of things, but a recent example is that we had the post office lost a number of checks we had sent out to clients. Instead of charging us roughly $300 in stop check fees, they just stopped the checks for us.

Our account rep actually watches our accounts for us, for fraud. Since they are familiar with our business, when something is flagged as fraud, they have a better understanding of whether or not it actually is, and not erroneously stopped our account activity.

I have the direct line to our account rep, I don’t have to go through an automated system, and speak with someone of the other side of the country (or world) who doesn’t know us from Adam & Eve.

Our account rep has been instrumental in helping us with international business as well. Handling complicated international wire transfers (it’s a bit more complicated when you have a small bank)

Edit: spelling typos

[u/EHP42 → u/Beginning_Alps_1817]

That all seems like positive benefits for sure.

[u/Different-Pass3274 → u/Beginning_Alps_1817]

Why still using physical checks by mail?