Shouldn't Be This Hard

I’ve been making address changes over the last few weeks as I’ve paid my monthly bills so I’ll receive next month’s charges in time to pay. I’ve crossed out the old address and written in the new one on the handful of accounts I still pay by check – the podiatrist, the car loan, a charitable contribution or two, glad for the ease in printing a street name and zip code.

The on-line COAs haven’t been as easy. A few were simple to find, but I had to resort to the live chat feature for one company, where their robo-chatterer told me to just change my profile. If I could find my profile, I’d gladly change it. How was I supposed to know that the icon resembling a breast cancer ribbon was my customer profile? Use words, people.

Finally, I finished the tasks on this address change list, except for one. It was time to mail my quarterly self-employment tax payment, so surely I could cross off my current address and add my new one for the Internal Revenue Service, right? No. No provision for that. Time to check the website. Surely I can change my address on line? Nope, can’t do that either. In fact, the IRS required that I print out form 8822, fill it in, add my John Hancock and get my husband’s signature, and mail it to an office in California. Now where did I put those envelopes? Where did I see that forever stamp? Where’s the mailbox in my new neighborhood? Frustrated, I was heard to say, “Why does this have to be so hard?”

And what about those without computer access? I remember how my mother refused to join the computer age. Before her death at ninety-two, I wasn’t going to argue with her. I thought about my friend raising three children on a minimum wage job. Even if she had a computer and printer, she couldn’t afford the internet in her home, not at the bargain rate of $44.99 per month. Try navigating the computer at the library with three kids in tow. Why does this have to be so hard?

I repeated my comment when reading about the recent decision by Bank of America to eliminate their “free” checking accounts. This bank, with a name that implies a bank for all Americans, will now charge a fee each month if their patron’s balance dips below $1500 – unless they’ve signed up for direct deposit of some kind, not always a possibility for waitresses, free-lancers, or poor people in general. As Karen Weese wrote in the Washington Post, “It has never been easy to be poor in America, but decisions made in company boardrooms about seemingly modest financial matters . . . make life far harder than it has to be for low-income families.”

I could understand if BOA desperately needed those fees, but they’re not in dire financial straits. Weese notes: “Bank of America made more than $21 billion in profits last year.” That’s billion with a “b.” Have you noticed how their credit cards rates keep creeping upwards, even for people with terrific credit? 14.99% the last time I looked. Meanwhile, savings accounts are paying out 1% if we’re lucky. Miss one credit card payment, get one check returned, and the fees are enough to service our meager checking account for the year. Twenty-one billion.

This same week, the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau decided to indefinitely suspend the rules scheduled to go into effect this month to provide badly needed protection for those who have no choice but to utilize payday lending companies when the tire blows. I worked on advocacy regarding the horrors of pay day lending in 2005. Why does this still have to be so hard?

Here’s the answer. “It” doesn’t. Grief, depression, chronic illness, and childbirth are hard. We have no choice but to walk through them. Other parts of life, such as changing an address or accessing a checking account or emergency loan, shouldn’t be. How might our systems, big and small, recognize that not everyone has access to the resources we assume everyone else has? Does “this” really have to be so hard?