Citibank and the 1%

I dressed in my best coat and went to Citibank.  It is in my wealthy neighborhood, well, at least the neighborhood directly south of us has many 1%ers.   I went to transfer my measly $2000 IRA CD to another bank.  My husband has more savings, and we have good life insurance.  But because I've been a stay-at-home mom for years, and had part-time jobs for a decade before that, I'm lucky to have $2000 for retirement!  My Social Security future securities have been decimated because Americans MUST be on a PAYROLL to accumulate even the measliest individual retirement security!! 

The Citibank employee sat with me and gave me a lot of information, but could not do one blimmin' thing to help me make this transfer.  Momentarily I actually have to make a call to a Citibank 800 number TODAY to make sure there aren't any IRS charges applied to my transfer--a call the bank employee could not make on my behalf.

I said, "What's the point of a branch office if employees can't do things like this?"

No response, instead she asked, "Why are you transferring the IRA to another bank?"

I said, "Well, at the new bank I can actually trade the funds myself.  I can control the investments and it's not locked up."

And she said, "You can do that here!  Over here in our 'Wealth Management' corner, we have people who can help you invest, there's no charge for their advice!"

I said, "Oh, I did not know that."

Then her, "How much are you transferring?"

I said, "Oh it's not a lot, about $2,000."

And her response was, "Oh, well, they really only work with people who are investing large amounts of cash..."

So I said, "Oh, I guess we're not rich enough!  Okay, thanks anyway."

And I think she knew at that point that I would never be back.

And I think $2000 can help a lot of women's small businesses and sustainable farmers, so I hope I can invest in those kind of things!