I dare say it, but my banks are getting on my nerves with all their account “double-checking” and “fraud protection alerting.”  I know they mean well.  After all, identity theft costs businesses and consumers some $60 billion a year.

If someone’s going to mess with my money and my I.D., it’s war.  

But these pre-emptive strikes! My goodness!  Now every time I deposit a check over $1,000 it takes at least a week, maybe two, to get it cleared at my national bank. (I bank at three different places: a national bank, a local credit union and an online bank).  A couple weeks ago I had a 15-minute conversation with the fraud department at my national bank to make sure I was the one who tried to deposit a check a few days prior. “No, sir, it wasn’t me. It was someone evil posing as me, hoping to put money in my bank account.” After our long convo the bank employee still forgot to unfreeze my online account and the next day I had to go through another rigamarole to get my online account reactivated. “No problem. Just give us your mother’s maiden name and the number I’m thinking of between 1 and 100 and I’ll get you all back up and running.”

And just this morning my credit union called – as it seems to do every month – to verify my last five debit transactions.  And if I don’t pick up the phone or don’t call my bank back? They’ll freeze my account, cancel my old debit card and SURPRISE! send me a new debit card…all while my utility bills have been assigned to the old debit card and now suddenly Verizon is wondering why it can’t automatically deduct my from my account.

I know my argument’s weak here, but it’s just one of those things. Anyone else feel the same?