Investigating the Bank

Banks hold money, but they also have to make some to operate. That’s why overdraft fees and user fees exist.

When I worked for a bank in Ceredo, West Virginia, I felt the company actively defrauded customers they called “valuable.” The company mailed $10 checks to their “valued customers” for being good clients. Unbeknownst to the customer, when the check was cashed it was considered a signed contract agreeing to enroll in an account that charged them $5 per month.

On the very bottom of the check, a sliver of perforated paper read in tiny letters what cashing the check meant. Many customers who received the check were elderly and for whatever reason did not heed the warning.

I think a good investigation of this would be to talk to the FDIC to see what their point of view on grey area of false advertising is.

Investigating this story would also require speaking to someone at the United Bank company to see why they thought it was okay to rip off their customers in this way, especially elderly customers with bad vision and trusting personalities. It would also be very important to speak with a customer affected and pull their bank documents showing the transactions.

I think this would be an ethical question – the small words on the check were obviously supposed to be ignored.

It's going to be a bumpy ride.

Huntington Mayor Kim Wolfe says he governs his city on a set of priorities: keeping his people, their property and their ideas safe from harm. That's why he says street conditions in his city have taken a backseat – so the safety of those riding on them does not have to.

In a March 22 vote, Huntington City Council members agreed to cut $867,000 from the city's budget. Funds were cut from every department, including those meant to protect and serve.

$200,000 was cut from the Police Department, $165,000 from the Personnel Department and $120,000 from the Fire Department.

"There's no sense in making your streets smoother if they're not safe," Wolfe said.

An officer of the peace himself, one of Wolfe's campaign promises was to enhance protective services offered to residents like police and fire. This fiscal year, the economy got in the way. With all of the budget cuts, he said his goal was to protect those men and women who protect Huntington as much as possible.

"We can't print money and spend it like they do in Washington," Wolfe said. "The piece of the pie has to come from somewhere. We had to start cutting it up."

Some of that cutting came from the Streets Department.

Whether taking the road less traveled or Fifth Avenue, in Huntington either is probably a bit bumpy. The harsh winter was no friend to pavement and because of budget deficits those potholes may stay in place a little longer.

“Especially after this past winter, Huntington’s streets are really bad,” Marshall University commuter Ryan Vance said.

For Huntington's fiscal year 2010-2011, the budget estimate released on Feb. 12 listed $2.14 million in expenditures for the Streets Department. The number City Council members agreed on: $2.1 million. That means nearly $40,000 was taken away.

According to Wolfe, if repairs were made to every street in the city that needed them, the price tag would total $20 million. That’s half of the total amount of Huntington’s budget.

“That’s a tough situation because we have absolutely no money and now we’re cutting the budget police funds,” Vance said. “I don’t know that that potholes should be their biggest concern but I think they should do something because they’re becoming dangerous.”

Wolfe said streets would be repaired on a squeaky-wheel-gets-the-grease basis. He says city officials are keeping record of the most complained about streets – those will be the first to be patched up.