11/15/2005

Straight from Palm Beach, FL:

A former First National Bank and Trust customer filed a lawsuit against the bank in Martin Circuit Court Wednesday, asking for $2 million to compensate for stress and pain he said he suffered over an overdraft charge on his account.

Barnard Lorence filed the suit himself, claiming he was treated rudely by a bank manager when he asked to reverse the $32 penalty he was charged for overdrawing his account by less than $5. He accused the bank of falsely advertising that it cares about its customers.

“What they don’t say is they have at least one manager who will be obnoxious and arrogant if one attempts to try to communicate with the bank,” he wrote in his suit.

Lorence said he has brain damage from a 2001 accident and the stress of the conflict with the bank is making his condition worse. He said he can’t sleep because he can’t stop thinking about it. He asked for millions, saying a few hundred thousand dollars would be a slap on the wrist to the bank and it deserved to be “paddled.”

So let’s see if I understand this correctly:

1) I can’t balance a checkbook and write one too many checks.
2) I ask the bank to cancel the (admittedly hefty) fee for it.
3) They say “no”.
4) I whine like a baby, spend all my waking time “thinking about it”, and sue.
5) PROFIT!

Of course, if this thing works out for Mr. Lorence, I should probably consider doing the same thing with Dell. After all, they wouldn’t waive the $40 shipping fee on my server, despite the clear mental anguish the whole situation caused me.