The Toronto Dominion Bank

I kind of fell through the rabbit hole the other day.

A variety of things that were having a direct impact on my life, all events that I had very little, if any ability to influence, were taking place. Primary amongst them was a landlord imposed home renovation that was very loudly not going well. The work was going to take longer than expected, stretching over a week, and had eliminated access to the kitchen and our one washroom, and since I work from home, have a dog and pee a lot, I was feeling very irritable and put upon.

While trying to work in the shuddering, cacophonic mess that was our apartment, my phone rang. It was a robot voice calling on behalf of the Toronto Dominion Bank. The robot told me that the call was urgent and that suspicious activity had been detected in my account and to stay on the line for instructions. The robot voice then put me on hold.

You know the music.

It’s the music that makes you want to kill things.

Considering all the disastrous things that might have happened to our fragile savings, I waited for about ten minutes before an agent spoke to me. The issue was quickly resolved, but I was mad nonetheless. The bank had “protected” my debit card, which means they suspended it, due to what they thought was suspicious activity. I had done nothing out of the ordinary and wanted to know what it was that had sound the alarms. They wouldn’t tell me, as they want to safeguard their detection strategies, although they wouldn’t come out and say this, lest it might seem they were more concerned with protecting their interests than mine.

I was tenacious. If they refused to tell me exactly why they had frozen my ability to access my own money, I wanted them to give me the contact information of a senior employee so that I could write and express my dissatisfaction. Amidst a swirl of Orwellian Double-Speak, I was on the phone for two hours, put on hold 14 times, disconnected once and likely ruined the working day of at least three people, and of course, got not one inch closer to my objectives.

What difference can a finite life make in an infinite universe, right?

Last I heard, Ed Clark, the CEO of the Toronto Dominion Bank was making 10 million dollars a year and had more than 35 million worth of TD stock. In one week he makes more than I’ve managed to accrue in my entire life. I think that this bank has grown too large and self-interested, existing as little more than a grand and ever-expanding institute of profit. I think it’s unfair, even immoral, for customers to have such little authority over their own funds and to be “handled” by robots and script-readers without any access to those who work the levers of power. Couldn’t “The Bank” just decide that their profits need not be unlimited and scale back their search for more money so that they might actually provide a more intimate and honest relationship with the constituents who propel them to such dizzying financial heights?

Is that really such a crazy idea?