It turns out the breaking up with your bank is hard to do.
In 2008, the Federal Reserve published a study around what economists call "switching costs" -- the pain and suffering consumers must face when trying to leave one bank to join another. The results were disturbing. The study, by Fed senior economist Timothy Hannan, found it was incredibly difficult for consumers to get reliable information about the true costs of the new bank, for example, and described what a "bargains-then-rip-off" strategy to reel in customers and then exploit them.
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