That there's no limit to banks' bottomless greed is not exactly a newsflash, but this fee hike is.
Wells Fargo is raising their fees for foreign money transfers by 125%. I walked into a WF branch this morning to send a little money to my college kid over in Europe to help with the rent and expected to pay the $20 fee* that the bank charged for the transfer a few weeks ago (and which I didn't think was particularly low). No more, the banker told me. The bank now wants $45 for their inconvenience.
What does a simple foreign money transfer entail? You fill out a form with your and the recipient's bank information, hand it to the bank employee who types the information into a computer, which then handles the transfer of the funds from your account into the recipient's. You know, works sort of like email. No physical transportation costs involved, no traveling horse transport, no training of pigeons...
Forty-five dollars for a transaction that a few weeks ago cost $20. What's the $25 increase for? Wells Fargo CEO John G. Stumpf not satisfied with his 2010 $ 17.6 million compensation?
The ever-expanding corporate CEO corpulence, like any unrestrained overgrowth, is lethal, and corporations and their CEOs, who rake in the dough, even after running the companies they head into the ground, are well on their way to killing their host.
*I think the transfer fee was $12 just over a year ago