Financial institutions have a bad reputation for making even the simplest requests more complicated than they need to be.

One customer is left frustrated when a credit union refuses to return a $5 application fee and close her account after years.

In a satisfying act of petty revenge, she decided to ensure it cost them more in postage and printing than the initial fee was ever worth.

Read on for the full story.

Refuse to close my account, make them continue to send me paper everything

I opened an account at a credit union because it was required I put $5 in to submit a mortgage application.

I ended up not even applying for a mortgage with them because they were not competitively priced once I got talking to them.

However, getting my $5 back would not be so simple.

The credit union had miles of red tape that made even seemingly simple requests difficult.

They stated that there was no way for me to close the account digitally and revert the funds back via the checking account info at another bank that they already had as part of account opening.

Instead, I would need to send them something where I state that I would like to close my account, provide a reason, and have a wet signature on it.

The customer pushed back and tried their best to make their voice heard.

I told them that in the year 2021 (this happened a while ago) that this was completely unacceptable and there should be a way to verify my identity digitally and close my account.

I had this escalated and same story over and over again.

One day, they realized they were inconveniencing the credit union just as much.

They still have my $5, but I have put all the account settings requiring that they send me everything in paper, including account statements, year-end forms, disclosures, and privacy notices.

So now for three years straight they have had to pay for the printing and shipping on all this.

It’s clear it would be so much simpler for them if they would have just complied with the customer’s request.

To top it off, the statements continue to threaten to charge me a $10 monthly account maintenance charge, which they have inexplicably waived every month for three years.

So yes, enjoy my $5 and I can keep slowly expensing you to death over this one simple fix you could make.

I’m in it for long haul.

What the credit union saved with the $5 fee, they ended up losing in many other areas.

What did Reddit think?

It seems the company values their ego over the money at this point.

These types of businesses love to make things difficult for their customers.

This wary commenter urges caution.

It’s hard to tell if their policies are valid safeguards or just unnecessary red tape.

The credit union could have avoided a much bigger headache here.

Don’t they know the customer knows best?

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.