Overcoming Barriers when the Barriers are perceived as Governmental Responsibility or they are Large Business policies that people Perceive as Beyond Their Control

I'm curious about the question you've posed, but I'm not clear what action or behavior you're asking your audience to engage in. Is there somewhere else they could be cashing their checks that would not involve a fee? Or are you asking them to set up a bank account?

Additionally, I think you need to think about segmenting your audience so that you can find the people who are in the "contemplation" stage of your desired behavior. You will not easily be able to change the behavior of those are a truly and deeply resigned to their current behavior. They will be your late adopters or laggards and my experience is that it takes a bigger investment of time, effort and energy to get them to make a change. Personal contacts, either with yourself or a community leader may be helpful in encouraging change within this group.

If there are so few people in the "contemplation" stage of behavior change that they virtually impossible to target, you may need to look at a 2-stage campaign, the first of which is designed to get people to the contemplation stage where they know there are options for them and they are considering those options, and the second stage could then focus on strategies that get people to adopt the behavior.

Cammy Mills
Outreach and Education Coordinator
Kitsap Public Works, Stormwater Division
United States

Thanks, Cammy, for your response. First, I want to compliment the folks who clarified the issue as perceived as a government responsibility or business policies that are beyond control.

I am trying to achieve the bank not making money by cashing checks that are written by their accountholders. I am only a bit into the book, and I have much to learn about what it is that i am trying to accomplish.

The united states comptroller of the currency allows for banks to charge fees to cash their own checks as a means to offset loses to forged checks. These fees are set by banks and go from no fee at all to much higher than the particular bank that got my attention. Indeed, it turns out that banks are not required to honor checks at all.

However, these fees essentially translate to a revenue stream.

My goal is to make that revenue stream too costly for banks to collect. I have a checking account at another bank and can simply deposit checks drawn on other banks. The unbanked do not have that choice.

The unbanked are mostly low invome people. They either cannot afford the little surprises that unanticipated account fees create, or they are on a list akin to a credit report indicating that they did something like close an account still owing a balance. Think loan sharking practices allegedly done away with by the dodd-frank act; in the "loan sharking" practice, banks would approve debit card purchases when an account was overdrawn. The unwitting customer could have hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees before ever knowing they were overdrawn. So, some people caught in practices like that may still be unable to open a bank account if they could not pay off the bank. Bottom line worth repeating: The poor suffer these fees.

The poor are fairly voiceless, and my questioning of account holders at this bank are unawre of check cashing charges. The challenge is getting bank customers to overcome the sense that there is nothing they can do to change bank policy. Apathy and defeatism are ruling how most bank account holders behave.

At the personal level, these accountholders are mostly disgusted that their bank charges a fee to cash their checks. So, i hope as i work through the book i will find ways to convert these individual feelings into mass action.

I hope i clarified a little. I'll work on it. Thank you.



John Barrett
United States