Fleet Marine Life #86 – Hidden Fees
In boot camp, you are forced to open a Fort Sill National Bank (FSNB) account. That is where your direct deposits go (pay checks). You may think all is fine and dandy but later down the road, your drill instructor should warn you about the dangers of FSNB and how they are infamous for stealing money out of Marines’ bank accounts. How do they do it? Hidden fees, random fees and sometimes for just no fucking reason. Not only do fellow Marines warn you in boot camp but throughout your entire Marine Corps career. If I see a Marine with an FSNB bank card, it is my sworn duty to warn that Marine about the dangers of FSNB.
In MOS school, one of my fellow classmates had a thousand dollars disappear from his FSNB bank account. For no reason! He was angry but mainly confused.
It’s kind of strange how this notoriously bad banking institution still exists. It’s even stranger that Marines are forced to open FSNB bank accounts even though FSNB is known throughout the Marine Corps as a horrendous bank. In fact, FSNB is referred to by Marines as Fort Steal National Bank. Do higher ups just not give a shit about junior Marines? Do they have some kind of deal with this bank?
Also if you’re overseas, you will encounter problems withdrawing money from an ATM using an FSNB card.
More than often, Marines can’t see the signs of what is to come in front of them. After 6 months of warnings, one might think to at least consider thinking about preparing for these dangers.
Getting our money stolen since 1775.
This comic should be part of every marine’s training.
Thanks for posting this. I finally closed that account in MOS school, but they didn’t want to, so I wrote a letter saying that a copy was given to my command, and that helped.
Thats funny, I was told this exact same thing about my Pacific Marine account (west coast’s bank) for the same reasons. Apparently hidden fees were their big thing. A couple dollars here and there and nobody is the wiser 😉
Navy Fed ftw.
Now you get a choice between FSNB and Navy Fed if you go to PI. I chose Navy Fed and it is great.
FSNB? I have never heard of this bank before reading this. When I went through basic back in 2005, we did Pacific Marine. It was a decent bank actually. I never had any trouble at all in four years. Glad I never had this bank you speak of.
At one point my wife opened an account with Bank of America and we closed it two months later because of problems similar to what you illustrated. The one bank I would recommend to everyone is Teachers Credit Union.
FSNB was mandatory for all east coast recruits.