The other day I reconciled our accounts like I do every week. One line stood out, the same one that’s annoyed me since we set up our mortgage. Part of our home loan sits in an offset account. Our savings offset what we owe, and we only pay interest on the difference. Our bank charges $12.50 a month for that. Annoyed enough this time, I looked into it and found some banks don’t charge this fee at all.

I needed to call them for something else anyway, so while I was on the phone I asked: “Are you able to remove the monthly admin fee?”

“Hold on, please give me a moment. Ok we’ve removed the fee, was there anything else you needed help with?”

No, thank you very much.

That was it. I asked, and it was gone.

A few weeks later, an email landed about yet another broadband price increase. That’s when I noticed the credit from an earlier price hike had also expired. Instead of shopping around, I messaged them first and asked if they could put the credit back. Two minutes later, they had.

Next time you see a fee or price increase you don’t like, just ask about it and see what happens.