Banking burdens

Well, the idea of banks initially used to be to reduce one's economical stresses about keeping money safe. But I am not sure how the work these days. Yup, for most part I am sure they do what they promise. However, there are hidden clauses, unheard-of rules and unstated assumptions. Both my brother and I had an account in a certain bank here in Adyar, Chennai. And we've both been away from the country for a reasonable amount of time. That meant that the accounts lay low with minimal activity and I could understand it when they told me when I went there this time that my account was regarded "dormant" and I would have to ask for reactivation. Ok... then, they asked me for a proof of identity, not one, but three. Oh and the passport wasn't enough. And where they's promised me a zero-balance account, they now required 25k. Forget all that.. my brother's account was now regarded "unclaimed". And that meant, the ate 10% of the original account balance as a "fee" for "maintaining" the unclaimed account ever year. And they sent us a letter by regular mail to inform us about the same. With the amount of junk that each bank sends us regarding new "zero balance accounts" and credit card offers, we were expected to sift through all of that and actually find the clause in a pile of gibberish, assuming they really did send us the letter. And we, the innocent unsuspecting account holders had no idea of all of this till one fine day, the secondar account holder my mom decided to shut the account down and get all the money in it. She was pretty shocked and upset to learn that 40% of the initial amount had consistently vanished over the past 4 years that the account lay "unclaimed". Off went my dad all upset and indigninant at being unaware of such a ridiculous clause, being a banker himself. Then they demanded proofs of identities of my brother's and mother's, both to be self-attested, which wasn't initially mentioned. Once the letter went in, the demand for attestation came through about a month later...and once the attestation also went in, we were informed that we would receive the remaining balance but not the amount that was gobbled over the years. Banking made simple? Surely not. The solution? Don't trust the foreign banks masquerading themselves with advanced systems... trust the Indian brand names. Go India!