Dear ING Direct,

I blog this with a heavy heart.

Earlier today, mastervk submitted a link to a news story which caught my attention; it dealt with gender inequality and speaking out against a regressive advertising campaign in India. Duly noted, I thought, rather sure I was going to blog about it later. I saw the excerpt for this story a few more times throughout the day, but apparently I was not really understanding it, for if I had, the disappointment I suddenly feel would have flattened me earlier.

I didn’t realize they were talking about you.

You, ING, you are the one behind this?

In the commercial, the birth of a girl is followed by what the Delhi government considers as a derogatory statement: Hai To Pyaari Lekin Bojh Hai Bhari (Though loveable, she’s still a burden). “It sends out wrong message,” said education secretary Rina Ray. She has written to National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and Delhi Commission for Women(DCW) asking them to ensure the advertisement is withdrawn and also a public apology is issued by the insurance firm on all channels.

Ray is unhappy with the overall gender bias in the ad, particularly the scene which depicts fathers being weighed down by the financial costs involved in bringing up their daughters and funding their studies so much so that the ground beneath their feet caves in. Ray quotes a hospital scene from the commercial in her letter which depicts girls as a burden.

Ray said: “This is unfair. Parents spend money for a boy’s education too. Then why single out girls, especially when the country is positively debating women empowerment.”

The DCW has written to the insurance company asking them to stop airing the advertisement. “Promoting such biased views on the girl child may have a demoralising impact on women,” said Barkha Singh, DCW chairperson.

The TOIlet paper concludes with this paragraph:

However, the company said they have not received any letter. “The ad was not meant to be derogatory to anybody and hurt others’ sentiments. Its aimed at rekindling emotions and sentiments of a father’s duty (‘mera farz’). We will look into the objection and take recourse if the ad has hurt anybody,” said Geeta Sarin, regional general manager, ING Vysya Life Insurance Co ltd.

Haven’t received a letter? Yet. You haven’t received a letter, yet. You know what else you haven’t received yet? My notice to cancel all my accounts with you. Because as much as I love you (and oh, how I do), I love little girls, equality and not perpetuating bullshit, more.

Do you know how difficult this is for me? Kindly allow me to explain why I feel a sense of loss about something as plain as a bank account.

Like almost every American, I was an AmeriCAN’T when it came to saving money. My “regular” savings account did not excite me, the interest it paid was insulting and often, it was pressed in to duty as a shallow well for emergency transfers to my checking account, to make sure that my health insurance premium was paid instead of bounced. I did not save. My anemic Roth IRA doesn’t count.

Then, I met someone a few years ago. He was many things, but most relevant for this story, he was a very, very wealthy C-level exec. I didn’t know any of that when I started dating him (like a movie, na?), but that’s another story, one which will later go in to a work of “fiction”. Actually, that’s relevant, too, because if that dream ever did come true and someone paid me to type a few hundred pages of something, that money was heading straight for you.

Anyway, I still remember the exact conversation which brought ING in to my life. I was teasing him for spending on his very gorgeous German car what most people spent on houses when he grew serious and told me that it was paid off. That he wasn’t shady or irresponsible and despite his infamously turning down an Ivy League med school, he was not stupid. “Believe it or not, I’m a saver,” he said. And he mentioned you. Orange, wonderful ING Direct-you. “I love my ING account,” he said, “more than all my others.”

That captured my attention. I worked for Bank of America while I was at UC Davis and then for Citibank just after graduating, when I was still procrastinating mightily about law school.

[Aside: I loved being a teller at BofA in the bay area. It was one of my favorite jobs, ever. It was so fun, I used to joke that if I won the lottery and could afford to do anything, I’d be a teller again, because I liked writing people’s balance information on Hello Kitty mini-memo paper and helping the Spanish-speaking customers, who were so old skool, they still came in with tiny, ecru-colored savings booklets for me to write in…my Punjabi customers…well, that could be a post itself. I loved BofA so much, that I have never left them, even though I could not bank with them in DC when I commenced grad school in 1999. I’m loyal, to a fault, and with that I can get back to my post, because if I’m devoted enough to stay with a bank that used to hold my financial aid checks arbitrarily, prevent me from using the ATM and otherwise cause me unbelievable amounts of inconvenience without my leaving, then I’m the kind of customer any company would want. I’ve been with Sprint for ten years; I’ve brought them my entire family and two ex-boyfriends. I’m one of those customers. I deliver.]

I had never, ever heard anyone declare that they “loved” any silly bank account. I thought that perhaps this had to do with the sort of kundi-kissing, kid-gloved treatment that uber-rich people get from their consumer bank-appointed handlers.

Wrong.

“No, I got my Orange account when they came out…and I was making less money than you do, now.” I was perplexed. What was in this Orange kool-aid? Knowing what you now know about my deeply-ingrained loyalties and preferences, you will not be surprised to learn that I was impressed with such a testimonial. I joined. Modest automatic transfers went from BofA to ING and when I got my really ridiculous consulting job, those transfers grew fatter. Now I was drunk off the kool-aid, too, since the drink was not some sweet orange punch but my beloved Peet’s Coffee.

Though ING is a branch-less, direct bank, they do have, of all things, a Cafe in a cute part of Philly. The interior has the familiar Orange ball, free internet access and exquisite coffee. It’s all so random, I know. But I dug it. What does Berkeley coffee (which I never get to drink on this coast) and an airy space to serve it in have to do with the business of banking? Not much, unless you were picking up some material about their products.

At the cafe, you couldn’t do anything with your accounts while sipping Peet’s. But that didn’t matter to me, because it was all so brilliant and subtle. I love checking my email. I love good coffee (which was CHEAP, btw). My virtual bank was giving me both, in one appealing bundle. I loved it. I loved it so much, I have a photo album of my first visit to ING illadelphia, and that’s where the picture for this post comes from. Whenever I visit Philly, the first place I go is ING cafe, for my coffee and bonding session with orange stuff.

But wait, there’s more to my love affair with ING. That savings account grew substantially and 18 months ago, when I had to make one of the most adult choices of my life and move out, to my first grown-up, big-girl apartment, my orange account facilitated that. Me, who had lived with parents until age 23, who had roommates every year after that (it’s $$$ to live in the city, y’all) who had never lived alone…I was going to move. And moving is expensive. And for once, I didn’t have to do the sheepish Indian-perpetual-child thing and call my Mom for scrill.

I had enough of it in my beloved ING Orange account to cover first, last, and deposit for an apartment in a very beautiful, affluent neighborhood. I had enough to pay for moving. I also had something I had never really experienced in my young, free-spirited, under-paid life: independence. And for that, ING grew priceless. I even opened another account with them just last week (what timing). I am loyal and after the thrill of all that apartment-related agency, I assumed I’d be with ING for years.

And then I saw this.

And now, I don’t think of Peet’s, or orange balls, or financial goodness. I think of an advertising campaign which perpetuates a mentality I find reprehensible. I think of how I am confused, because it is ING insurance in India which screwed up, and perhaps that is very different from ING Direct in Amreeka (hey, I’m not the Wharton grad in the bunker, I don’t know these things!), but when I was researching this post and I saw the site for ING Vysya, I immediately recognized an orange lion and very familiar fonts. My stomach knotted and I knew. I just knew I would no longer look at my own accounts quite the same way. And the cynical among you can say that I am one person and insignificant and you would be right. You could point out that ING doesn’t need me and my cute little accounts and you’d be correct.

But.

That guy I dated? He’s still with ING. And he loves little girls and hates the antiquated, ignorant, “daughters-as-burdens”-bullshit as much as I do, even though he’s Punjabi and they’re supposed to be the most son-loving brownies of them all, right? Ha. No. I don’t think he could love a nephew the way he adores that baby girl; if anyone even hinted that she was “loveable, but a burden” I think that person would soon have a few bruises to show for such stupidity.

He’s not married, he has no children, in fact all he has is his little niece. Whom he adores. Who, if something were to happen to her doting Uncle, would inherit all that money in those various ING accounts. So while my paltry interest in ING is of no concern, maybe his will be. You never know who might have one of these accounts, who might be disgusted enough to vote with their feet and move their assets elsewhere. If ING is sincere about looking in to the “objection” and addressing it, I hope they do so, soon. My inner cynic thinks they won’t give a shit about any of this and that is why I’m already looking for a less colorful, but more sensitive place to take my business. I loved you ING, but not enough to look the other way.

Regretfully,

your quondam fan-girl