It took me a while to catch on to the fact that I as a representative consumer am in a constant adverserial relationship with my grocer.

With banks, I caught on right away.

If they don’t think you’re paying attention, they will steal your money. Bank errors are always in their favor. They’ll charge you $5 a month to “maintain” an online account, and a $5 transaction fee to conduct business via a human teller. They’ll raise the interest rate on your VISA card by 25% for no discernable reason one week, and the next they’ll congratulate you for being such a fine credit risk, by raising your card limit $12,000. They’ll charge you a monthly fee to maintain your checking account even though it bears no interest and your balance never drops below $10,000. They’ll make you a home equity loan if you accept as fact an appraisal that sets your property’s value at 70% of your total mortgage.

They’ll send you a debit card you never asked for, and if you use it for a cash advance two minutes before your paycheck deposit posts (even if you deposited your paycheck yesterday) they will charge you a $35 “convenience” fee for providing you what they refer to as the “service” of extending you a loan to cover the insufficient funds in your account. Even though you never asked for, nor do you want, such a “service.”

Now the raw numbers are out on this bullshit scam, and I’m sure you will be pleased to know that financial institutions collected almost $24 billion in overdraft charges from their customers last year – up 35% from the year before. Can’t wait to see the 2009 figures.

“Banks and credit unions have become so sophisticated in driving up overdrafts that Americans now pay more in overdraft fees every year than they do for books, cereal, or fresh vegetables,” said CRL senior researcher Leslie Parrish. “These billions of dollars drained from consumers each year represent lost opportunities for families to save for a rainy day or buy necessary goods and services that could help spark the economy.”

Sure, but if regulators actually regulated such piracy, then banks would have to live off of taxpayer bailouts alone.

OK, time to take stock: Is your bank pulling any of the above stunts on you? Are you being treated more like a parasitic host than a customer? If so – if your bank is costing you money instead of helping you save and manage it – it’s time to go bank shopping.

There still are banks that want your business, and even will treat you like a customer, so lets go find them. But be aware, you must continue to monitor the “services” and fees your bank charges you each month, because what starts out as a friendly merchant relationship can turn sour pretty quickly.

→ First, if your checking account is the center of your financial world (as it is mine), then call up the banks with branches around you, and find out where on their web sites they list the fees and services included in their checking accounts. (You want to find out their web site locations because you probably are going to want to try out their web sites, too. A good online banking experience is as important as a branch-office visit.)

→ Look for banks that offer no-fee checking, for starters, and pay attention to any minimum deposit requirements for “free” checking. It is not beyond reason to still, today, expect to find a bank that will give you a free basic checking account with either no minimum requirement or a very low ($200) one.

→ Ask for and obtain a list of fees the bank charges under various circumstances. Is there a fee for online banking? Why, when the bank frees up at least one employee while you’re conducting business on the web? Do they charge you money to use their own ATM network? Points off for that.

How do they handle overdrafts? Do they let you buy more with your debit card than your account has in it without notifying you that your account is overdrawn? Then, do they charge you $35 per overdraft transaction on your next statement? If so, tell them Uncle Bob says that’s a deal-breaker.

→ Shop for a bank with free checking, free online banking, a fair measure of other free services, reasonable fees (compare fees between all local banks in your area) and overdraft protection that actually protects your money. You are better off having a grocer or restaurant employee tell you “I’m sorry, the transaction has been denied,” then you are finding out in three weeks that you had to pay $140 in overdraft fees because, unknowingly, one overdrawn transaction triggered another one.

→ Introduce yourself to the branch manager. Pay attention to how he or she treats you. Did they make a good impression on you? Do you like them?

→ One last thing. There’s no sense moving your money into a bank that is about to fail. That could suck in several inconvenient ways. So check out your front-running banks on Bankrate. You should hope your new financial institution of choice manages three stars or more.

→ Add up the pluses and minuses, make an executive decision and move your money into the new bank. Congratulations! You have successfully dumped the leeches who’d been bleeding you all this time.

Now, here are three tips (two of them easy, one not so easy) for maintaining a happy banking relationship.

The first one is, make it a point to say hello and generally behave in a happy and friendly way with your branch bank’s management. You want them to remember your name and face – in a positive way. That’s because, should you ever make a mistake and do something that triggers a rare fee, you are going to go to them, point out the sterling-ness of your banking history so far, and ask them to consider waiving that fee you just got, not really through any purposeful action on your part. Almost always, under such circumstances, they will waive the fee.

The second one is, if you start up a business, open a savings account, buy a certificate of deposit or seek an auto loan, shop around a little, write down the best deals you’ve found, and then go to your bank. Even if they can’t quite match the best deals you’ve found, if they are close, give them your business. And be sure and tell branch management that they weren’t the best deal available, but you like doing business with them. (If they aren’t in the ballpark, duh, don’t cut off your nose.)

The third and harder one is, to make sure you don’t have to worry about overdraft fees or other nasty banking surprises, keep an extra $1,000 in your checking account. But always, always, treat that $1,000 as if it is zero. This is hard because, first, who has an extra $1,000 in this recession? and second, you have to exhibit self-discipline to pretend there’s no money in the account when there really is.

But trust me, pump in the extra money gradually, never tough it once it’s in there, and you’ll live better for it.