Banks are crooks.

[peternap]

What a change....

I actually agree with benovelance and disagree with Don

I really hate banks. I dislike any company that uses my money and acts haughty at the same time. I did close an account once that had slightly over the maximum FDIC amount in it. Sure got a lot of bowing and scraping from various levels but I was POed and still closed it.

This is a timely subject. I am NOT a believer in the new cashless society...period! My wife is not as enlightened and has a check card. We had made some large purchases this week and she used her card. Tonight WE got a call from the bank and they went over every charge including where we ate an hour before. They said it looked suspicious. To make it worse several days ago we were starting the purchases and she was using her AMEX. They thought the transactions were not normal and refused a charge. That stunt nearly cost me a lot of money.

No apology, just "Oh .....That's OK then....I'll let the charge go through".

SOB's....I'll have to go to church for a month to make up for what I've said to people this week!

Now even my wife agrees that BIG BROTHER is watching!

[MountainDon]

It is all a scam designed to get as much money out of the average person as possible.

Peter (benevolence) once again it's uncanny how similar our core beliefs are; it's our individual implementation that differs.

I too do not comprehend how readily most people spend untold numbers of dollars for their beloved cell phones. I worked for Sprint PCS for a while and while there had one of their phones... special employee deal $15 a month. It was cheap and I couldn't resist. But, before working for them I could see the ridiculousness of the charges. After leaving I closed the account. Last May we bought a Tracfone because we wanted emergency service up in the mountains. We have a tower near by. Works great. We got it on a special 19.95 recon offer. Came with 120 minutes. We used almost all of them by November and just before Christmas bought 90 minutes more... that are good until June I think.

So what if 'they' try to entice you and I with all sorts of fancy slogans, 'free' offers, glossy ads, phones with more dodads than you can shake a stick at, etc. That's their right. We make our own decisions based on what we perceive as our reality. Somewhere along life's road I learned to think about what's best for me, to think about what I really need, vs want. Sometimes I buy what I want instead of what I need... like a 17" widescreen laptop instead of the 15" that would have done the job. I seem to have passed this along to my son. Well, mostly, he does have that RX8, that isn't really a car one 'needs'....

I believe anybody can do that if they use common sense. Of course somehow common sense does seem to be in short supply, maybe an endangered commodity. Too bad.

As for the banks and CC companies monitoring purchases patterns as peternap mentioned, we've had a few similar calls. (I find that the more we've used the card the less frequent those calls become.) But included in one of those was the occasion my wife lost her card, didn't know it and it was found by a person with larceny in their heart. They tried using it at a gas pump, incorrectly entered the asked for zip code more than the allowed number of times, and the 'system' turned off the card, and initiated a phone call to us. That worked out. It's too bad that sometimes their system screws up.

[glenn kangiser]

It is all a scam designed to get as much money out of the average person as possible.

...and, it looks like the perfect definition of "The System".

On another note --- yes -- they are spying, but I can say it worked out for us also.  Sassy had a card she hadn't used in years.  Someone somehow got the number from some records ripoff and around $3000 of charges showed up in LA and other places.  They knew she hadn't used it -- called to confirm it - shut the account and I don't think she even had to pay the first $50 she may have technically been liable for.

At the same time -- if you have a bunch of open credit accounts, you can't just go close them even if you don't use them.  It will also mess up your credit by screwing up a ratio of available credit to outstanding debt or something like that that they look at.  Don probably knows. 

Back to that debt is money theme or something like it, I guess.

[ScottA]

This is an interesting discussion. I've been working hard for the past several years to eliminate all my debt. I realised that the only way I'd ever be able to retire would be to be debt free. Seems this may be bad for the economy but it's been good for me. I never realised what a drain debt was on me when I was younger. You grow up thinking you're suposed to by a house a car etc., get a credit card or you're not normal. The only way you can get there is with borrowed money or so we're taught. I've been trying to teach my kids that this isn't true and to avoid using credit they don't have to but they won't listen to me.

The money I'm not paying on loans is paying to build my cabin.

My son has been helping me build my cabin and I think he's getting the idea that it can be done. You don't need to go into debt to own a house. It may not be as big as you think you need but you won't have a mortgage to sweat every month either. Not to mention that a smaller place is cheaper to maintain and operate. We are talking about building him a place next door when my cabin is done.

[MountainDon]

[1]... but I can say it worked out for us also. .....don't think she even had to pay the first $50 she may have technically been liable for.

[2]---- if you have a bunch of open credit accounts, you can't just go close them even if you don't use them.  It will also mess up your credit

[1] My experience has been that unless you are a 'creep', slow payer, irregular payer, .... the card vendors I've worked with will not charge the $50. It's good business.

[2] That's right... best to close maybe one a year if you have loads of them.

Another helpful tidbit.  You can get a totally free credit report on yourself (and a separate one on your spouse) once a year by CLICKING HERE.   This is NOT the same as one of the many commercial sites that lure you in with the 'free' word and then try to sell you on a subscription, or make you give a CC# and then have to cancel it within 30 days. This is the free federally mandated site. You can get a report from each of the big three companies. You will be offered several opportunities to buy services but you don't have to do the sign up and cancel dance.

If you sign up for the Transunion newsletter they will send you a reminder email in 12 months so you can go check again for free. They'll send you offers you can ignore. That's what I/we do.

[MountainDon]

...Seems this may be bad for the economy but it's been good for me. ....You grow up thinking you're supposed to by a house a car etc., get a credit card or you're not normal. The only way you can get there is with borrowed money or so we're taught. I've been trying to teach my kids that this isn't true and to avoid using credit they don't have to but they won't listen to me.

The economy is not the responsibility of the individual. The individuals responsibility is to themselves and their family. Period. We are 'taught' a lot of incorrect things by examples and slick admanship. And so many people get themselves into so much trouble by not thinking for themselves. That's maybe partly the fault of government schools, but it's also in large part due to the failure of parents to understand fiscal responsibility. Like father, like son, and so on I think.

We tried to get the local school board to try an experiment with a special short series of classes on money; bank accounts, balancing accounts, credit use.... The bank I worked for (Bank of America, okay... no surprise there) would have allowed me to use work time. In other words, they would've paid me or a coworker to do this as a public service. The school board turned it down.

All you can do as a parent is try to teach your kids; they learn most things by example I believe. Sounds like you're on track Scott. Not everyone takes lessons to heart all the time, or right away. Handling money like my parents did has been lost to the 'I want it now' generation. Instant gratification feels so good. At first.

Good example, building a cabin with money that otherwise might have disappeared in the form of interest payments. Lots of folks fall into the 'well, the interest on my mortgage is deductible' trap. I call it a trap. No matter how much of a deduction it gives you, simple math shows that you didn't get back what you paid out. And many folks with mortgage interest don't itemize and lose it anyhow.

As I've stated here and there before there are two words that you don't hear often enough.
Personal responsibility.

FYI, I was a small time manager in the customer service and check / check card fraud departments. Never loaned money. Never talked people into taking on debt.

[glenn kangiser]

Note that you can also request a credit report free any time you are turned down for credit based on information in one of the reports.

I know-- not all of us will always be able to use cash -- and I seldom do - even on regularly paid accounts --- yup--sucked in by the system.

[peternap]

I'm just one of those people that likes his privacy and none of what I've written so far is intended to insult Don in any way. In fact, I think he may be a little worse than me.

What I was doing this week isn't a big thing. It wasn't illegal or unethical, it just wasn't the banks business. I had several CD's mature this month that needed to be reinvested. I found some hard asssets that I think are better than gold considering the current price of gold. I was just reinvesting...

I have almost no credit and I'm told that's worse than bad credit.  ;DD......So what!

House is paid form farms are paid form cars are paid for and I never plan to finance anything again.

Now having said that I will say that privacy and or independence is not cheap or convenient!

Long ago, I did as Don and started using pre-paid cell phones and if you think I gave them anything like legitimate information when I energized them, Well.....I have a bridge for sale you'd love,

I always lie about personal information unless it is a felony (Like on government forms) I am a member of the Million Mom March so I can keep an eye on them. My name with them is Billy Hill.....Think about it

I have to make phone orders and internet purchases sometimes and use pre paid Visa's whenever possible.

Just like the rest of you, I have to play the system to live. Stock market, Banks and yes I reluctantly pay my taxes.....but I do try to insulate myself from as much of the record keeping as possible.

The key things to never be correct about giving are :
Name
SS Number
Address
Birth date
Phone number

These are all things that information gathering companies key on.

Boy I got off topic, Sorry!

[MountainDon]

I always lie about personal information unless it is a felony (Like on government forms) I am a member of the Million Mom March so I can keep an eye on them.

I too. I have junk or totally fictitious email addresses for all sorts of web stuff, telephone numbers out of thin air, one particular 'birthdate' I use for crap where it shouldn't matter, 123 Main St for a street address when it's no matter.... and also belong to a number of organizations whose philosophies run counter to mine. I do draw that line at paying membership fees, except for one particular environmentalist group here in the SW. For it a group of us have a decoy member and four of us chip in for the annual dues. We've had some fun with a few of their annual wilderness picnic get-to-gethers. 

Sometimes you have to be really firm in protecting the SSN. Places like the phone company don't need it... for them it's simply an ID number. Any number that looks like an SSN will do.

[benevolance]

every time I CALL the phone company it is a fight because I tell them they are not getting the social and I am not  verifying it on the phone...

Half the time I end up dropping the F bomb...And then they hang up or I get a supervisor and I tell them it is my right to refuse to give out a SSN on the telephone...

They do not even need it...They just want an id #...So they get my drivers license # instead

[Sassy]

Interesting website - this article is on the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) discussing the need for one world-wide currency http://www.forcingchange.org/store/1874178/page/1421181

[MountainDon]

NO.

Global money is a stepping stone to setting the stage for global government.

I believe in a couple of quotes from the article...

"Once a nation parts with control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes that nation's laws."
— W.L. Mackenzie King, [former Prime Minister of Canada].   

Essentially, the requirement for a single global currency is a bank that has power over all countries, kindred, and tongues. Former Canadian Member of Parliament, Paul Hellyer, criticized this development in 1994, saying that under such a global currency/banking system "the interests of citizens, of individual countries must be subordinate...to the interests of international finance." 

"...[countries] would no longer be able to pursue any kind of independent policy. Sovereignty over the most powerful of all economic tools would be turned to an international monster...A world bank run by a world kingship of international appointees collectively not accountable to anyone? Heavenly days!"

You think you've got crooks now.....

[sparks]

Didn't someone once say something to the effect of 'give me control of their money, I could care less about the laws they pass?'

[ScottA]

You've got to wonder how much damn money do these people need. If I had a million I could live happily ever after.

[glenn kangiser]

Sparks -- yes - pretty close but I cna't remember who.

Scott -- in their class, there is never enough-- there is no limit to their greed.

hmm Don, sounds like the New World Order -- one world government.  Bush would be proud.

I think that may be why they are trying to wipe out the dollar.  To implement it.

It was said that any time GHWB wanted a business to fail so he could profit off of it, he put dubya in charge.  Not sure how he benefited but I think Al Martin USN Ret said it.

[desdawg]

This is an interesting discussion. I agree with what Don says about a lot of things here. For me credit is a tool. And like any tool in the toolbox if used effectively can get the job done. If not used properly you can hurt yourself with it. We live in a world where certain items are priced really high and most people don't have the ability to go out and plunk down the cash needed. So in those circumstances credit has become a necessary evil. I spent 9 years building my home one paycheck at a time and when it was nearly done it was all paid for. I then decided to get a small mortgage, $65K. I placed the proceeds in a money market account and using that plus a little credit here and there have managed to turn it into some 60 real properties. I currently have four mortgage payments. The rest are paid for. I consider proper credit management part of my business strategy and one of my duties as the guy in charge. There isn't any future in being angry at a bank because of decisions I make personally. One of lifes biggest wastes is a mistake I don't draw a lesson from. I make mistakes but I just have to buck up and go on.

[Sassy]

Desdawg, we use credit as a tool, also.  We owe 2 mortgages, have 2 paid for, have income from rentals, and just about all the equipment is paid for.  We really live very frugally & do most everything ourselves...  At this time in our lives - I could retire in 2 yrs, I'd like to have everything paid off - then I don't have to wonder or worry where we'll get the money to pay the month's bills.  We have money put away, but don't like to touch that at this point.  That is if I have any retirement left after the gov't & stock market get finished with it.    

What makes me mad are the manipulations the central banks (re Federal Reserve) & international bankers do to cause panics etc.  And the "creative" financing that goes on - just one example recently - the mortgage fiasco that is affecting markets worldwide.  Our CPI (commulative price index) that the gov't keeps changing on how it is reported - right now still doesn't look that bad, but if you were figuring it out the way they did 20 yrs ago, it would look pretty bad.  They don't even report how much money the Feds are printing out (from thin air, mind you) that our tax dollars pay interest on (when our congress, who, btw, are voted on - supposedly  should be in charge to avoid "conflict of interest" yeah sure...  ) so the big bankers make all the money, manipulate the markets, control the money & as of a couple years ago, they don't even report how much paper money they are printing so that the inflationary effects aren't really known by the man on the street.  Those are the things that make me mad...  Sure, so far we've been able to use it to our advantage...  but if things keep going like they are with the NY stock market falling of 2000 points in a matter of days - if the banks call in all their loans, anyone owing money could be screwed   

But hey, it's a beautiful day outside, sunny again while I'm sure the valley is socked in & I'm up here in the mountains on paid for land in a paid for cabin...        Now to look up if there are any yard/garage sales.... 

[Sassy]

This link would fit under here or "what your gov't has done for you today"

BANK SECRECY ACT:
GOLD BROKERS WILL BE FORCED TO REGISTER GOLD SALES

By Jon Christian Ryter

January 12, 2004

NewsWithViews.com

Within two months gold brokers and jewelers in the United States will fall under the purview of the Bank Secrecy Act of 2001 and will be required to report to the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network [FinCEN] any time one of their customers buys $50,000 in gold or precious stones, or spends more than $10,000 in cash.

The twist in this regulation comes from Section 103.23 of the Bank Secrecy Act that forces gold brokers and jewelers to construe that separate purchases over a period of several days or weeks are, in fact, one purchase in the eyes of FinCEN. What was going to happen in late February or March, 2004 began to surface as a cyber-rumor in late November. By the middle of December the Internet was flooded with unsubstantiated rumors that gold confiscation was around the corner. A mid-level Treasury official addressing a jewelers' convention in November mentioned that the Treasury Department was writing the regulations that would enforce Section 359 of the USA Patriot Act, commonly known as the Bank Secrecy Act. The conspiracy dam ruptured, and the cyber-flood began. Only this time, the rumors were largely true with respect to a registry being created for gold brokers and diamond and precious stone merchants and their most profitable clients.

The Bank Secrecy Act of 2001 was written by the same FDIC and Fed officials who created the privacy intrusion regulations in 1998 that were innocuously promoted to the American people as a bank "service" referred to as "Know Your Customer." On the heels of the repudiation of "Know Your Customer" by America's financial institutions and privacy rights groups, Congress made two attempts--one in 1999 and another in 2000--to enact the Clinton Administration's proffered money laundering legislation that would have expanded law enforcement's access to personal information about your financial transactions (if there was sufficient grounds to suspect you might be engaged in some sort of unlawful activity due to the size of either the withdrawals from, or deposits into, your account at a bank, savings and loan, credit union or brokerage house). After HR 3886, The International Counter-Money Laundering Act of 2000 died on the vine, it would be September 11, 2001 before the American people would be frightened enough to blindly sacrifice a little bit more of their constitutional privacy for what they erroneously believed would be a safer America. On October 27, 2001 the Bank Secrecy Act piggybacked its way to passage as Section 359 of Public Law 107-56--the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required To Intercept and Destruct Terrorism (USA Patriot Act of 2001).  con't at link below
http://www.newswithviews.com/Ryter/jon13.htm

[MountainDon]

... and so are some others....

Mysterious $100 'supernote' counterfeit bills appear across world

DANDONG, China | The currency changer, brazenly plying his illegal trade in the Bank of China lobby, pulled out a thick wad of cash from around the world and carefully removed a bill.

The 2003 series U.S. $100 bill was a fake, but not just any fake. It was a "supernote," a counterfeit so perfect it's an international whodunit.

It had come from a North Korean businessman, the changer said, getting angry looks from his confederates. He stank of alcohol, but his story was plausible. The impoverished hermit nation sat just across the Yalu River from Dandong.

The story continues HERE...

[Willy]

This is an interesting discussion. I agree with what Don says about a lot of things here. For me credit is a tool. And like any tool in the toolbox if used effectively can get the job done. If not used properly you can hurt yourself with it. We live in a world where certain items are priced really high and most people don't have the ability to go out and plunk down the cash needed. So in those circumstances credit has become a necessary evil. I spent 9 years building my home one paycheck at a time and when it was nearly done it was all paid for. I then decided to get a small mortgage, $65K. I placed the proceeds in a money market account and using that plus a little credit here and there have managed to turn it into some 60 real properties. I currently have four mortgage payments. The rest are paid for. I consider proper credit management part of my business strategy and one of my duties as the guy in charge. There isn't any future in being angry at a bank because of decisions I make personally. One of lifes biggest wastes is a mistake I don't draw a lesson from. I make mistakes but I just have to buck up and go on.

I personaly only invest in things I have control over. I hate it when other people lose my money. My home is also paid for and did it thru a few investments and a lot of paychecks. Now I like credit cards cause I do not want a morgage against my home, to much power against me to feel confertable. They also control how you live, taxes, insurance and a few other things if you have a loan on your home. I like the zero instrest cards that way I can make money with there money and pay it back off. Now I made a 10,000.00 investment to build a 60,000.00 thing, that thing made me over 75,000.00 in a year and I still have the thing and paid off the card. Now since then that thing has made me over 360,000.00 and I still have the thing and it is still worth 60,000.00 and I can get that out of it any time I want in a little time. If I did not have the credit card I would have had to take a loan out on my place and I like a free clear title. I use the cards to make money with not buy toys to keep up with the jones that go down in value as soon as you get them. If I can't make money with something I try not to buy it. No brand new cars that kind of money can make big bucks other than just having a fancy ride! Now I also like my free time and sorta retired at 45 to do what I want to do since life is short. So I don't keep tring to make tons of money just to spend on more things I realy don't need cause I like living a simple life with out hassles that come with being very well off or rich. PS I have a cell phone that I pay 10.00 a month to use. I get around 50 mins free each month and allways have left over time except during fire season when I am away from home for a while. I love to call home each night to say I am OK and see how things are going but then it is a buisness expence!  Mark

[glenn kangiser]

I do similar, Mark.  Tools - equipment etc.

Usually used or build or modify it.  No use paying a lot of extra for new when it's value drops the moment you set in the seat.