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Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
dboh #17848 10/03/11 10:41 PM
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Originally Posted By: dboh
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Note: I don't write electronic checks; what I said was that Chase stores my handwritten checks on line so they don't have to expend time, effort, and money returning them to me.


Yes, I have that too. But I'm talking about companies electronically "cashing" them. They don't physically submit the checks to the bank. MasterCard and Visa don't physically send the checks back to the banks to get cashed; they wire what the check's for and the bank gives them that amount.

I pay with paper checks; the majority of my checks aren't even stored online because the bank never gets them.

Thanks for the clarification.

Actually, I thought that checks mailed to guys like MasterCard went to lockboxes and did physically get to the bank as do my checks to Con Edison and Verizon.

At any rate, as I said, I keep close tabs on my bank balances, so if there's a screw-up, which, by the way, has never happened, I'll be on top of it in short order.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
Virtual1 #17850 10/03/11 10:52 PM
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Inactive account fees, the $5 a month that was being withdrawn from your account, has to my personal knowledge been around for at least fifty or sixty years. At one time they were quite common and then several state legislatures wrote laws forbidding the practice. Then when the big national banks began buying senators and representatives and banking was "deregulated" those laws went by the board.

There are banks and other financial institutions that are eschewing all these fees and charges and doing quit well thank you. Most of them do the vast bulk of their business over the internet and only have one physical business location. My bank, USAA, even reimburses me for ATM transactions at "foreign" Banks.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
dkmarsh #17859 10/04/11 08:46 AM
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Originally Posted By: dkmarsh

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I can view and print the front and back of any check I write from my Chase on-line account.

Yes, you can use your ink and paper and a minute or two of your time and produce a facsimile which a disputant could easily argue proves nothing except that you might have written said check or you might merely be adept at Photoshop.

Real proof will require confirmation by the bank, which means more time and inconvenience for you.

And, as you noted, there's a limited time frame during which scanned check images are available to you; to achieve the level of security you'd have if cancelled checks were returned to you with your statement, you'd have to print them all—meaning, as I said earlier, that the time, effort, and money the bank is saving is a cost that's passed on to you.

With the bank not returning my checks (almost all of which I've got no use for, anyhow), I accrue cumulative time, money, and effort savings that far exceed the potential down-the-road time, money, and effort cost of the unlikely occurrence of push really coming down to shove.

Therefore, I see the situation as a win for both myself and the bank.

And, then again, maybe I've just been luckier than most in never having run into any problems, and I've let that luck turn my attitude pollyanna.

(As you've noted, even printing all of my returned checks would not rise to "the level of security (I'd) have if cancelled checks were returned to (me) with (my) statement." )


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
Virtual1 #17887 10/04/11 10:15 PM
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Originally Posted By: Virtual1
My bank is no longer a credit union, they've converted to a normal bank but they provide excellent services, good hours, easy contact, I have no complaints. (though their main ATM is in the sun and the deposit envelopes keep getting sealed by the heat!) They appear to be doing very well, I don't know why all banks can't be that way.


Part of it is a culture of entitlement.

When a business has been doing things a certain way and making a certain amount of profit from it for enough years, it seems that they come to expect that they are entitled to that much profit. So even if the economy changes, or the business climate changes, the company still expects that it should be able to continue making that much profit...and will do whatever it feels it needs to do to maintain that profit level.

This seems to have been a part of American culture for quite some time. Robert Heinlein observed in 1939, "There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."


Photo gallery, all about me, and more: www.xeromag.com/franklin.html
Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
alternaut #18092 10/08/11 04:24 PM
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As I said before: Revenge of the Gougers...


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Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
alternaut #18139 10/09/11 09:40 PM
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This is old news now (almost a year), but i think it fits like a glove into this thread... and also ties into the whole 'Occupy Wall Street' movement currently underway. The banks engaged in predatory subprime lending because —thanks to the magic of mortgage "securitization" and the ability to obtain triple-A ratings on such "derivatives" (e.g., collateralized debt obligation) —they never really cared about any risk when loaning money... because they were able to turn around and sell that risk en masse to greedy and/or foolish investors. All that's left is to foreclose like mad... to sweep their books clean of the evidence. [I believe Steely Dan had an album called "The Royal Scam"].

And some wizards were able to wager that the whole mess would go awry (akin to someone buying fire "insurance" on someone else's house), and they pocketed major coin when it all collapsed.

crazy

Last edited by Hal Itosis; 10/09/11 10:05 PM.
Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
Hal Itosis #18144 10/09/11 11:20 PM
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AlJazeera English aired Meltdown, a four-part investigation into a world of greed and recklessness that led to financial collapse:

1. The men who crashed the world
2. A global financial tsunami
3. Paying the price
4. After the fall

YouTube versions can be found here: 1, 2, 3, 4


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Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
alternaut #18146 10/10/11 02:31 AM
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What gets me is when a CNN show host (e.g., Don Lemon) interviews some random protesters at the 'occupy wall street' gathering... and he acts so perplexed (skeptical even) about why they're down there. As if he can't connect the dots for his viewers by simply reminding them of recent related events (about which he himself probably reported at some time).

It irritates me how complicit the media is in all this. The most significant economic disaster in around 80 years, and they don't give it any priority at all once it falls of the radar screen of the typical bimbo/bozo. They should keep investigating, keep informing, and educate the masses. What a waste. What a bunch of wimps. [Dylan Ratigan at MSNBC is the one great exception (as far as economic focus goes), but his show only airs once a day (whereas Matthews and Maddow get repeated 3 or 4 times throughout the evening and into the early A.M.]

Apparently we're supposed to conclude that Bernie Madoff was the sole mastermind behind everything... since he's the only one sent to jail that i know of.

Oh wait... here comes news about the trial of Michael Jackson's doctor. C ya

crazy

Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
Hal Itosis #18147 10/10/11 03:31 AM
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You're consuming the wrong media. Try here, for example, instead. smile



dkmarsh—member, FineTunedMac Co-op Board of Directors
Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
alternaut #18167 10/10/11 05:38 PM
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great links alternaut... thanks. Parts 1 & 4 are 'must-see' IMO, but the whole series is fascinating.

[Lest anyone feels put off by the "AlJazeera" reference there, the documentary seems to have been authored/produced by the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company).]

Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
dkmarsh #18175 10/10/11 08:40 PM
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Originally Posted By: dkmarsh

You're consuming the wrong media. Try here, for example, instead. smile



indeed. it's not the media that we remember. Cronkite, Huntley/Brinkley, et.al.

long, long gone.

news has to make a profit now....


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Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
roger #18184 10/11/11 04:10 PM
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Originally Posted By: roger
news has to make a profit now....

As one media executive put it, "The news is just the filler between commercials."


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
joemikeb #18190 10/11/11 05:38 PM
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Well, in fairness, that's the way it's always been. ALL broadcast television is filler between commercials (with the arguable exception of PBS, which is filler between fundraising drives). That's the entire economic model of TV. It's expensive to run a television station, and income from commercials is the only thing that makes it possible.

TV news programs have always competed with one another for viewers and thereby for advertising revenue. It used to be that news shows believed that what viewers wanted was unbiased, in-depth news reporting, so they competed with one another to be as evenhanded, in-depth, and informative as they could be.

But it turns out that isn't actually what people want. It's what people SAY they want, but it's not what people really want. People want information that caters to their pre-existing biases, prejudices, and bigotry. They want news that validates their already existing ideas. News programs that cater to people's existing prejudices are more popular than news programs that don't. When Rupert Murdoch realized that, he changed the face of television reporting forever.


Photo gallery, all about me, and more: www.xeromag.com/franklin.html
Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
dkmarsh #18198 10/11/11 10:05 PM
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Originally Posted By: dkmarsh
You're consuming the wrong media. Try here, for example, instead. smile

You're right of course, but to speak like Kevin Drum, does it matter? The vast majority of the US population never sees—let alone reads—any of these alternative sources. What they do see and hear is largely controlled by media that don't pay much attention to issues like these or bury them in drivel.

This may be because of the reasons tacit brings up, but such a view ignores the need (and market space) for alternative views to put this kind of incestuous news gathering in perspective. That approach is different from toeing the party line to the exclusion of everything else in that it would allow news consumers to make up their own minds. At the very least you wouldn't support a situation of Ich habe es nicht gewusst.

Sure, it's difficult to do justice to many of today's issues, but it's far from impossible. The US market is big enough to allow for some diversification along these lines, but you tend to see it, like US politics, settle at some median view that for the last decades has been skewed even further to the right than it usually is. But what boggles my mind is that so few follow the money trail to see who's really making out like bandits to the detriment of society at large. Otherwise, the Occupy Wall Street protests would be far larger...


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Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
Hal Itosis #18335 10/14/11 07:20 PM
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America's 13 deficits, an interesting and relevant Al Jazeera English Op-Ed series by Paul Rosenberg:

1. - Origins of US fiscal deficits
2. - America needs a new New Deal
3. - Functional deficits for dysfunctional America
4. - America's growing anti-intellectualism


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Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
alternaut #18381 10/15/11 07:12 AM
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Originally Posted By: alternaut
Originally Posted By: dkmarsh
You're consuming the wrong media. Try here, for example, instead. smile

You're right of course, but to speak like Kevin Drum, does it matter? The vast majority of the US population never sees—let alone reads—any of these alternative sources.

The real problem is that: getting a reasonable facsimile of a full factual accounting (including historical context, if need be) shouldn't require visiting underground websites, or high profile news agencies half-way around the world, or channel 1728 (?). There should be at least one (TV station) here in the lower 48 which provides as much... preferably a broadcast network with a low number such as 7.

Anyway, while i was fishing around for something else, i came across this:

This is a portion of a speech (entitled “The President and the Press”) which John F. Kennedy gave before the American Newspaper Publishers Association, on April 27, 1961...


[click the cc button for closed captions]

[excerpt starting at 5:52]
Originally Posted By: JFK

It is the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives rise to your second obligation—an obligation which I share. And that is our obligation to inform and alert the American people—to make certain that they possess all the facts that they need, and understand them as well—the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program and the choices that we face.

No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.

I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers—I welcome it. This Administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man once said: “An error doesn’t become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.” We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors; and we expect you to point them out when we miss them.

Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed—and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment—the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution—not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply “give the public what it wants”—but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.


So to summarize: the media has a Constitutionally protected obligation to educate the American people until they understand all about what's going down (short of highly classified national security information).

Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
Hal Itosis #18388 10/15/11 12:01 PM
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Quote:
...the media has a Constitutionally protected obligation to educate the American people until they understand...

Unfortunately, the people don't have a Constitutionally mandated obligation to understand.

Those folks who think it's important to understand all about what's going down can, with only a modicum of effort, avail themselves of any number of helpful sources of information. Sites such as Mother Jones (btw, they also publish a magazine with a circulation of about 200,000—compare to Newsweek at 1.5 million and falling) are hardly "underground."

I mean, you could argue that big box supermarkets, receiving as they do the blessing of the FDA and other regulatory agencies for the products they sell, have an obligation not to poison the American consumerate, but so what? We all know whose bread is buttered on what side, and those who care about the nutritional value of the food they consume frequent a myriad of other food sources: Whole Foods, farmers markets, CSAs, food co-ops, their own back yards—all of which are, while small compared to Archer Daniels Midland and its ilk, growing in popularity.

Complaining about the feedlot beef at the heart of the American diet, or the HFCS agricultural economy, might be justified, but if changes happen there, it'll be because those who care are taking there business elsewhere, one person at a time.

Don't like what's on TV? Turn it off.



dkmarsh—member, FineTunedMac Co-op Board of Directors
Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
dkmarsh #18404 10/15/11 05:41 PM
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Originally Posted By: dkmarsh
Unfortunately, the people don't have a Constitutionally mandated obligation to understand.

Or even care it seems (sometimes). wink


Originally Posted By: dkmarsh
Don't like what's on TV? Turn it off.

MSNBC does alright by me... most of the time. I wish they would repeat Ratigan later on in the evenings (he's only on from 4 to 5, so the 'working class' would need to TiVo in order to catch him). Also, it's a little hard to take Andrea Mitchell seriously, when she criticizes politicians about the economy (considering that her spouse is Alan Greenspan).

Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
Hal Itosis #18405 10/15/11 05:50 PM
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Originally Posted By: Hal Itosis
Also, it's a little hard to take Andrea Mitchell seriously, when she criticizes politicians about the economy (considering that her spouse is Alan Greenspan).

What is she supposed to do then for your approval? File for divorce? shocked smirk


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Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
alternaut #18406 10/15/11 05:54 PM
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They should fire her and add another hour of Dylan Ratigan. laugh

Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
Hal Itosis #18416 10/15/11 07:08 PM
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I understand that, but that wasn't the question, was it? wink


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Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
alternaut #18478 10/17/11 02:20 PM
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Back on topic: Online Banking Keeps Customers on Hook for Fees

On a related note: I phoned B of A today because of a fraudulent charge made to my checking account via my debit card. It is being cleared up but people should realize that banks not only withdraw these funds from the merchant who got snookered, but they also charge a fee to that merchant when they do so. So, banks have little or no incentive to actively fight fraud because they make money every time a fraud is perpetrated.


Jon

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Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
jchuzi #18507 10/18/11 12:15 AM
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Jon having a been personally involved in an identity theft situation, I must point out that every fraudulent transaction in this case was made possible because the perpetrator convinced the merchants employee to override the PIN number so the transaction could go through. Thus the merchants agent was complicite in the fraud and it seems to me perfectly reasonable the merechant should have been charged a fee as well as the amount of the charge itself.

There is another side to this story too. Had The transactions a been made with a charge card, by law the cardholders loss would have been limited to $50, but because a it was a debit card there is no legal limit on the card holders liability. In this case, the bank was unable to fully recover the loss due to time limits so the cardholder ended up losing over $5,000. The moral of this story is the debit/ATM cards are riskier to use than cash or credit cards.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
jchuzi #18517 10/18/11 06:09 AM
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Originally Posted By: jchuzi
On a related note: I phoned B of A today because of a fraudulent charge made to my checking account via my debit card. It is being cleared up but people should realize that banks not only withdraw these funds from the merchant who got snookered, but they also charge a fee to that merchant when they do so. So, banks have little or no incentive to actively fight fraud because they make money every time a fraud is perpetrated.


Yep. A lot of folks wrongly assume that the bank covers the amount of loss, but that's not so; the merchant does. To the ank, chargebacks are actually a source of profit (and a significant one; millions of dollars a year at the very least).

When credit card fraud occurs, the merchant loses twice. Not only does the merchant lose the merchandise, but then the bank charges the merchant a chargeback fee, which can be quite significant--anywhere from $35 to $90, depending on the bank. Since fraud is a significant revenue stream for the bank, of course they have little incentive to police it. They do the minimum they feel they need to to keep the trust of the consumers, and no more.

I recall reading a Consumer Reports article a few years back which argued that from a bank's perspective, the maximum theoretical profit comes when every one of their customers has their identity stolen and all their credit cards maxed out about once a year. More often than that and customers start moving to different banks in enough numbers to offset the profit from chargeback fees; less often than that and the banks lose the revenue stream from the chargeback fees. So from a bank's perspective, the ideal fraud prevention is just enough to keep people's credit cards from being stolen more than once a year.



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Re: Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink
joemikeb #18526 10/18/11 09:37 AM
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The fraud is interesting in my case. I NEVER use that debit card except at the bank itself to access my account (and, in fact, never use a debit card for purchases), and that is done at the teller window, in front of the teller, and not at the ATM. The merchant in question is Comcast and I don't have any business with Comcast. My late mother used to have an account with them but that was closed (I double-checked with Comcast). I paid all her Comcast bills from that BOA account but always used a check, not her debit card. In addition, the current debit card has a different expiration date than when she was alive.

BOA gave me a temporary credit pending their investigation and cancelled the debit card; they are sending a new one.


Jon

macOS 11.7.10, iMac Retina 5K 27-inch, late 2014, 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 1 TB fusion drive, 16 GB RAM, Epson SureColor P600, Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, MS Office 365
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