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New York, 10:54 AM
Wed Dec 9
47 posts in the last 24 hours
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06/14/09
This, strictly speaking, isn't how it happens, allowing for things like deposit availability (when a check clears), but understand that if you deposit cash at 4PM Monday that covers a series of transactions from the weekend that would make you overdrawn does not guarantee you won't get hit with a bundle of overdraft fees. Rationally speaking, it should (after all, if the bank is zeroing out all your daily transactions at once, no money has been lost if you end up with a positive balance), but, you know, banks. If you imagine that an overdrawn amount as a bell that rings every time you are mathematically in the red, you can see how the bell rings five times before you cash deposit hits, and voila, 5 overdraft fees, even though by 7PM Monday your account is adequately funded.
Until federal bank regs are overhauled so that settlement occurs immediately (something that is, generally speaking, technically viable), you can fume at banks all you want, but you can't really stop them, so keep the above in mind, since it mirrors the way accounts were processed before ATMs (this is the 'batch processing' that Gladwell was referring to in his latest opus of idiocy) and various settlement advances happened. It should generally protect you from fee problems, but also will constrain your spending. Just because online banking looks immediate and feels like it is the last word, it may well not be the case.
Generally, avoid combo ATM/Debit cards, and use a monthly intermediary like AMEX to fund card purchasing, or online payments (like PayPal), unless you check on or manage your frequently. AMEX requires more discipline, but the liability issues about a Debit card are not worth the headache, and AMEX has excellent fraud management. When you use AMEX, you are basically withholding final settlement of your liability, which is not a bad personal policy, provided you manage your cash. It will be the only leverage you get, so take what you can, since everyone else is. Your employer makes you wait two weeks for pay, the government holds your estimated takes up to a year before issuing the refund you are due, so why shouldn't you delay final settlement as long as possible?
06/14/09
06/13/09
06/13/09
06/13/09
- Checked my Online Banking at 2am, morning of June 9th
- Went in to deposit $140 cash as a $575 cheque was going to be pending any day now, which would have left me $60 overdrawn without the $140
- Put in cash, avail immediately, went back home, Online Banking statement AND branch employee says it went through
- June 10: OB statement says $575 cheque went through on 8th (???)
- 0.47 transaction (charge for international cancer donation, why??)
- MBTA transaction had been pulled out on 28th June and re-posted on June 8th
- 7 transactions rearranged from highest to lowest including cheque and processed BEFORE $140 cash went in, resulting in 6 overdraft fees
So they fudged the date on my cheque, pulled out and put back in a transaction, and rearranged the transactions from highest to lowest to maximise their overdrafts.
And then they tell me to use Online Banking to keep track of my fucking account!
FUCK BofA. No sane human being can keep up with these constant mindfucks. Instead of having almost $80 in my account I am now $98 overdrawn.
06/15/09
Their shady "accounting" has me looking for another bank.
06/13/09
But lately I have been careful, careful, careful and have been transferring money when I need to, before I need to and keep a balance in my savings and checking accounts.
So they closed my overdraft line of credit. For "inactivity".
I used to be able to use my ATM card like a credit card and not have to deal with putting stuff on a credit card, but now it is no longer a credit card at all. So I have no cushion whatsoever.
To make this feel even more disempowering, this was the last credit that I had in my name only.
And the saddest thing? We stay with BofA because we have not found another bank that isn't worse.
You can take advantage of their low balance emails service and I highly recommend it. It is free.
06/13/09
Oh, B of A horror story:
I had fraudulent activity on my account and filed a claim. They said they'd send me an affadavit to sign, I never received it so I called them to ask them to have another one sent. In the meantime, they refunded my account the money that was missing. I sent back the affadavit and assumed all was fine. Fast forward a month later and I go to my checking account one morning and find that I am overdrawn by a few hundred dollars. This was on a day that I had scheduled my bills to be paid and I watched in horror as my account continued to be overdrawn while they tried to sort out what happened to my affadavit. Finally, they found the "missing" paperwork and I demanded they reverse some of the overdraft fees and they said they could only reverse 1 every 6 months (there were 4) and they wouldn't return the money that I'd filed a claim over because they didn't process the paperwork until 30 days after I filed the initial claim. I hate them. So much.
06/13/09
06/13/09
06/13/09
So. Be careful.
06/13/09
06/13/09
03/19/09
03/19/09
'Tis better to have twutted and shocked, than to have never twutted at all.
03/19/09
To have twut at all?
03/19/09
03/19/09
Twooly twentertaining twuvenor. Zil-low can we go?
03/19/09
I am a concerned citizen whose has become aware of a small scandal in the war on drugs involving www.drugfree.org and their new PSA commercial entitled: "Word Salad-finding the right words". I believe this commerical, much in opposition of its stated goals, intentionally conveys the glorification of drugs, specifically the drug cocaine.
In the commercial a typical teenager sits on the bed with her mother listening to a lecture on drugs. The mother, looking into the middle distance, speaks nonsense words over which is spoken a narration explaining that many parents struggle to find the right words when speaking to their children about drugs. This is all well and good. But near the end, the mother changes her tone. Initially solemn, she cracks a smile as the shot cuts to a close up of her joy, she looks into the light and says: "Afterword, lightly fish scale... doorbell."
"fish scale" means cocaine. The youth of america knows this because in March, 2006 Ghostface Killah of the Wu-Tang clan released an album entitled "Fish Scale" in which the rapper and alleged former drug dealer equates the cognomen "fish scales" with high quality cocaine in reference to the idea that his trafficking of the drug necessitates large scales, the type of which are commonly used by fisherman to way their catch. Kids know this because, for one thing, Rolling Stone Magazine told them:
"Fishscale" is apparently slang for uncut coke -- and the perfect title for an ambitious disc with almost no filler.
Jonathan Ringen
The lyrics of the album also make it clear:
While in Bolivia, Tony Starks has bumped heads with drug czar Columbo and moved over ten pounds of raw fishscale…
And this picture depicting Ghostface inserting white packages into a fishes' mouth while wearing a rugby shirt and Ghengis Khan hat cements the idea further.
[www.morethings.com]
Once more, wikipedia has an entry for "fish scale cocaine."
[en.wikipedia.org]
As someone with friends and family fighting addiction this is a slap in the face. When viewed by the youth of America, this PSA will promote the use of drugs not hinder it. The clear reference to the drug cocaine during the only moment of good humour in the entire commercial is a clear and discernable glorification of the drug in contrast to the goals of the venture. For our tax dollars and charitable contributions to fund a PSA which glorifies cocaine is damaging to our communities who wish to fight addiction without the constraints of contradictory messages. It is my belief that the writer/s of the commercial intentionally put the reference in as a joke to sneak by their superiors. I believe this because the mathematical probability of the word "fishscale" being included in the word salad by random choice is very low, especially since it is not only the inclusion of words themselves but their placement in the word salad at the point when the mother smiles that makes them so pernicious. I ask as a concerned citizen that you use your power to uncover who wrote the commercial to appear in it's present form and when the word "fishscale" was chosen to be in the word salad; that you get the commercial taken off the web and television; that you make whoever put the reference in the commercial apologize and admit their mistake.
Thank you
03/19/09
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March 19, 2009
Gawker Media
210 Elizabeth Street, Fourth Floor
New York, NY 10012
Twat and cocaine!
This letter will confirm receipt of your correspondence dated March 16, 2009 in which you advised that your client will no longer accept any further shipment of fish scale via postal courier...
03/19/09
03/19/09
03/19/09
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01/06/09
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