I know some of you are aware of the latest racket by our banks to squeeze more blood out of the rocks they call customers. It's where you use their Check cards like a Visa or MasterCard and the balance in your account is the same as a credit line in a credit card.
They must have gotten jealous at some point of the huge fee income that Credit card issuing banks were racking up so they most generously and without their customers permission gave you so called overdraft protection on your check cards.
And boy did it work
Consolidated fee Income from this latest scam was 4.8 Billion and growing like a weed. They are so proud of themselves too.
For those of you who don't know about this new scam to empty your wallet. Say you are getting low on funds in your account. You head out for the day. Stop at Starbucks, pick up a coffee, maybe buy a book at half priced books or use it online at a few places to get some necessities.
Unbeknownst to you your balance is down. Maybe it's a shared checking account or maybe some raided it. OR maybe you just forgot. But each one of those charges that the bank so generously let through cost you anywhere from $26.00 to $35.00. So say you had 8 or 9 micro purchases totaling $150.00 or so. You go home. Get online and find you spent $450 instead of $150.00. Each time you used the card they hit you with that fee. Now you see how a poor family could easily get shoved into the arms of a pay day lender. Because when their employer does a direct deposit, the negative balance caused by those fees eats that paycheck like a snack.
Today, I said I wanted to Opt-out of the scam. It was apparent that this request was unusual as they had to call three people to get the paper work to take that off my account. They didn't seem pleased. Perhaps some bonuses are ties to it. I don't know.
So if you ever find yourself in that position, please tell your employer to issue you a regular paper paycheck and cash it at his bank. Then go open a new account at another bank and opt out of any so called check card overdraft protection. Or in raw terms- tell em to stick it. The Rat Bastards.
If your reading this, I have one more thing to piss you off: those of you who are as angry as I am about these bankruptcy laws, should go check out Citibank or Chase's 2006 income at www.sec.gov. Thanks to the laws, billions were added to the bottom line. Citi Alone added 1.5 Billion just for the credit card division I beleive. It was not because they got new customers but as a result of reduced filings and protests at filings, they were able to reduce the loan loss reserves they had by a whooping Billion plus. Not only that their fee income sky rocketed.
The final insult to ones sensibility and idea of fair play is the 21 Billion in net earnings in 2006 just wasn't enough for Citi. So they laid off 15,000 employees. I wish former Treasury Secretary Rubin hadn't gone to work for these theives. He did a hell of a job as a public servant only to have all those years wiped out by taking a paycheck from these Loan sharks.