A Blind Eye

The only time you see any repentance by the banking industry is when they get caught. Check out this news item on Discover Bank. Beware the banks.

Insurance companies inflate replacement costs of homes.

I recently moved and applied for new homeowners insurance. I was shocked to get a quote with the ERC (Estimated Replacement Cost) of $262,000. When I was able to lift my jaw from the floor. I decided to do a little investigating. I know that market price and replacement cost are not the same thing so I went online and found a site that would allow me to calculate the cost of building a new house similar to mine. I was somewhat detailed and took only a short while to get the cost to build a similar house to mine. My suspicions were reinforced. I would expect differences in different estimating systems, but what I found was staggering. My online estimate was over $100,000 less than the insurance companies. Does this sound familiar? Housing market? Inflated home values? This is just another way to pick the pockets of the public I have wrote the insurance department of my state and I encourage you to do the same. When are these people going to learn that free enterprise doesn't mean scamming. There are class action law suits .in other states. The financial industry needs more stricter regulation.

Capitalism Run Amok!!!

I have experienced the cutting edge of greed while working in the banking industry. Capitalism without moral controls is nothing more than legal robbery. Read this article  Goldman Sachs Predator . It isn't just Wall Street it is large corporations in general.

BOA not charging $5 for debit cards another DUH momment for banking.

 Why is it that highly paid bank executives have cognitive issues? Let's take a walk through logic land and see how big cheese bank executives arrive at the $5 debit card fee.

*Damn banking regulations no longer allow us to charge ridiculous rates on Credit Cards and other accounts.
*Let's take advantage of a loop hole to make up what we lose by charging $5 for the use of a debit card.
*It doesn't matter that we would be the only one doing it because our customers are so pathetic that they will just pay it and stay with us.
*Make sure we don't consult anyone that will disagree with us because we are much more intelligent than everyone else.

Of course this is not exactly what they say it is a much more convoluted process. There are studies and spreadsheets and analysis that go into all this. The problem is they are just using it to justify what they are going to do anyway. It just makes it look good. Here is the simple logic that almost always eludes them.

*Why would our customers pay $5 for something they can get for free anywhere else, DUH?

You have to know that someone said that in a meeting and that person was blown off and labeled "Not a team player".

Bank of America to charge $5 for debit card use.

Non of this should be a surprise, but it should make you angry. BOA has lost billions of dollars through their own stupid arrogance and now will charge their debit card users $5.00 (see this article) to make purchases. Banks have no physical products they make money on "Other Peoples Money" (OPM). So ,in essence, banks are parasites. Think about that when the bank takes your money.

You paid for the PNC bank bailout and they shipped your job overseas

It has come to my attention that PNC bank has moved some of its' collection services out of the United States. People are getting calls to collect on their overdue mortgages and other loans from phone numbers from other countries. So the scenario goes, bank screws up and loses tons of money. Bank gets millions of dollars of tax payers money to save their lives. Bank uses money to buy another bank (instead of lending it out to stimulate the economy). Bank ships jobs overseas. There is something grossly wrong with this picture. I think a call, letter or email to your congressman would be in order.

THE BANK GIVETH AND THE BANK TAKETH AWAY THEN GIVES IT BACK

I recently had my bank test my patience by making funds, from a deposit made on a Friday, available in my checking account and subsequently putting a hold on those funds after I was told they would be available on Monday. Having had my chain jerked before by banks I decided to check my account on the banks website. Sure enough the funds were available so we wrote our checks and made our payments. All was right with the world. On Tuesday the shock came. The Loss Prevention (their loss not mine) department had put a hold on the funds because the signature looked squirrelly. Many of the checks and payments were made to places that have no sense of humor when checks  bounce. We started hitting the phone trying to head off as much disaster as possible. The township agreed to swap out our personal check for a cashiers check (the bank made some funds available after we called them about their bad behaviour). Unfortunately the personal check was sent in as well as the cashiers check. Boing, boing, boing!!!! Another Non Sufficient Funds charge. Once the dust settled on this fiasco we approached the bank about refunding the fees. They agreed to refund their fees, but not the fees from the institutions we attempted to pay. "We do not refund fees from other institutions" was the company line. They had forgot that I worked in the Banking and Finance industry for many years. I knew that was nonsense and I told them so in a lengthy letter to their branch manager which contain names, dates and places. I threw every piece of insider information about how banks work that I had. In the last paragraph I mention that I had not contacted any legal institutions or consumer groups YET!!!! I had to hold back something and give them a chance to do the right thing. Which they did. The lesson here is that banks can put a hold on your funds, but they can't lie to you and if they do they have to pay up.