Wells Fargo Scam Is Ugly Look Inside Big Banks

Wells Fargo bank got fined big time for widespread
corruption and hijinks, including opening
bank accounts with fees for customers who did
not ask for the accounts or want them.  

Maybe we should be putting our money under mattresses after all and avoiding banks, given the news about Wells Fargo this week.

Wells Fargo Bank is paying  $185 million in fines to various agencies for opening up millions of phony accounts for unwitting customers.

This wasn't just a few bad apples at Wells Fargo doing this. About 5,300 employees have been sacked for doing this, which means it was part of the bank's culture for doing this.

It looks like the trouble started when Wells Fargo brass instituted, shall we say, aggressive sales targets for its employees.

So aggressive that most of them figured they'd never make it to their goals. So they created fake email addresses to sign up customers for online banking services. Apparently, there were about 1.5 million - yes million - such accounts opened.

The emails were fake, but the customers were real. And these customers did not know they were being signed up. Or would be subjected to fees and such that would help make Wells Fargo big, fat, rich and happy. (Wells Fargo will have to repay these customers fees they paid for their unwitting accounts.)

About $100 million of the settlement went to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Elizabeth Warren's favorite consumer protection agency which was created half a decade ago.

"Wells Fargo built an incentive-compensation program that made it possible for its employees to pursue underhanded sales practices, and it appears the bank did not monitor the program carefully," said CFPB Director Richard Cordway, as NBC news quoted.

I'm glad Wells Fargo is being called on their misdeeds, but as is usually the case when big banks or big businesses are up to no good, the top brass that condoned it are totally getting away with it.

It looks like the 5,300 or so people who were fired were pretty low level people. Maybe they deserved to be fired. But with that many people involved, Wells Fargo must have had a culture in which they did bad things to make profits.

Company culture usually comes down from the top. So why aren't the executives who had to know about this and did nothing still collecting nice big salaries at Wells Fargo?

It's not just envy of the fat cats that are getting away with this. We are all victims of this weird money making system.

As Douglas Rushkoff noted on CNN:

".......We are watching what we might call 'extreme capitalism' at work. Banks don't make money by creating value; they make money by extracting funds from anyone who wants to build a business or even just make transactions."

Rushkoff went on to explain that when the economy was growing vigorously, shareholders in banks were happy because the banks were making money through business loans and general commerce.

In the past decade, things have been slower, so to keep shareholders happy with every rising profits, banks like Wells Fargo try to make more money by issuing more credit cards with high fees and new loans with high origination costs.

So we're screwed. Because banks aren't really creating anything or helping anybody. They're just finding creative ways to transfer more wealth away from most of us, and concentrate it in their pockets.

I don't know if I agree with Rushkoff in the following or not, but his idea is intriguing:

"The only real solution here is for banks, like any business, not be required to grow. Banks, particularly savings banks, are more like utilities than businesses. With their monopoly power on the ability to issue currency, they are in a unique role to enable business of every other kind. This makes them at least as responsible to the public good as their shareholders.

By seeking to extract a higher percentage of our economic activity to pay for their financial services, they don't help anyone. Rather than promoting business, they serve as a drag."

Many conservatives and business types hate the CFPB, the consumer protection agency that is collecting fines from Wells Fargo and want to abolish it.

It's the agency I noted Elizabeth Warren loves.

The fines show that CFPB can help rein in the excesses of the banking industry.  Paying $185 million isn't a big deal for a behemoth like Wells Fargo. But the publicity sullies its reputation. The CFPB basically shamed Wells Fargo into behaving.

Sometimes a little public shaming is the best way to make people - and businesses behave.

If that doesn't work, maybe we should all withdraw our money and stow it under mattresses, I don't know.

DEA, Like Other Law Enforcement Shakes Down Airline, Train Passengers

Is the DEA enforcing drug laws, or or
they just shaking down people for cash. USAToday
raised the question.  

Asset forfeiture, the habit of law enforcement of taking money from people they "suspect" of a crime, whether these people actually committed a crime or not, keeps getting more widespread, we find out.

It's basically larceny by law enforcement, but shhhh! We're suppose to call it, "Cracking down on the drug trade."

Or whatever.

According to a USA Today report last week, federal DEA agents routinely mine data on airline and Amtrak passengers to find supposedly suspicious activity, then seize large quantities of money from some of these passengers, then often let them go.

The point of this, says the DEA, is to stop the flow of cash in the drug trade. And I'm sure some or even many of the cash seizures involve drug curriers or other people involved in the illicit drug industry.

But as I've complained about regarding other police agencies, is it really OK for law enforcement to just grab money for fun and profit without due process?

Technically, it's legal in a lot of places, but doesn't seem to follow the spirit of the Constitution for me. But hey! If we can just steal money from stupid schlubs who get in our way, we don't have to go through the pain in the neck process of bothering law-abiding taxpayers.

And you keep those anti-tax and spend politicians happy.

Never mind that some of the people law enforcement steals money from are also law abiding. It's just easier this way, apparently.

Based on the USA Today report, you probably shouldn't travel one-way, pay for your ticket with cash, have checked baggage or give the ticket agent a phone number for you that's not working.

The DEA could well mine that data on you, then take your money at your next stop.

The danger of this pervasive practice, which so far nobody has really put a stop to, is that we lose more and more confidence in law enforcement. They're written off as just another part of the corrupt system.

If people come to that conclusion, what's to stop them from really breaking the law. Hey, the cops do it, why shouldn't I,? goes the logic.

But, people running these law enforcement shakedowns don't think in those terms. They just want to rake in the cash.

I Finally Figured Out That Donald Trump Is Like An Evil Rip Taylor

Rip Taylor portrayed an angry clown
is his comedy schtick. Is Donald Trump a
mean version of this?  

I'm going to start this post by apologizing profusely, in advance, to comedian Rip Taylor.

He's been around for decades. His schtick is the guy who is burned out from a career being the happy guy.

He angrily instead of gleefully throws confetti, (Taylor is known as the :King of Confetti") and his jokes are hilarious, bitter complaints about what's going on around him.

Rip Taylor is the angry showman, dressed flamboyantly, but mockingly pretends to be not enjoying life.  The whole thing is a little much, but it's funny, and he's built a long career on it. Good work, Rip Taylor!

I bring all this up because I've finally figured out what Donald Trump is all about. He's an evil Rip Taylor, but Trump's flamboyant anger is real and contagious, not a harmless act like Taylor's.

Instead of Taylor's confetti, he throws money around. Instead of acting like he's frustrated with an audience for not laughing at his jokes, Trump wants people to beat up dissenters who don't like his schtick.

As part of the act, Taylor dresses in ridiculous clothes, and wears a blonde wig. I don't know what's going on with Trump's hair, but you get the idea.

Rip Taylor is a showman, his act a frivolous, it's full of bad puns, fun distraction and completely harmless.

Maybe this guy should have been a bad comedian
instead of a bad politician  

Trump is a showman, spewing bad and dangerous policy ideas instead of puns. His act is a frivolous, not so fun distraction, but he's somehow gotten a lot of fans who vote for him. And take him seriously.

I get it that Trumpeters, as his fans and voters are called, are pissed off at the way politics works and want a change. Who wouldn't be? But Trump?

Rip Taylor's act is of someone who is frustrated and wants a change and is always complaining. He's negative. .He goes about it all wrong. But it's a comedy act, so it's OK.

Trump always complains about a litany of people and perceived problems. He's negative. Never offering real plans for solutions. Just unfocused anger about  walls on the Mexican border, all Muslims are bad, the economy sucks, etc. etc. Trump goes about it all wrong, and it's turned very serious. He raises the spector of fascism.

I can see why Rip Taylor has a lot of fans. His act is full of laughs.

We should also be laughing at and mocking Trump, the showman huckster that he is. Instead, he's turning into something that can really damage this country. I know Trumpeters vehemently disagree with me, but there you go.

Here's a clip of Rip Taylor: As you watch, you can, in your head, turn the schtick into a Trump speech.

Again, profuse apologies to Rip Taylor. But I just had to make the comparison.

Some Employers Still Nickel And Diming Employees In Wage Theft Moves

A Hormel plant in Wisconsin. A judge
there ruled, reasonably, if you
must put on protective gear to do your
job at Hormel, they must pay you
for the time it takes to put that stuff on.  

Hormel is the latest company caught trying to rip off its owner workers in a nickel and dime fashion.

In this case, many workers at Hormel's large plant in Wisconsin have to put on sanitary clothing, hairnets, and ear and eye protection before they can hit the factory floor.

Hormel contended it didn't have to pay workers for the time it took to do this, because it really wasn't part of their job. As if the workers were putting on this federally required gear just to get their jollies, I don't know.

True, it probably takes only five or six minutes or so to take the stuff on and off, but that amounts to about 24 hours a year for each worker, according to the Associated Press. When you're not making much money, every little bit helps.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court, in a 4-2 decision, said no, Hormel has to pay its workers to get in gear to do their jobs.

According to the AP:

"Cleanliness and food safety are 'intrinsic elements' of preparing and canning food at the Hormel canning facility,' Justice Shirley Abrahamson wrote for the majority. 'The clothing and equipment is intergral and indeispensable to the performance of the employees' job function....of preparing canned food.'"

More than 300 workers were awarded a total of $195,000 in back wages.

Hormel said in a statement, "While we are disappointed the decision was not in our favor, we value our employees and respect the court's decision."

No, if you respected your employees you would pay them for all the work they do for you, not just the majority of it.

As Gawker pointed out, it's a bit shocking that swaths of corporate America think it is controversial to pay its workers for all the hours they put on the job.

As Gawker editorialized:

"We are talking about multibillion dollar corporations adding to their profit margins by taking money directly out of workers' paychecks. In some cases, legally! 

In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court (with Scalia, may he rest in peace) rules that Amazon did not have to pay its workers for the time they spent standing in line waiting to be checked by corporate security guards to make sure they didn't steal anything from Amazon. 

That half-hour of time, which was not optional, the company got for free."

The line between work and leisure is more blurred than ever. People do regularly check their work email from home often. I did so today, even though the company I work for discourages it. They're one company that does not want its employees to work unless they're on the clock and getting paid.

But most people, like me, don't mind taking a few minutes every now and again to check in with work. We do want to do a good job, after all.

However, the tricks by Hormel and Amazon were so blatant you wonder if these companies think that workers should work for free.  

The editor at the Huffington Post UK says paying writers
 for their work would make their words "inauthentic."

That's true in the gig economy, too. Huffington Post recently took a lot of deserved grief.

They generally don't pay their writers, and especially not their bloggers, under the theory that the "exposure" of people seeing their words in the Huffington Post would lead to some sort of benefit.

Last mont, Stephen Hull, editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post UK, was asked in an interview why he doesn't pay his writers.

Hull responded: "If I was paying someone to write something because I want to get advertising, that's not a real authentic way of presenting copy. When somebody writes something for us, we know it's real, we know they want to write it. It's not been forced or paid for. I think that's something to be proud of."

Oh, so no writer should try to make a living at it? Or by Hull's logic nobody should work for money, because doing so is "inauthentic."

I trust that Hull collects no salary and does his duties as Huffington Post UK's editor-in-chief because that would make the end product inauthentic. How could I possibly trust anything I read in the Huffington Post if somebody is paid to edit the copy?

Or, as New Statesman editorialized, Hull's life must be very difficult if he's forced to live by his rules of authenticity:

"Presumably, he can't go out to eat at restaurants, because the food the (paid) chefs cook him is inauthentic. And when he's ill, he must have to research his symptons online instead of visiting a GP, because their salaries mean the diagnoses they give aren't real. He must have to walk to work because of all those pesky salaried workers driving tube trains and buses, ruining the authenticity of daily commutes."

There have always been people who want something for nothing.  Do some cheap employers think that most everyone wants to toil 40, 50, 60 or more hours a week for no benefit, just the joy of making some rich guy or gal richer?

Almost everybody wants to do a great job at work. But a well completed task has value. If you want something of value, you have to buy it, pay for it.

So pay your damn workers!!!

Watch Another Company Move Jobs To Mexico; Turn Employees Into Sanders Supporters

Carrier/United Technologies hamhandedly
announces their firing 1,400 workers so they
can get cheaper labor in Mexico and then
wonders why everybody is mad. 

If the political "establishment" ever wonders why so many voters are gravitating toward the likes of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, they need only watch the video at the bottom of this post.

In it, Carrier Air Conditioning which is part of United Technologies, is announcing to employees that they're moving to Mexico for the cheap labor and screw you expensive American assholes.

Well, they didn't exactly say it like that, but you get my drift.

Yes, I know that Bernie Sanders and  Donald Trump are worlds apart politically.  Not very alike AT ALL.

But one of the extremely few things the two have in common is they're attracting a lot of people who are fed up with the "system."

It's the system in which that dreaded 1% we hear about calls the shots, mucks with peoples' lives and is totally aided and abetted by the established political system. Or so the thinking goes.

Donald Trump is among the so-called one percent, but his message of blaming our ills on everything but him, but especially the political establishment, Mexicans and Muslims, draws a lot of fans.

Bernie Sanders rails against the one percent so often that if I had a penny for every time he railed against that one percent, I'd BE part of that one percent.

It isn't as if United Technologies is desperate and the only way to save them from bankruptcy is moving to Mexico.

The company and its CEO are flush with cash. They just want more. If they make a bunch of people in Indiana unemployed, it's not their problem. They should just figure out a way to get rich on their own, is apparently the "logic"

Zach Carter writes in Huffington Post, in an article about the Carrier/United Technologies video of them telling employees of the Mexico move. The title of the article is, accurately, "Watch Corporate America Turn a Room Full of Workers Into Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump Supporters"

"The contractor does billions of dollars a ear in business with the federal government. CEO Gregory Hayes pulled down nearly $10 million in 2014 and over $20 million the year before. On Thursday, the company reported $7.6 billion in profits, up from $6.2 billion the year before and $5.7 billion the year before that."

And, sorry, it's not the just the wonderful work Hayes is doing to keep the company so profitable. It's also the workers who are making all those air conditioners that are doing it. The ones that are being thrown on the garbage heap here.

I'm sure it wasn't a big leap for the people in the video who were learning they'd soon lose their jobs that the political and economic system is stacked against them and they need to find better leaders to run this country.

This might not be totally fair to the Powers That Be. And there are a lot of complex reasons why a company bails out of the United States in search of cheaper labor elsewhere.

But the employees in the below video  understand that it's all a race to the bottom. A handful of powerful and rich people are amassing wealth, while making the rest of us worse and worse off.

Which is why they're looking for a new direction.

Wanna know why so many people (me included!) are so angry at the way American politics is run? The video at the bottom of the post is one, but Carter in Huffington Post sums it up:

"The answer is pretty simple. Both Republicans and Democrats have consistently backed economic policies over the past 35 years that have systematically gutted the American middle class. For decades, Congress has listened to corporate lobbyists who told our representatives that if they could just cut this one tax rate, or just ease this one regulation, there would be a renaissance of prosperity. The renaissance has happened for the rich. Everyone else has been left behind."

And there you have Trump and Sanders' appeal. Trump is largely self funding his campaign. Sanders is relying on milions of Americans making small donations to his campaign, and he has eschewed PACs and big corporate contributions.

The rest of the presidential campaigns have PACS run by the corporations and the elite. See why everyone's mad?

For what it's worth, Trump posted the following on Facebook:

"1,400 workers in Indianapolis are informerd their company is moving to Mexico. WE cannot allw this to keep happening! It WILL NOT happen under my watch! We need to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!"

This is a ready made campaign issue for Sanders, and I expect him to comment on this, very forcefully, any minute now.

I don't have a a decent prescription on how to fix this. Expecially since I'm surely oversimplifying everything.

Still, videos like the one below make me angry, and makes me understand why the rest of the country is so angry.

What I don't understand is why corporate America, and the politicians they pay off, are so bewildered by the fact that everyone is so pissed off.

But then, cluelessness is their forte.

I love/hate how the guy announcing the layoffs explains things. As if the 1,400 he's discarding should just be happy the company is "rescuing" its financial well being.

From theblaze.com, we start with the company rep making the announcement:

"'The best way to stay competitive and protect the business longterm is to move production from our facility in Indianapolis to Monterrey, Mexico,' te representative says as the employees begin booing and shouting. 

The representative goes on to share details that the company doesn't intend to fully close the facility's doors until mid-2017, and encourages employees to 'remain committed to manufacturing the same quality products' until then."

Yeah, like the employees are going to do that to a corporate who thinks their garbage. Pro tip: I wouldn't buy any Carrier air conditioning products going forward.

Theblaze.com then continues with the reaction from the workers:

"'Yeah, fuck you!' one person shouts back.

Later, another one says, 'How long will it take before people start tearing shit up?'

The representative then tells employees how 'extremely difficult' a decision this was to make.

'It was made most difficult because I understand it will have an impact on all of you, your families, and the community,' he said."

Oh, please, this decision was NOT difficult for United Technologies. Anything to maximize profits, right?

Here's the video:

One More "Pharma Bro" Post As He Gets His Comeuppance, Again!

Maybe Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli won't make as many
ill-gotten dollars off his overpriced meds after a competitor
stepped in Friday with a much less expensive version.  

I know I've paid more attention to creepy "Pharma Bro" Martin Shkreli than he deserves, but I can't resist completing the arc of this story. At least for now.

To recap:

1. Shkreli, known as "Pharma Bro" because he's a young arrogant boy, essentially, raised the price of a medication many AIDS patients need by 5,000 percent to $750 a pill, just because he wanted to make TONS of money, and who cares if a few people died for want of medication as a result.

2. The Internet lit up with outrage at Pharma Bro, who backtracked and promised to reduce the price of the medication somewhat. So far, he hasn't.

3. Phama Bro gave a campaign donation of $2,700 to Bernie Sanders because he wanted to meet with him. Bernie told him to go pound sand, and gave the donation to a health center that helps AIDS patients.

4. Pharma Bro was then hopping mad at Bernie, the outrage, the world, and told the world via social media that he broke his wrist in anger. That might have been fake.

Now on to the update:

On Friday, the drugmaker Imprimis Pharmaceuticals said it would make its own version of the AIDS medication, called Daraprim, available for just $1 a pill, even less expensive than before Pharma Bro got his hands on it.

So Pharma Bro's business model has been upended, and he won't get as rich as he thought, apparently.

Poor baby.

Still, don't cry too hard for Shkreli the Pharma Bro. The altenative drug from Imprimis is not exactly the same as Daraprim, but it will do. Also, as Forbes notes, Imprimis is a "compounding" pharmaceutical company, which regulators don't trust.

Plus, as Forbes reminds us, there's always these business moves and sleights of hands that return these inexpensive drugs to other pharmaceutical companies, who again boost the prices for fun and profit.

But for now, we can dance on Pharma Bro's slightly smaller pile of ill-gotten money.

Why Picking Up An Old Rusty Can On Your Property Can Be A $10 Million Good Idea

A middle aged couple somewhere in California were walking along a path on their rural property not long ago.

A lucky California couple found $10
million in gold coins buried on their property.  

They'd lived there for years and walked along the path countless times.  But on this day, the wife glanced down to the edge of the path and noticed the ground had eroded a bit in one spot, exposing part of an old, rusty can.

She examined it further and found a whole bunch of gold coins in and around the mostly buried can.

In all, there were 1,427 coins there, all dating from between 1847 and 1894. They're worth $10 million, and at this point, it's finders keepers, according to CBS News.

The gold in the coins isn't super valuable. But since the coins are in mint condition and some of them are exceedingly rare, numismatist Don Kagin came up with the $10 million figure when he assessed them.

Not surprisingly, everybody is keeping their mouth shut about precisely where the coins were found and who the lucky couple is.

The couple don't want their property overrun by prospectors digging around for more coins, and the couple want to keep their low-key, quiet lifestyle without everybody bugging them for handouts or suddenly becoming their long lost cousin who could stand a few bucks.

According to Kagin, the couple will sell most of the coins and use a lot of the money to give away to charity, which is super cool. They'll keep a few as momentos.

And I bet they'll keep an eagle eye out on their rocks for more rusty cans.

They're so much luckier than me. The strange person who lived in the St. Albans, Vermont house before I bought the place left a whole lot of "buried treasure" around the property.

As I've been digging the past five years creating gardens on my land, I've found dozens of buried tires, for some reason. Also, a few pairs of old boots, some childrens' toys, pieces of pipe, a window frame, too many beer cans to count, and an empty wallet with no ID in it.

But this California find galvanizes me to not get too upset when I inevitably find more buried stuff in my yard as I make new gardens this spring. You never know. I might find something valuable, eventually.

As long as I don't dig up any dead bodies, it's all good.

Airlines Shrinking Seats To Grow Bottom Line

Your bottom is getting an extra tight squeeze in smaller airline seats to fatten airliners' bottom line.

Chalk it up to the good old quest for profitability. I guess torturing passengers, especially beefy ones, is a good way for airlines to make money.

C'mon airlines! You can't  squeeze big guys
like this into seats with just barely enough
capacity for toddlers.  

There's two reasons for the trend. More people can flt on a plane. More people, more tickets, more money.

Also, the airline is more likely to upsell you to more expensive seats that are roomier if they make you terribly, terribly uncomfortable first.

Torturing again: If they make your life as miserable as possible, you're more apt to pay money to feel better. Even if you can't really afford it.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal article on the shrinking seats on airplanes:

"This doesn't sit well with many travelers, particularly those who are large or overweight. Arm rests and aisles are also getting slimmed ot wedge in the extra seat, meaning more elbows get bumped. And while seats are now being designed more ergonomically, with better cushions and head rests, the improvements don't stop people from rubbing shoulders."

Airlines are also saying if they ply passengers with snacks, movies, and other distractions, they won't really notice their discomfort.

Yeah, right.

My questions is where does it end? Will airlines put everybody in shrink wrap to make them smaller so they can fit more bodies on?

This kind of news about the already shoddy experience of flying makes me think of Star Trek. Can't we just teleport to wherever we want to go and leave the airlines out of it?

As long as the teleporting machine is large enough to accommodate a big guy

Man Denied Lifesaving Treatment Over 26 Cent Payment Error

A New Jersey man's life is apparently not worth 26 cents.

Especially if that life affects the bottom line of his former employer and an insurance company, it seems to me.

Sergio Branco in this image from
The New Jersey Star Ledger. Insurance
snafus almost killed him.  

According to the New Jersey Star Ledger, Sergio Branco came down with leukemia and needed a bone marrow transplant. They found a good match for him, but it's an expensive treatment, costing maybe $500,000.

He took a leave from work, then was canned after Branco's illness left him unable to do his job. He could still get insurance through COBRA and the family was informed on how to make payments and for how much.

A May bill came to $518.26.  Branco's wife wrote a check for $518, accidentally leaving off the 26 cents.

For that mistake, the former employer and Paychex, a third party benefits administrator basically imposed the death penalty on Branco. They would not cover the transplant, according to the Star Ledger. 

You'd think the matter would be handled simply. Paychex, or whoever is running the show could have contacted the Brancos and said, "Hey Dufus! You forgot the 26 cents. Pay up now." If they wanted to be mean, they could have imposed some sort of $10 stupid charge on the Brancos or something.

I'm sure they would have gladly paid up. Nobody would let them, though.

Nope, despite the pleadings of the family, his doctors, it was no go. It was only after the New Jersey Department of Labor, the lawyers and media outlets like the Star Ledger began "meddling" in this situation did it appear Branco's transplant will be covered.

Yes, yes, the parties involved are blaming the whole thing on administrative errors, strict governance rules and that kind of thing.

To be honest, I don't buy it. I smell a big, fat rat.

I have no proof and I could well be wrong. (Please set me straight if I am missing some information here), but here's what my conspiracy-addled mind thinks what happened.  And to be fair, some of the parties might be innocent. Paychex might be under orders from an insurance carrier. Branco's former employer might have their hands tied by an insurance company. Or the employer might have mucked things up with the insurer.

But somebody's to blame.

And somebody would have had to pay for Branco's transplant. Maybe his former employer, or some insurance company thought the price was too steep, that it would cut into profits. Maybe piss off a shareholder or two.

If Branco had the common courtesy and just die of his leukemia and not make a big stink about it, everybody would be happy, goes the logic. Branco's family excepted, of course.

Once again, we have one of those cases where some bureaucrat trying to impress his or her boss with his budget consciousness to save the bottom line was willing to kill somebody with a pen or a stroke of a computer key to do it.

This seems to happen a lot. Often, the cases get media attention. Bad PR is even more expensive than high medical bills, or whatever, so once the journalists start to poke around, things get "resolved."

Have we come down to this? The only way to save an innocent man's life is to threaten somebody with bad press?

Bank That Foreclosed On Wrong Ohio House, Took Stuff And Just Shrugged Is Now About To Regret It

The news hit this week that a bank in Ohio which was foreclosing on a house sent a team to the wrong building and hauled out all the owner's stuff, sold it, threw it in the trash and gave it away, according to television station WBNS-TV in Columbus, Ohio.

The woman, Katie Barrett wanted $18,000 from the First National Bank of Wellston  so she could replace the stuff the bank's team took and, according to the television station, the bank president essentially told her to go pound sand.

Katie Barrett points out her house emptied improperly
by a bank which got the wrong address.  

"He got very firm with me and said, 'We're not paying you retail here, that's just the way it is'.... I did not tell them to come in my house and me an offer. they took my stuff and I want it back," WBNS quoted Barrett as saying.

As several commenters noted in response to the story on the WBNS web page, how is she supposed to replace her items without paying retail?

Since WBNS broke the news, this story has been burning up this Internet thingamajig here. It has all the perfect elements of outrage that have been simmering over big corporations, banks, and all those big outfits.

We've been getting a drumbeat of these kinds of stories.  Apparently, screw ups like what happened to Barrett happen more than you think.

Like how Bank of America is alleged to have really messed around with foreclosure refinancing, screwing over people,  including military personnel, according to news reports.

The perception is that these Big Guys, Big Corporations can do these things because they can. The idea is  there's one set of rules for the big guys, like the banks, and another set of rules for the rest of us.

People see that the sheriff didn't investigate the bank for stealing all the stuff (actually having their minions do it). The sheriff appeared to think this was a civil, not criminal matter. But people believe that the big guys can get away with anything.

The dismissive tone of the bank president, as related by Barrett, also feeds into the frustration that the 1 percent have a "Let Them Eat Cake" attitude toward everyone else.

I wonder if the Big Boys like these banks and big time politicians worry that the rest of us will rebel.  This could be my conspiracy-oriented mind, but there seemed to be an inordinate worry about the Occupy movement one or two years ago among government authorities and police. Which, in the belief of many people, act at the behest of the Big Boys.

But who knows?

As I said, this particular case will probably get resolved, because I don't see how this bank can withstand the social media pressure. Already, Daily Kos has started a petitiion to ask the bank to pay Barrett back and set things right.

No word yet if the bank will budge.

But I wonder if this incident will add to the simmering pile of anger in America over the real or perceived abuse of power by some of the 1 percent.

Employer Would Pay Workers Via Debit Card With Lots of Fees To Eat Up Workers' Earnings

A woman in Pennsylvania, Natalie Gunshannon, was just about to start working at a local McDonald's.  She was going to earn just $7.44 an hour, not much more than the $7.25 minimum wage in her area.

In other words, she'd need every penny she took home from her job.

No thanks, says a woman whose employer
wanted to pay her with a fee-laden debit card

Not so fast, said her employer. The boss said she'd only be paid via a Chase Bank debit card.  That maybe would be a good deal for Chase, and probably for the employer,  but not for Natalie, according to Philly.com

There's tons of fees with that debit card. $1.50 for each ATM withdrawal. $5.00 for each over the counter cash withdrawal. It'll cost $1.00 for every balance inquiry, and 75 cents for every online bill payment. And if she lost the card or it got stolen, that would set Natalie back $15.00.

You can see why she objected. By the time she pays all the fees, there's nothing left for frivolous luxuries like food, rent and utilities.

She went to a lawyer, naturally, trying to get this state of affairs overturned.

I hope she's successful. I'd hate to see a trend take root in which we're paid through expensive debit cards that make us pay all these expensive fees just to access what is and should be our money.

I can see all kinds of problems for employees who get paid through debit cards. If the card isn't at the bank or credit union they normally do business with, they'd have to pay fees to transfer to their accounts, or move their banking business to an outfit they might not want to go to.

And you'd probably have to keep a minimum balance in the account through which the debit card is issued. That unnecessarily ties up money in a bank account that is not used. And you'd have to constantly monitor it so you don't pay huge overdrafts.

Of course, if an employee wants to be paid via a debit card and the employee offers it, why not? Some people are willing to pay a few fees for the convenience of holding a debit card. More power to them.

The trick here is to make the debit card an option, but NOT a requirement.

Let's stop nickel and diming low wage employees so the banks can make more money, OK?

I'm all for banks making money, as long as the money they take in is given to them voluntarily.

If you needed any more proof that a lot of people will do anything to save a buck, we take you to Sacramento, and other areas.

Why? Well, any retailer knows how expensive it is to set up a brick and mortar store. The lease payments. The taxes, the electric bill.

From Cockeyed.com, a rogue shoe store masquerading as
a garage sale takes oer this Sacramento yard.  

In Sacramento, according to Consumerist, rogue retailers just pay homeowners some cash and pretend to set up a garage sale on their driveway. 

Instead of that old coffee maker, the scuffed up old toys, the womens clothes that went out of style around 1986 and the floral pattern couch that never did match the orange shag carpeting, retailers just put their wares on somebody's driveway.

Citing Cockeyed.com, Consumerist laid out how this worked, at least in Sacramento.

According to Cockeyed, a pregnant woman offered a homeowner $25 if she could borrow their Sacramento yard for a garage sale.

The homeowner naive agreed, and soon, a box truck showed up and unloaded the entire contents of a shoe store on the hapless homeowners lawn. 

The homeowner said she felt tricked, obviously, but was too scared to shut it down. She did agree to have a sale on her lawn, and she didn't want to argue with these sketchy shoe store entrepreneurs.

A sign spinner waved down traffic, cars snarled the once quiet neighborhood and it was chaos for an afternoon.

The impromptu store packed up and left at the end of the day, according to Cockeyed, but in a crime that may or may not be related to the rogue store, batteries were stolen from a couple cars in the neighborhood the next night.

To combat illegal "stores" masquerading as lawn sales, many communities limit the number of yard sales a person can have to one or a handful a year.

The people with the rogue stores know this, so they hop from place to place running these scams.

I wonder how many of the shoes for sale at this impromptu retail store were stolen from warehouses or other retailers.

So, if somebody comes up to your house and asks to borrow your property for a yard sale, do the Nancy Reagan and Just Say No.

Health Care Costs: Bill For Clipping One Toenail: $1,206

Ezra Klein had an illuminating, scary piece on the Washington Post's Wonkblog recently.

There's been much discussion about how health care costs are so high because basically insurers, health providers and others can charge what they want.

A reader noted the clipping of one toenail in a hospital setting cost $1,206, according to Klein.

The reader who sent Klein the information on the toenail clipping said it was just the kind of thing you'd do in your bathroom for free. True, in this case, they had to do tests to make sure the toenail wasn't infected. There was no infection.

The price tag for this simple procedure included $248 for the office visit, $182 for a biopsy and $328 for the treatment room.

The person involved called various billing offices, where workers said the prices were outrageous, but "nothing could be done."

End of story.  Left unexplained by the billing people, apparently, is why "nothing could be done."

I smell a rat.

In an earlier column, Klein wrote:

"Providers largely charge what they can get away with, often offering different prices to different insurers, and an even higher price to the uninsured.

Health care is an unusual product in that it is difficult, and sometimes impossible, for the customer to say 'no.' In certain cases, the customer is passed out, or otherwise incapable of making decisions about her care, and the decisions are made by providers whose mandate is, correctly, to save lives rather than money."

In other countries, health care is less expensive than in the United States because other countries negotiate aggressively with providers and thus, prices are lower. Klein said in the U.S., it's a free for all

If all this is true, why do we let providers get away with it? I understand the unwillingness to futz around with the marketplace. But what if the marketplace is all messed up?

And the deeper questions are: If someone is screwing the hell out of us and playing with our health care, who is it and what can we do about it? I hope the journalists keep digging.

Not Buying At The Store Or Blowing Off Dinner Reservation? You're Screwed.

Two items from Consumerist over the past day or two seem to indicate some retailers and business owners are beginning to up the ante when dealing with what they regard as rude customers.

They're hitting them where it hurts, at least a little.

In one case, a retailer is charging $5 a head for "showrooming," a word for going to a store just to look at merchandise, then finding it somewhere else for a lower price.

Will more stores charge admission fees if you
just go in, look at a product, then try to find it
cheaper online?  

The store's showrooming policy means anybody coming in pays the fee, but if they buy something there, they get their $5 back.

I can understand the frustration of store owners who have to constantly deal with people coming in just to look, then spending the money elsewhere when they can find the same thing for a lower price online or maybe at Walmart.

The retail business is brutal. Store owners can help themselves through exemplary customer service and niche marketing, but that only goes so far.

But it seems like this whole thing about stopping showroomers can backfire. Consumerist quotes Matt Brownell of Daily Finance, who said:

" ....the most misguided strategy we’ve seen for dealing with showrooming… The goal of any retailer should be to impress customers with competitive pricing and great customer service — not treat their customers with suspicion and hostility from the moment they walk in the door.”

It definitely would put a bad taste in my mouth if I was charged admission to go into a store. And like most people, I might wander into a store not knowing whether I will buy anything there. An admission fee would certainly be off-putting.

I might be shopping for say, a shirt, but maybe it turns out they don't happen to have a shirt in the style I like, or don't have my size in stock. Yeah, I can order it, but what if I want a shirt now? I'd certainly resent paying the $5 fee if I left the store empty handed only because I didn't like what they had.

That would drive me to online shopping in no time, flat.

In the other Consumerist piece, a restaurant owner is publicly shaming people on Twitter who blow off their dinner reservations.

It's definitely rude to make a restaurant reservation and then blow it off. The eatery left the table open for you, and it stayed open, which meant other diners couldn't eat there and the restaurant lost money.

Most people blow off reservations for stupid reasons. They didn't feel like eating there after all. They made reservations at four restaurants, then decided at the last minute which to pick.

But what if somebody is publicly shamed via Twitter for blowing off the reservation, and not calling to inform the restaurant ahead of time, for perfectly legitimate reason. He keeled over from a heart attack. His wife got run over by a bus I mean, who knows?

And those public shames give the restaurant a whiff of negativity, not something that makes people want to eat there.

So, rudeness can go two ways. Us customers could give local retailers a break, buy local and spend the few extra pennies in your community that you would have spent on Amazon.

If it becomes apparent you can't go to the restaurant as planned, call them as soon as possible to cancel so they can fill the table with some other diners.

And retailers and restaurant owners: I know we customers can be frustrating, but try not to take it out on everybody.

When Two Lives Combine Into One: My Happy But Tricky Story..

My husband Jeff and I had a fight about money the other night.

It wasn't even a fight, really, at least not a conventional one. We do things differently than most couples. The issue wasn't the type of money problem most couples face. Some spouses say the other spends too much money on frills. Others complain the other doesn't keep track of finances adequately.

The issue between Jeff and me was not like that at all.

A still from the play "4,000 Miles" at the
Vermont Stage Company in Burlington, Vt.

From my perspective,  he was nicely staying within our household budget, but spending too large a share of the money he earned on keeping me happy and comfortable, and not enough on himself .

I was frustrated because I didn't feel like I was contributing as much of my income on keeping up the household as I should, I needed to cut back on unnecessary frills for myself, and contribute more to our mutual well being.

He met me that evening at Leunig's a fairly upscale restaurant in Burlington, Vt. before we went to see the play "4000 Miles," a production in which he designed the set.

Jeff's a well-regarded, busy theater set designer, and that was one of his jobs. Of course, he'd seen it upteenth times during rehearsal, but he wanted me to see it, and I also really wanted to go.

After dinner and a drink, we went to the play. It was set in an elderly woman's New York apartment. On the set, bookshelves and tables were cluttered with books, photographs and knick knacks.

The play, presented by the Vermont Stage Company was very well done and well worth seeing, but this is not the place for a review. But I was struck by a running theme running through the dialogue. It showed how   we negotiate life with family and those closest to us with a complicated stew of emotions. Love and devotion, mostly, but also uncomfortable moments, misunderstandings, gaps in good communication, and little shards of frustration.

On the set Jeff designed, he'd used some of the stuff he had accumulated over the years, items that came to grace our shelves and rooms when he moved in with me three years ago. He'd also grabbed some of the stuff I had accumulated over the years. (We have a long standing agreement that pretty much anything in the house is fair game for any of his theater set designs.)

Jeff also used family photographs from his side of the family, and my side of the family on the "4,000 Miles" set.

As I watched the play and noted where our stuff was on the stage set, I found myself marveling about how his life and my life became our life. I know that's not remarkable in the grand scheme of things. Zillions of people get married every year and establish happy, combined households.

I'm devoted to Jeff and he to me, that's plain.  But even with that devotion, it takes time to fully understand the implications of a life that was his and was mine, and is now ours.

That situation was   the basis of our money "fight."  Like every couple, we will spend the rest of our lives exploring and losing ourselves in our combined life.

There will be bumps along the way, and I hope Jeff remains patient with me. I'll probably never learn to negotiate our combined life perfectly, but I'll keep trying and loving the effort. Now that we've been together for nearly four years and married for seven months, I can't imagine living life any other way than I do now.
How lucky can a man get?

Money: Another Reason Why I'm Happy I'm Not in the Dating Pool

I'm so glad I'm married already and don't need to date to find a mate.

That's true now so more than ever, given the higher and higher hurdles people make their prospective partners clear before the relationship goes ahead.

On example came last month in a New York Times article describing how some people are demanding credit scores from would-be suitors, often on first dates.

Romance, Schmomance. I don't care if you're a hottie. Are you financially solvent?"

"Credit scores are like the dating equivalent of a sexually transmitted disease test," the Times quoted Manisha Thakor, who heads MoneyZen Wealth Management, a financial advisory firm.

I suppose asking about credit scores is useful, especially if the relationship escalates into love, living together, marriage. You'd hate to be tied to bad credit as you buy a home, furnishings, whatever.

Said the Times:

Dating someone with poor credit can have real implications. Banks remain wary of making loans to borrowers with tarnished scores, typically 660 and below; the best scores range from 800 to 850, and scores above 750 are considered good. A low score could quash dreams of buying a house, and result in steep interest rates, up to 29 percent, for credit cards, car financing and other unsecured loans.

All that might be true, but must dating, a first date, even, be completely a job interview, or a loan application meeting? If the maybe future partner has the goods in other departments, and is honest, which you'd want anyway, can't you work out the finances at a later date?  Get the money straightened out before marriage, yes, but a week into the relationship?

It's also a turnoff to have someone demand full financial disclosure minutes into an initial date. Yes, you don't want to waste your time with someone who is a financial train wreck, so you might want to get out early. But I'd also not want to waste my time with someone who sounds as if he or she is in it for the money.

What's next? Full interviews by an investigative journalist with any and all family members, past acquaintences, first grade teachers, kindergarten friends and strangers who encountered you in the street in 1979 to get the dirt on a would-be date?

Like I said, thank God I'm already married. Finding a mate sounds like it's too much work, too business like.

My husband Jeff and I disagree on money sometimes. But we always work it out quickly. So I'll keep the great mate I've got, and leave the financial negotiations to Match.com or something.  thanks. 

$3,000 For a 75-Foot Ambulance Ride?

An 84 year old guy in California went to the doctor, saying he had a dizzy spell. His doctor figured the man needed an MRI, which was available in a hospital just 75 feet away from the doctor's office.

The elderly man didn't feel too bad, so he said he's walk next door to the hospital. Makes sense, right?

Uh-uh! The requirement was he needed to ride an ambulance to the hospital, and the trip would cost him $3,000.

The news is worse than the headline. It's not an isolated case of somebody trying to spectacularly rip off an old guy, but instead a bad example of the state of health care in the Grand Old US of A.

Would you pay $3,000 to be driven next door in this?

I don't have any answers here on how to solve this, but the whole set of circumstances is ridiculous.

They didn't want the guy to walk the 75 feet to the hospital because if he had another dizzy spell and keeled over, it might have been, in some lawyers' minds, the doctor's and the hospital's fault. They would have been sued, and that would be bad.

Also, the doctor said he didn't want to put his patient at risk.

The people responsible for the $3,000 ambulance bill say they know damn well a 75-foot ambulance trip did not set them back Three Grand. The problem is, a lot of people who get carted off to the hospital can't pay the subsequent ambulance bill. The money has to come from somewhere, so essentially, people who can afford ambulance trips subsidize the whole thing.

The guy's insurance paid for part of the ambulance ride, but he was still on the hook for more than half of it.

Once this whole thing caught the attention of the local media, the hospital waived the pricey hospital ride.

But this make me wonder. How much more are we paying extra for medical care than would normally be fair?  And how do we know if the price we pay is the going rate or inflated?  You can't easily comparison shop for say, emergency room treatment for car crash injuries.

I guess the only solution is to never get sick or hurt, and ignore any aches and pains. It's pretty clear to me why people avoid going to the doctor when they're sick, and wait until things get way out of control. They hope the problem goes away, rather than deal with the expense.

What's worse? Illness or bankruptcy? Seems like nowadays, we often have to choose between health and financial solvency. You can't have both.

A $100,000 Chicken Coop. Buy Now!

Seems everybody these days is getting back to the farm, growing vegetables in their yard, keeping chickens for fresh eggs in a shed out back.

This chicken coop comes with
raised garden beds and sells for
only $100,000.

The point of these home grown egg is, of course, their freshness tastes awesome, and you can save a little money.

Unless you rely on Neiman Marcus for all your chicken coop needs. Their new Christmas catalog is out, replete with their usual over the top fantasy gifts. From this catalog,  you can buy a nice chicken coop for your hens for the bargain basement price of $100,000.

Yes, I know the chicken coop is the price of a fair number of houses for people, but your chickens deserve only the best. Even better than what many people live in.

The Neiman Marcus chicken coop is inspired by a French Versailles palace, and has raised beds attached to it. I guess so you can do your gardening while waiting for the eggs to appear.

I suppose this chicken coop is worth it, if you want to coddle your goose that lays the golden eggs.

If you're not into chicken coops, there's other items in the Needless Markup  Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog. You can buy a walk on role in "Annie: The Musical for $30,000.

My mom loves owls and owl art, so there is a painting called "Snowy Owl" by Robert Wilson that goes for the rock bottom price of $70,000.

Or, you could get a dinner for 10 cooked by four top chefs for $250,000.

Cash and  credit cards accepted.

Make Money, Lose Friends With These Bets

A hot new video on YouTube (2 million hits!) shows you how to make ten simple bets with people that you are guaranteed to win.

Your friends will part with their money, and you will part with your friends. Then you can buy new friends and repeat the process. Here's the video:

Magical Lottery Thinking

A little gem making the rounds on line today is a survey that shows that 21 percent of Americans think that winning the lottery is the most practical means to accumulate lots of money for retirement

I suppose I could ridicule this like mad. It is magical thinking. Maybe that thunderstorm that could hit my house later today will  hail gold nuggets.  The leaves falling from the dying tree out front could turn into $50 bills on the way down to the ground.

However, winning the lottery probably IS the most practical way to accumulate cash. Our 401K's keep tanking. The employment situation means that even those of us who are lucky enough to have jobs aren't going to get raises anytime soon. And since there's a little bit of inflation going on, we're actually taking pay cuts.

I almost never buy Powerball tickets. To me, it's almost like lighting dollar bills on fire just for fun. But I think it's time I might rethink that. I can't imagine any other circumstance where I'll accumulate more money. I could work more hours, sure, but eventually, you run out of hours in the week. I could rob convenience stores, but the police tend to frown on that. Plus I'd probably get a little too nervous pointing a weapon at somebody.

I can't start a hedge fund, mostly because I don't know how to. Ponzi schemes eventually get people really, really mad at you.

So I'll keep plugging away at what I do, and invest in the occasional Powerball ticket.

Maybe I'll get lucky. Ha!