Part Two: Where's Your Bloguero's Dough?

(Amig@s, you will recall yesterday's banking drama in which your Bloguero learned to his surprise and horror that, alas, five of his accounts had been emptied. And they all said they had no dinero in them. You might want to check that out before beginning today's installment

Last night was a sleepless one for your Bloguero. He couldn't figure it out how so much money could be so swiftly syphoned from all of his accounts. It did not help that his bank has no 24-hour contact number. It did not help at all that he had to wait until after 8 am to contact someone at the bank to find out what in the world had happened. Your Bloguero knows this part of the time space continuum too well: the more he wants time to pass, the slower it crawls. Call it Watched Pot Syndrome. Call it anything you want. Your Bloguero was crazed, sleepless, fearful, anxious. Not sleeping

Instead of sleeping, Your Bloguero reviewed in microscopic details all of the potential causes of his loss of all of his money. He had not confirmed that the funds were actually stolen even though all the accounts were zero or minus. Maybe they were just seized by the IRS or Big Brother or Mr. Boh. On one hand, maybe it was a hack. Maybe it the eBay and payPal transaction in which he bought of all things not now needed an antique bottle opener? Or maybe it wasn't a hack and it was your Bloguero's fault in some regard and Agents of Government or other nefarious force had restrained his accounts. Was it some transgression he had committed in probating his father's estate? Was it some tax he owed in a distant state a decade ago? Was IRS and everyone else unwilling to give him prior notice of their horrendous acts? Maybe even some crazed creditor of someone else had mistakenly restrained every penny he had. These thoughts, these fantasies are not conducive to restful zzzzz's. No. Au contraire. They are the entry level for insomnia, anxiety, shallow breathing, horror and maybe (if it was something your Bloguero did) shame. Ouch. Double Ouch.

8 am found your Bloguero staring at the second hand and dialing.

This is what he learned. His money was not gone, it was being held. By the bank. And they were quite willing to give it back to him instantly. But did he know that somebody had actually tried to steal his money and that the bank had foiled the attempt? No, he didn't know that. He wished he knew it yesterday, but he's happy to know it now.

The details: somebody sent an email to your Bloguero's bank using his usual gmail address. They followed it up with a phone call or two and some request to wire money to an account in South Carolina. Your Bloguero knows no one in South Carolina. Period. To your Bloguero, South Carolina is something you fly over. It was once where South of the Border was.

The problem with these people, these wanna thieves, is that the branch manager knows your Bloguero and has for years. And she (your Bloguero is flattered by this) said that she doubted that the emails she received could be from El B. Their syntax and word choice was awful. Plus El B usually calls on the phone when he's screwed things up.

Anyway, after taking the information, the branch manager called back the person who was supposed to be me AND HAD MY SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER. And she quickly determined that said person did not know El B's Mom's maiden name. So she, the bank branch manager, took steps to protect his money. She froze every last one of El B's accounts. Said she, "I'd rather have you have a sleepless night than lose your money." Your Bloguero concurs with this.

So the would-be thieves didn't get a penny of El B's money. He is totally filled with gratitude for his bank, his branch manager, and her entire crew.

And this morning, after taking various steps to safeguard his identity, no he did not by a new Luchador mask, your Bloguero went to visit some policemen, who are really very interested in this because, living in a small town, the investigators know your Bloguero and they know the he thinks they are incompetent. El Bloguero has shown them more than once why he thinks this. Your Bloguero hopes that justice prevails.

So although some of the commentators to your Bloguero's earlier essay opined that "this doesn't sound good," El B is here to assure you that all is well. He still has his money.

Now he hopes that the miscreants are caught and tried for identify theft 1st degree and attempted grand larceny. And he hopes that there is something he can do next week to express his gratitude to the bankers who truly saved his bacon by being alert. All gratitude to them.

Where's Your Bloguero's Dough? He Wants It Back!

Your Bloguero's brain is about to explode. Where is his dough? He wants it back. Yes, he knows he's repeating himself.

Your Bloguero was going to write an essay about how none of us has any privacy at all from Government or from Corporations, and that maybe the Fourth Amendment jurisprudence on privacy interests needs to be upgraded because of relatively recent technological advances. And disclosures brought about by Edward Snowden. Your Bloguero was going to carry on about how the supposed innocence of collecting megadata has been transformed by technology, and how conceptions of what privacy means need to be reconsidered. But then your Bloguero got hacked. Yes, he did get hacked.

It's odd. At about 1:08 ET today the bank called on your Bloguero's casa phone to say he should call them as soon as possible. Your Blogueo was working so he didn't get to the phone until after 5 pm, when banks are closed. Your Bloguero figured he bounced something, made some stupid error they wanted him to fix. It is after all a small town, local bank. He's made mistakes before. So your Bloguero went online to see whether he could transfer some funds to fix whatever bookkeeping error might have cropped up.

That Internet visit was like plunging head first into Alice's rabbit hole. Join your Bloguero in fantasy land.

Wow. Your Bloguero discovered on the web that the five accounts he has were all empty or overdrawn. Jeepers. How, your B wonders, could that possibly have happened?

Was it the small Ebay and payPal transaction your Bloguero made last night? Did that provide data that allowed the withdrawals?

Was it those blank checks your Bloguero had delivered to a colleague in Mexico so that monthly expenses for a project could be paid?

Was it his spouse doing something odd in Germany with an ATM card or check?

Was it his son, who is in Mexico? Did he do something?

Was it documents he threw in the garbage at his house, at his job?

What is it? There is no clue at all on the bank web site. Just huge red minuses. And what the red minuses signify: no money.

Hmmm.

Your Bloguero finds himself in the middle of an unfolding mystery. The following voicemails: the bank president (told you it was a small town bank), the branch officer who called at 1:08, two lawyer friends No information. Friends called your Bloguero back, they say he needs to call the Bank Prez. In other words, it's a loop.

The bank does not have a 24-hour number to access a person. Or a even a machine. This is hard to accept in the 21st century, but that's how it is. The 24 hour fraud number allows one only to turn off one's credit or debit card. If your Bloguero reaches the bank prez at home, what can he do? He has no access to the "system" from his home. Why? That would be insecure.

And so, your Bloguero finds himself on paper much, much poorer at the moment. And much in doubt as to where his money might have gone. And anxious. And fearful. And of course, upset and angry.

No doubt the story will unfold more in the morning. It better, says your Bloguero. It better lead to the money is returned.

For now, though, there are only questions. They all boil down to this: any illusion your Bloguero might have about the security of his data (or his money) is utterly misplaced. Both are not secure. At all. Any illusion your Bloguero might hold about his privacy is also utterly misplaced. He has none. Absolutely none. Your Bloguero wishes it were otherwise. Sadly, it isn't.

Maybe this is the start of your Bloguero's living a life in which he fully accepts that there is no security of data or money or privacy. That's all fine. In the interim, however, your Bloguero wants his dough back. And after he publishes this essay, he doesn't want to see a zillion advertisements for banking. Or security.

Good Bye B of A, Don't Let The Door...

I'm furious. And this isn't the first time I've erupted over BofA and their abysmal level of what they have the temerity to call "customer care." So I'm fulminating. And I'm asking you, dear reader, to pull any money you have from BofA and put it somewhere else.

The short: yesterday at around noon I put some money in my daughter's account with a deposit slip. She lives in another city. The idea was that I would put in a personal check, she would have access to the money quickly. Wrong. Nothing is that easy with B of A.

After the deposit, the money just didn't show up on line in her account. She called. Where was it? It was pending. No it wasn't. Yes it was. Today, still no money. She called again: it was pending. No it wasn't. Yes it was. No it wasn't. I had to have my assistant go to the bank with the deposit receipt (luckily I didn't throw it away or lose it) and show it to them. They told her they would fix it.

Did they fix it? No, they did not.

Late this afternoon the bank called me. Did my daughter have the money? No she didn't. Sir, she will have the money tomorrow. And they have some crazy, convoluted story about couriers not arriving and checks being someplace else and not being recorded and not entered in the system and what can be done and what cannot be done and yadda yadda yadda.

I'm not accepting this double talk bs kind of "customer service." I'm not thankful for their call or their bogus explanation as to why the money is not where it's supposed to be. After all, it's my money, right? I want it to be in my daughter's account. Simple, right? Evidently not. Evidently it doesn't have to work that way, and you, dear customer, don't get a real explanation or an apology. More important, you don't get the money. No, you sucker, you moron. You don't get squat. At the very most you get, it'll be in there tomorrow. Oh. Well where is it now? Well, sir, I can get half of it in here today, but you have to come in and sign some papers? No. I've already spent too damn much time on your screw up. I want the money in the account and I want it now. No, sir, we can't do that.

What? I have a receipt for my deposit. I deposited a check. We agree about the amount. It says it on my receipt. I want the moolah, the amount I deposited put in her account. And I want it now. And no, I don't want to hear the "explanations" of how a very large corporation (masquerading as a small dog) ate your grotesquely inadequate bookkeeping (camouflaged as your utterly insufficient homework).

Sir, the best we can do, is make sure it is in her account in the morning. The dough better be there in the morning. If it's not, I will have to spend even more time with "customer service" making sure that my money is where it's supposed to be. I do not look forward to this.

So this evening, I emailed all my three grown up kids, all of whom have accounts in BofA, and I said (short version): Get your money out of that f*cking bank. Open a new checking account somewhere. Yeah, I know it was efficient to have branches all over the known world, but we have to work around this. I cannot tolerate this level of bogus "customer service." And I want your sister to have the money I deposited in her account.

It's simple. B of A doesn't deserve to hold any of my family's money. I pulled my money out three years ago. My kids need to do the same. And BofA? They deserve to watch us bank with somebody else.

Join us.

Banks Spin Illegal Foreclosures, Media Act As Stenographers

Talk about journalists being stenographers to powerful, banking interests. Banks which are foreclosing home mortgages are getting a walk in the traditional press because the press insists on reporting that the banks "didn't read the documents" filed in court, rather than that the banks swore to documents that were palpably false and filed in courts, all in the service of taking title to homes in foreclosure so they could be re-sold and their present occupants could be evicted.

Look. Today's New York Times tells us that a major title company won't insure the titles of homes taken in foreclosure by JP Morgan Chase and GMAC. And last week, BankAmerica said it would halt foreclosures, too, because its paperwork "wasn't right." Why is that that the title company won't insure these titles? Because if the foreclosure proceedings are defective, the judgment of foreclosure might be set aside in later proceedings. Meaning that whoever purchased the property at the foreclosure sale at the courthouse might lose the home they just paid for. Simply, the title company doesn't want to be holding the bag if the paperwork was defective. Title companies, strangely, don't want to pay claims for total losses. And if the title company won't issue insurance, no mortgage lender is going to loan money on the property.

It's against this background that the traditional media persist in dropping the ball.

Look at this from The Boston Herald:

A document obtained Friday by the Associated Press showed a Bank of America official acknowledging in a legal proceeding that she signed up to 8,000 foreclosure documents a month and typically didn’t read them.

The official, Renee Hertzler, said in a February deposition that she signed 7,000 to 8,000 foreclosure documents a month.

"I typically don’t read them because of the volume that we sign," Hertzler said.

She also acknowledged identifying herself as a representative of a different bank, Bank of New York Mellon, that she didn’t work for. Bank of New York Mellon served as a trustee for the investors holding the homeowner’s loan.

The problem here isn't that this woman didn't read the documents she signed. That's not the real problem at all. It's that she apparently signed thousands of documents under oath, and that a sizable number of these were just plain false. For example, she identified herself, presumably in sworn foreclosure documents, as working for Bank A when in fact she didn't work for Bank A at all, she worked for Bank B. Is this important? Well, yes. The bank bringing the foreclosure action is supposed to be the holder of the mortgage. Evidently, it didn't matter in these circumstances what bank may have actually been the holder of the mortgage. So the paperwork, submitted to a court, was sworn to under oath and guess what? It was false. If that were the only problem, it could be fixed. But evidently the documents are absolutely riddled with errors and the errors are of many different kinds. So there are all kinds of sworn, false statements that have been submitted to the Courts in these foreclosure proceedings.

You can call that lots of things, but "not reading the documents" is the very least of them.

In NY and Massachusetts and 23 other states if you don't pay your mortgage, the mortgage holder has to start a foreclosure action in court to take title of your property. It's not what most people think, that if they don't pay the mortgage the bank is going to show up after a while, unceremoniously throw them and their furniture on the street, and lock them out of their home. The banks might like homeowners to believe that, but it's just not the case in 23 states. No. In those 23 states the bank has to bring a foreclosure action in court to evict the homeowner.

And a foreclosure action in court requires lots and lots of paperwork. And it requires sworn paperwork. It requires among other things that the owner of the mortgage be properly identified, and it requires that the amount of the supposed default be computed, and it requires accurate description of the default. And all of these things at one time or another in the proceeding have to be sworn to by somebody who has checked to make sure that they are swearing to something that is in fact actually correct. Don't know whether it's correct or not? Can't swear to it. Don't read it to know whether it's correct or not, but sign anyway? That's a problem if you're swearing to the truth and veracity of something that is in fact false. That could be a crime. And it could also mean that thousands of home foreclosures that appear to have been complete aren't worth the paper they were written on if the proceedings contained significant, false material.

I spare you an analysis of the reasons why the media are giving the big banks a walk in the park on this. I just point out what is actually going on so that you can ponder it and re-frame it.

Victory: Bank Of America Releases The Funds

Join me in a brief celebration. And please accept my gratitude for helping me find my way through this problem.

You might recall my recommended diary on Monday in which I complained about how Bank of America had frozen a $4,000 deposit until December 7 at 5 pm and that it was money my son needed for a trip. I asked in the comments for suggestions from Kossacks about how to get the money released.

Join me in the champagne room.

Well, sure enough, ElRay suggested that I send a group email to B of A executives explaining my problem and asking them please to fix it. Right now. I did that. I sent the email to more than a dozen executives. It was courteous and explained my problem and stated what I wanted done.

Long story short, I got a call from a B of A executive on Tuesday morning. I was surprised. He said he'd look into it and see whether they could release the funds, which they would do when the check reached the bank where it was written. He wasn't sure how long that might take.

And today, much to my amazement, the same B of A executive called my son to say that the hold was lifted, all of the money was available to my son right then. No hold. No waiting. Released.

In other words, whether B of A's holding the funds was or was not legal, they caved in and released the funds. My son's leaving on a trip with his money. We don't have to wait until December 7 at 5 pm to get it. Case closed. Money in hand. Hooray.

I applaud all of you for your help and suggestions.

Bank of America: Give Me My Money. Now.

Maybe the Internet is the only way to get the ear of a banking corporation so deaf and so greedy that it cannot hear my screaming and thinks it can do whatever it wants with my money. Maybe even this diary won't work to open their ears and pierce their conscience and cause them to release the money. Maybe Bank of America pwns all of us. I hope it doesn't, but I suspect it does.

This diary is about my interaction today with B of A. And it's about why my son cannot get my hands on $4,019 of his own money until after 5 pm on December 7. This diary is being written because, guess what, he needs the $$ before then. It's his, isn't it? Well, maybe not. Not until after 5 pm on 12/7.

Join me in the drive through.

The story is extremely simple.

I sold some stock on which I am the trustee for my son so he could make a trip to Asia. As a result of the sale (which by the way took more than 5 business days to end up in a bank check) I received a check in the mail for $4,119. The check written to me and him was a bank check written on a New York bank and the check represents the sale of stock we owned. Put another way, the check is good unless I'm a forger (I'm not) or the issuing bank fails before the week is over. Nobody expects the latter.

I took the check to my local BofA, in Chatham, New York, to deposit it in a checking account belonging to my son. I got there before 3 pm. I made the deposit. Funny thing. I got a note with the receipt that said in substance that I was a complete sucker: only $100 of the check was available now, the rest, $4,019 would be available after 5 pm on December 7, 2009. December 7? That's a full week away and then some.

Folks, they are holding the money for a week for no legitimate reason at all. The check is good. They could confirm it with a simple phone call. I did not forge the check. But my son cannot have his money for a full week.

This might seem to be a small, even a trivial insult. If it were only I and my son who had the problem. But when you spread this practice over thousands and thousands of deposits, deposits that are good, deposits that get money to the bank long before they release the funds to the depositor, you're talking a profitable practice for the bank and a loss for the consumer. How big a profit? How big a loss? I have no real idea. All I know is that the check is good and we're not allowed to have money that belongs to us.

I told my son about this mess. He called BofA. Many levels of customer service, supervisors, bosses, bosses of bosses. No luck. They are not going to release his money. It's their Policy. Why? Evidently because we cannot make them release it. They don't have to, they say, and guess what, they won't release it. Period.

After his illuminating call with "Customer Service," and panicking that he could not make his trip without the dough, he went to a branch in NYC near where he lives. Said the "customer service" person to whom he spoke, pardon the paraphrase, "That's a backroom problem. I can only deal with front room issues." This could be the segue to a joke, but alas, it isn't. No help from "customer service."

When they've got you, they think they've got you. You're powerless to do anything to get them to take their paws off your money and turn it over to you. It's your money, right? Well...

I realize that this problem will be concluded on 12/7 at 5 pm with the release of the funds. I can get him some money so he can make his trip and then get the rest of the cash to him. That's not the real problem.

The real problem is that we, he and I, and you as well as consumers are continuously being victimized by BofA and many of its global competitors.

When they scream that they need to be bailed out, that they need tax money to keep them afloat, that they're too big to fail, that they're illiquid, that they have issues, we taxpayers grovel and write the check. A mighty big check. We save their butt every time. We keep them from failing.

And in their gratitude for our keeping them afloat, what do they do? They continue policies designed solely to gouge us and to garner profits to which they are simply not entitled, profits they will keep and not share with us, profits they make in many ways and in particular by holding our funds and preventing us from having them.

We have to be gigantic suckers to put up with loaning giving these folks our tax money and not exacting any returns from them. And we have to be idiots to let them continue to gouge us.

I could tell you to complain about this abuse and the rest of it by calling them, but if you don't want to be on hold for half an hour, I don't recommend it.

If I could, I'd write a song about how much they suck, but I'm not that talented.

The best I can do, and I concede it is very, very little, is let the smoke curl out of my ears and write this diary.