By Cato Hodiernus
I’ve been a customer of Bank of America for over three decades. Over the years, I’ve had various checking, savings, trust, and investment accounts with them, as well as loans, lines of credit, and similar vehicles for me and various businesses I have started.
Like many of you, I was dismayed by Bank of America’s eager participation in Operation Choke Point, as well as its “woke” positions on various current issues. While that (as well as BofA’s gradual elimination of what used to be known as “Executive and Professional” banking services) led me over the years to move some of my business to other institutions, simple inertia left me and my businesses continuing to have various accounts and lines of credit with BofA.
Today, I am closing as many of my Bank of America accounts as I can (closing others will take a little time, as doing so requires various corporate resolutions), and I will begin transitioning all of my investment accounts with BofA subsidiary Merrill Lynch to another broker.
What overcame my inertia and prompts me to exhort you to do likewise is a truly shocking and blood-boiling report by Tucker Carlson.
In the days after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, Bank of America went through its own customers’ financial and transaction records. These were the private records of Americans who had committed no crime; people who, as far as we know, had absolutely nothing to do with what happened at the Capitol. But at the request of federal investigators, Bank of America searched its databases looking for people who fit a specific profile.
Here’s what that profile was: “1. Customers confirmed as transacting, either through bank account debit card or credit card purchases in Washington, D.C. between 1/5 and 1/6. 2. Purchases made for Hotel/Airbnb RSVPs in DC, VA, and MD after 1/6. 3. Any purchase of weapons or at a weapons-related merchant between 1/7 and their upcoming suspected stay in D.C. area around Inauguration Day. 4. Airline related purchases since 1/6.”
The first thing you should notice about that profile is that it’s remarkably broad. Any purchases of anything in Washington, D.C.; any overnight stay anywhere in an area spanning three jurisdictions and hundreds of miles; any purchase not just of legal firearms, but anything bought from a “weapons-related merchant,” T-shirts included; and any airline-related purchases — not just flights to Washington, but flights to anywhere, from Omaha to Thailand. That is an absurdly wide net.
Bank of America doesn’t deny the accuracy of Carlson’s report. So to recap, without any customer authorization or notification, without any warrant or other legal process, and without any indication that its customers were engaged in any criminal activity, America’s second largest bank gleefully disregarded its customers’ privacy and operated like an arm of the Stasi.
As noted in Carlson’s report, BofA’s actions likely violated a host of laws and regulations, to say nothing of its deposit and credit card agreements with its customers. Typically, getting any sort of transaction information from a bank requires a subpoena and, except certain narrow exceptions, notice to the customer.
But while I will not be surprised to see BofA hammered with class action lawsuits over this, its cavalier willingness to disregard longstanding and expected banking practices should send chills down every American’s spine.
What’s next? Acceding to a request from various politicians to identify all BoA customers who have bought anything from an FFL? Customers of Brownells, Palmetto State Armory, Numrich, etc.? Contributors to NRA, GOA, FPC?
By its actions, Bank of America has now made it plain that it is more than willing to let its political leanings trump your rights and expectations as a customer. It’s clear that you do business with them at your literal peril.
If you’ve already ceased doing business with Bank of America, good for you. If not, take the time to find a good local bank or credit union and get out now.
When will we finally have a “Freedom” bank? This country needs a bank that stands up for and publicly supports the U.S. Constitution. If we can get one National bank to do this, they will probably have 74 million new clients.
Your “Freedom Bank” will be difficult. In order to charter a federal bank, the investors will be required to obtain approval from several federal agencies. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency will have to approve. So too, will the FDIC, the Treasury Department, and the Federal Reserve Bank. Each of those agencies will ask the FBI to investigate the principles.
Although there are defined guidelines on who can and cannot be approved to own or operate a bank, there is a lot of “wiggle room” within those guidelines. To make it more complicated, President Joseph Beijing Biden has ordered reimposition of the rules of Operation Chokepoint, every federal agency – including OCC, FDIC, Treasury, FRB, DOJ, and FBI – will follow the new rules.
It won’t be much easier for people trying to charter a state bank. The FDIC, FRB, and the FBI will still have their say first. The only way around the federal government would be a bank chartered in a friendly foreign country and operating entirely outside of US jurisdiction, but that leaves both the bank and their customers subject to that country’s political winds plus oversight by the UN.
Actually even a bank chartered in a different country would have difficulties as in order to do any business in the US or have access to US dollars it will have to use the SWIFT system to do any kind of transfers (which is basically controlled by the US government) that’s how the government controls other countries economies when we want to sanction them, just cut them off from the US dollar.
Then there is the cards even my credit union uses VISA as the network for my credit and check card transactions and that network is controlled by guess who….. even if my credit union is the one who ultimately takes responsibility for debts the network has access to all my transactions in order to route them to the correct account for service so they know who I buy from and likely can extrapolate what I bought. even a paper check gets submitted to the merchants bank and they have a record of who and how much before it ever gets to your bank.
It’s my understanding Starbucks is a “bank” that isn’t a bank. Customers trade dollars for online app purchases sometime in the future and in the mean time Starbucks is free to do whatever they want with the balance.
What if something like this could be established as a “futures / gift certificate” with a physical good with an exact specification like NATO 556? Something we could trade/send electronically like crypto currency but with a physical value behind it like a gold standard.
The “mint” (Ammunition manufacturer) would issue the electronic certificate through a retail storefront and we would trade our dollars for x units of ammunition, payable within 10 days or less of presenting certificate for redemption. Then make the platform where anyone can transfer their non-monetary unit to another registered user in exchange for goods/services or cash out the credits they have at the current exchange rate.
It should skirt banking regulations though I’m sure the current administration would quickly swat it down
That’s not banking. It’s pre-ordering or layaway, which any manufacturer or store can do. You can start a webpage right now to take orders for a factory you’re building at the moment, which is kind of what Kickstarter does for almost anything not gun related.. You just need to make sure you tell the customer what the anticipated delivery date is. I have a couple ammo orders for imports expected in March and April, although this is an established company that won’t change my card until they’re ready to ship. They could have just as easily charged me now.
We just need a commonly accepted and used clearing house where you and I could transfer all or a portion of the order you have placed.
The “money supply” would have to be larger than an order, it would have to be backed by a large commodity.
The best results I have had is with a local credit union. I have never had to beg or crawl to get a loan at my credit union unlike several banks I could name.
I and my family left commercial banks for local Credit Unions decades ago when a bank which will be unnamed here turned over my son’s banking records to a Federal entity without a subpoena and without notice to the depositor.
He was an A student and he was sixteen at the time.
Why would you not name them? They need the spotlight turned on them.
We switched to credit unions after the bank we had been using took advantage of a friend.
I agree but ‘the club’ ain’t gonna let that happen.
As George Carlin said “It’s a big club and we ain’t in it.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUaqFzZLxU
I left BofA back in 1993 after they tried an experiment in which they combined all accounts (checking, savings, everything) onto a single statement for a spell. I didn’t like it and chose to speak with a teller at my local brick-and-mortar branch (remember those?). She was so condescending to me and my wife (we were younger and in our 20s) that we chose right then and there to close the accounts we had. That very minute.
Never looked back, and was glad for that decision when I learned of BofA’s involvement in the banking leverage shenanigans that led to the 2008 financial crisis…
Whether he’s hassling overworked bank tellers about matters they can’t possibly influence or hectoring a Subway manager about sales tax matters that are clearly above his pay grade, ‘I Haz A Question’ proves daily that being an insufferable asshole requires lots of practice.
And it’s obvious that you have had plenty of practice and are an expert at it!
It’s always the ignorant who provide insult. K.H.A.C. clearly has no understanding of the influence upon sales tax policies Subway managers have.
Agreed. I need a new bank too, as currently have the least BOA account as they allow, due to their antics a while back, now I really prefer to just move my account elsewhere.
We already have a freedom bank, it’s called bank of “your name” and you can deposit anything you want into it. Crypto is suitable for online and peer to peer transactions, preventing anyone from canceling you.
It isn’t intended for long term wealth preservation, rather it is primarily utility. It is money without state control, without bank control, sovereign money, the holder is the owner. Cash works well too, but there aren’t a lot of businesses that accept cash payments online.
You control the record keeping of your bank, its secrecy, its security, you are the gate keeper of your earthly wealth.
Not everyone accepts crypto, and it’s outrageously volatile and has high transaction fees. You can use money orders or prepaid credit cards if you want to send money by smail or online
Visa has shown interest in getting into blockchain.
Their proposal is like a debit card but linked to your crypto accounts.
Personally, I like cash. I won’t accept anything else though I have started to consider accepting BTC and metals. But, then, I’m bearish on the dollar at this point and Biden/Yellen give me no particular reason to turn bullish.
Well, it won’t be Cities.
Do you really think the people who own the banks are ever going to be on our side?
Cash in Mason Jars. Ditch the plastic. Head to the Dark Web. A sad state of affairs when an honest citizen has to start looking at ways to hide legal money and purchases from your government.
You should never started with them in the first place. Years ago they created special accounts or illegal that don’t have social security numbers. They have been anti American for decades
For illegals
your keyboard much be as worn out as mine. LOL
Oh it’s far worse than that. Bank of America was founded based on the opportunity that they could make higher profits fleecing immigrants of their hard-earned dollars.
In the name of “increased risk” they have been screwing over vulnerable populations since the day they opened. They have always been unAmerican.
Yep, I closed out all of my business with BoA a couple of decades ago, not long after they bought the bank that bought the bank that I signed up with in the first place. They are the worst of all the choices you can make for a commercial bank. Even people who have worked there have told me that the first thing every ex-employee does is close out all of their accounts as soon as they leave (they are nasty to their employees too).
I dropped B of A in 1th 1970’s when they bounced a check for the service charge. After that I only deal with local banks!!!!
1984! Thought it was fiction, eh!?
Prophecy.
1984 has turned out to be an instruction manual.
Yes, the Republicans like their big government control, that’s why they passed the bank secrecy act in 1970, signed into law by Saint Richard Nixon.
“The BSA was originally passed by the U.S. Congress in 1970 and signed by President Richard Nixon into law on October 26, 1970. Shortly after passage, several groups attempted to have the courts rule the law unconstitutional, claiming it violated both Fourth Amendment rights against unwarranted search and seizure, and Fifth Amendment rights of due process. Several cases were combined before the Supreme Court in California Bankers Assn. v. Shultz, 416 U.S. 21 (1974), which ruled that the Act did not violate the Constitution.“
Kind of hurts when your own big government spying laws impact you personally.
Nixon was a RINO’s RINO. One of the more progressive presidents of the 20th century. It’s like saying Republicans are bad because of something Mitt Romney did.
And who was running the House of Reps that year? Oh ya it was the dems back when they thought it was their partof their inheritance for all eternity and could as the pleased. Oh vee wiz you forgot to mention that.
See Miner in your constant attempts to play ‘gotcha’, you don’t even realize you are arguing for conservative values, i.e. smaller limited government. Likely because leftist, like you, truly do not have any core beliefs.
As William eluded to in his reply to you, there is a difference between conservatives and Republicans.
Miner when Republicans do something bad: See? Republicans are the worst
Miner when Democrats do something bad: See? Republicans are the worst
All you have to know to be on Miner’s level is which side is yours. Then you don’t have to actually know about the issues. Everything is proof your side is good no matter what it is.
Oligarchy.
#Eattherich
Well my bank is this shitty one. All the big banks suck. My wife handles all the bill’s & my SSI and I really doubt she wants to move to 1st bank of Podunk. I’ll do my best😖😞😕
“SSI”?
But that’s socialism!
Miner calls SS socialism.
After having paid $600+K for SS, I consider it a return on investment (a VERY poor return).
Socialism/communism is when I get benefits without paying anything in. you know, like illegal aliens, lazy bums, liberals and other assorted miscreants, maybe even Miner.
Just open your own bank. Just buy your own servers. Just run your own fiber optics. Just build your own power plants.
Where does it end? The noose is tightening by the day.
No good options it seems.
Wonder what happens when a large group of people decides that they should just create their own country? Hypothetically speaking.
I quit with them decades ago.
Bank of America had a section set up to show large customers how they could save money by off shoring their IT services.
Use a credit union if you can. They are non-profit, which means your credit card interest rates are lower, since you’re not paying a dividend to shareholders. Indeed, all your fees are lower.
OH, and I forgot to mention, they tapped a “dormant” account, until it was empty, then closed it. I went to buy some computer hardware, and it was gone. They did “give” me half my money back.
The law does allow financial institutions to escheat funds from accounts that show no activity for at least three years. I’ve read that the most common instance is an account from a deceased person that becomes overlooked or is altogether unknown by kin.
Three years?
U.S. Bank starts charging a non-use fee after three months.
Yep, had a problem with B O A about thirty years ago myself over their service charges myself,
Moved around $50,000 out of there & went to another bank called Wells Fargo & had a problem with that bank taking service fees when I left the money with them also.
I now use two different credit unions & two different banks to do business with.
At least I got a little bit of money back in a class action law suit against Wells Fargo.
Be careful who you do business with.
I’m surprised Wells Fargo can stay in business. A few months after they first opened a branch in this town they told their employees what cars they were allowed to drive, one requirement being no more than three years old. When word of that got around they lost half their accounts, and I don’t understand why they didn’t lose more.
The idea is to remove all your ability to purchase anything. Germany did it to the Jews in the 1930’s History repeats itself, this time the target is not an ethnic group, but anyone who doesn’t think in the “proper way”.
Oh, it most certainly is targeting an ethnic group this time too. But you can’t say which one without being labeled a Nazi.
Only a moron would use plastic on a road trip with the intent of committing a felony. Of course only a moron would post pictures on the internet of his maskless face sitting in Nancy Polosi’s office, so…
BoA is run by a bunch of tools. Been that way for a while.
You see morons, I see free people willing to risk it all. It’s the digital age… You don’t think they had cameras in there? Or watched every single person as they showed up and tracked them every step of the way through drones and satellites? Man, sometimes not hiding and making a joke of these politicians is the most free shit you can do. I get where you are coming from, but what have you don’t besides check a box and hope for the best? Maybe a strongly worded email? It won’t matter. You own guns? Terrorist. You dont vote their way? Terrorist. You are being watched. You either risk the biscuit or stay dormant where they want you. I’ll bet if state’s started seceding people like you would call that unamerican too. It’s not about race this time, it’s about politics and freedom. A republic if we can keep it, and a middle finger to the elitists that operate social media while at their war lords desk was a warning. All the same nothing will change. There will be no war. Only peaceful slavery. So for those who chose to stick up their middle finger and become “insurrectionists”, I salute you, fellow patriots.
‘Risk’ implies chance, as in there’s a chance you might get caught AND a chance you might get away. You do have a valid argument for martyrdom though.
Someone has to be the first. Did you expect a military backing and secession? Nope. K then.
The point of my comment was that anyone with half a brain that intended to remain anonymous would not get caught in BoA’s dragnet, so it was a pretty useless exercise on their part.
Well, it was ANTIFA… so… Or Q Anon, and they could care less too.
Another big talking yank keyboard cowboy! Been watching “your” brave words since 2018. Big talk as you bend over and kiss their feet while taking it up the bum. Completely oblivious to what has been going on around you. Getting your knickers in a bunch when Trump tried to tell you the truth. Remember “Buyer beware, you bought it (Biden) now live with it”.
wut? You have been watching me? Since 2018? lol… why not earlier? Fucking lurkers, man…
Add them to the list’ of Anti-American entities that I won’t associate with: Dicks, Levis, Nike’, Starbucks, Yeti, Bed Bath Beyond, Kohls, Walmart, Target, Amazon, Google, Youtube, Fakebook, CNN, MSMBS, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, Castlerock, Disney, NPR, Bank of America. The list goes on. Let your $ talk.
In the age of the woke corporation, sure try not to do business with them, support others, sounds good, but if no Google, Walmart, Target, Costco, Amazon, most of the grocery stores are on the bad list, clothing companies… Ditch netflix, Disney, Comcast, Verizon, at&t… But now where do you actually shop? Your FFL may have a pallet of emergency toilet paper but you need to get food, clothes. Unless you go totally self sufficient and grow/hunt your food and make your clothes.
The point would be, as we see with the tech monopolies, it is hard to consistently only give money to companies you agree with, as the boycott list basically becomes *everyone*. And even if you do cut off all of the offenders, the government will take your tax money and fund a bunch of crap you doing agree with.
You pick your battles…the wisdom of being old. I am offended every effing day!!!
This^
I’ve been pointing this out here on TTAG for years.
If you limit yourself exclusively to pro2A businesses you’re basically left with gun, ammo and accessory vendors.
You can limit your contact with anti2A business but you probably can eliminate such contact.
Kinda shitty but true.
The bigger problem is many of those who read this article will continue using bank of America. It’s the same people who know what facebook and twits are doing to free speech and still they remain members.
Rest assured the writing is on the wall when you have few pulling the wagon and many sitting on their butts enjoying the ride.
So before the next minute passes get off your behind and man the f up.
I’ve been with B of A for more than 25 years. Very disappointed in them now. Unfortunately I have no idea who would be much different than B of A right now.
Use a local bank or credit union while you still can. Local banks are going extinct due to the regulatory environment.
Just start your own bank will eventually become just print your own money.
At that point you’ll need your own nation.
Will that nation be recognized by the rest of the worlds globalist countries?
Welp, gonna need to make your own planet.
Look into the Liberty Dollar. A dude did that with using silver coinage and backed bank notes and Uncle Same threw him in prison for counterfeiting. It was alleged that Bernard Von Nothaus counterfeited US currency and intended to deceive the consumer with the Liberty Dollar by copying certain elements of US currency like using the word dollar… It was a bunch of horseshit IMO. Like the guy, the currency, or his philosophy or not, I’m convinced he got the screws because he challenged the systems and had some marginal to moderate success.
Well according to Libertarian thinking this is ok. Government working with private business to control what private citizens do. I call this classical Fascism. How to stop it? I don’t know. But this is the stuff that has lead to wars. Internal and external.
You answered your own question about how to stop it. Let us hope more reasonable minds prevail before it comes to that. But it sure isn’t looking good.
“As noted in Carlson’s report, BofA’s actions likely violated a host of laws and regulations, to say nothing of its deposit and credit card agreements with its customers.”
Why would that be surprising? What, you think there will be consequences? These people work in an industry where breaking the law is the the daily norm because regulators can’t keep up with what they do and even if they do get caught they pay a fine that is a single-digit percentage of the money they made off the illegal transaction. In organized crime circles that’s called the “vigorish” or simply “vig”.
They figure the law doesn’t apply to them and they have good reason to believe that; Because generally speaking, it doesn’t. And if they fuck it all up too badly they get a taxpayer funded bailout.
If these people had a big fancy seal the words around it would be “Vitam sine poenis amamus” (We love life without punishments/consequences).
It’s sad how easily duped people are. People forget that Occupy Wall Street happened during the Obama Administration. Who was held accountable for that? It took about five minutes to lay the blame of cops killing black men on the White House simply because the White House was occupied by a Republican (during the Summer of mostly peaceful protests in 2020). People are apparently unaware that there are state, county, and town governments that are in charge of the local police. It was a deflection of responsibility from those cities that have been under Democrat control.
Back to the Obama Administration never holding Wall Street accountable…
“Holder denied there was anything weird about returning to one of Wall Street’s favorite defense firms after six years of letting one banker after another skate on monstrous cases of fraud, tax evasion, market manipulation, money laundering, bribery and other offenses.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/eric-holder-wall-street-double-agent-comes-in-from-the-cold-49262/
And what did Holder talk about more than anything? RACISM. It was nothing but a distraction. The Biden administration is doing the same thing, but they’ve cranked up the volume to eleven.
The thing about this, IMHO, is that what you’re discussing is exactly what all this r/wallstreetbets stuff is about (the failure of government to actually do anything other than get in bed with financial institutions since the late 1970’s/early 1980’s). It’s Occupy Wall Street done with some intelligence (as opposed to the original which was wholly childish and stupid) because no one on Wall Street gave a shit about people living in tents and “protesting”. This they do care about.
The *new* thing is to hit them in the pocketbook and do it for exactly the reason you’re mentioning. The street is in bed with the government to the benefit of no one outside the street or government and people have finally figured out how to hit the hedgies and the banks where it hurts.
The problem with that, again IMHO, is that the banks and hedgies 1) have protection from governement and 2) have a lot more experience with this kind of manipulation than do the r/ folks. Now, that doesn’t mean that the r/ folks can’t win but it does mean that, IMHO, they’re playing a dangerous game. There’s a fine line between losing, winning and teaching banks/hedgies a good lesson and winning a pyrrhic victory that brings down the entire system.
And it’s not like the people who are engaged in massive naked shorting behavior are going to just learn their lesson right away or take their lumps. They’re going to press their advantages in the hopes of keeping them, resisting as much as possible. That, IMHO, makes it much more likely (though I hesitate to put a figure on it) that option 3 is what we get: these two groups fight, r/ has the numbers to win and eventually does so but the struggle pushes everything over the edge and crashes the entire system because it’s all built of fiat and faith. If the fighting does enough damage faith in the fiat disappears and disaster ensues.
On one hand the system could just be wrecked by the fighting. OTOH, r/ wins and crushes enough institutions that bailouts are the “protectors” chosen tool and then the currency supply inflates like you can’t imagine. Against the current economic backdrop that seems problematic to me since there’s no cushion or backstop if that goes sideways. Interests rates can’t be raised to suck that extra money out of the system nor can, realistically, taxes be raised on economic activity that ceased last year. Problems abound.
Or, perhaps, the Street wins and then all faith in the system evaporates from a goodly portion of investors and the system collapses which, again with no backstop/cushion has ripple effects and the Fed’s not in the position to do fuck-all about that at this point because the fundamentals just aren’t there.
There’s plenty of pent up anger, as there should be, but my point is that it’s hilarious how people have been manipulated to direct their anger at Wall Street or Republicans. Democrats even trash Wall Street in public, but suck up to them in private (i.e. leaked Hillary speech). People seem to be shocked to discover that Wall Street has supported Democrat presidential candidates over Republicans since at least 2008. Democrats have been smart enough to deflect and channel that anger elsewhere. Behind closed doors Democrats and Wall Street executives laugh at the army of useful idiots they created to help take down their political enemies.
“Problems abound.”
The rising debt and printing money like there’s no tomorrow is putting the country in a very vulnerable position (intentionally?). Everyone thinks they can control inflation until they can’t. If / when that happens, we’re screwed.
On the political side of things the Democrats use Wall Street the way pimps use hookers.
Wall Street’s relationship to government, and particularly the Democratic Party, is that of a drug addicted hooker to her pimp. Short term gain (the next fix) at long term expense. And the pimp just laughs and rakes in the money. That money translates into power.
The Dems love power and they don’t care how much Hopium the Wall Street guys smoke as long as it gets the D’s more money to put into elections with which to buy power.
In this context the R’s are just a bunch of feckless idiots who are afraid of doing anything to regulate or discipline the Street because talk radio will scream “Socialism!” or some other such nonsense. So the Democrats beat their street walkers and the R’s just sit there and watch the girls shoot up.
It’s a mess.
“The rising debt and printing money like there’s no tomorrow is putting the country in a very vulnerable position…”
This is exactly what I’ve been saying about how the retirees may get fed into the wood chipper, unfortunately to the delight of a lot of younger people who don’t understand this situation very well at all. This is why I have said for months and months that “generational warfare” is stupid and dangerous. All it does is tick off the younger folks who are already ticked (and mostly for valid reasons).
This goes sideways and no amount of screaming “wE hAz mOnIeZ!” is going to save most most of the Boomers. We’re all on a sinking ship at that point with no lifeboats and where would a lifeboat go? The whole world’s been fucked by the response to CoV-2.
What’s needed here is an adult conversation about a bunch of things. The problem is that 90% of people don’t understand those things and 85% don’t care to understand them. They’re rather have a tribal fight about bullshit.
Basically yes, which means that influential and high level Republicans are actually useful idiots as well. Wall Street uses their free market ideology against them. (Responding to previous comment)
The biggest issue with all this is that no matter what happens, r/ win, r/ loses, system survived, system fails, at the end of the day we are the ones paying the bill. If the system survives and reddit wins then ws gets bailed out and more regulations happen to prevent another “financial insurrection”. If reddit loses and the system survives, again ws gets losses covered, and we foot the bill. If the system fails, they take their money and book it to wherever, and we foot the bill in blood sweat and money. Look at how many high net worth individuals now keep or buy dual citizenship now.
And then after things have settled after a collapse, they’ll come waltzing back in to “help” or “civilise” us, and return back to their bs.
@Error404:
You sum up portions of this quite nicely in a paragraph.
Maybe lots of other people will wake up. Maybe they won’t. If they don’t who’s fault is it? I’d suggest that it’s the fault of those of us who recognize the problems.
I’ve known this, though my knowledge of the technical details has increased in the last 20 years, due to the fact that I became independently wealthy beyond my wildest dreams due to the Tech Bubble and Federal Government before I even got out of high school. My dad laughed at me until I paid off his mortgage for Christmas just because I could and told him not to worry about that college fund (or much of anything else) any more.
There’s a bunch of shady shit going on and there has been for A LONG TIME. Since before I was born even. It’s just getting to the point now that the side-effects are causing a lot of angst with younger people because they’ve been, effectively, priced out of the ponzi scheme because one of the major side effects is an unacceptable level of inflation. Hence, r/wallstreetbets and r/wallstreetsilver. They’re not the problem, they’re a symptom of the problem which a lot of people started to wake up to around 2008.
I mean, the Fed’s little asset bubbles that they created and maintain for various reasons are great if you bought in early. But a lot of people who are running around today weren’t born early enough to “buy in early” and they’re getting shafted in large numbers. As that grows and their awareness of it grows the backlash will also grow.
This is the root of my problem with generational warfare. Those who “bought in early”, for the most part, have no idea how the system works and believe that everything is gravy. It’s not and if it all comes crashing down they’re going to get eaten alive by people who don’t care if they knew or didn’t know.
The only real enjoyment I ever got from Osama/Biden was laughing at the sheer stupidity of the first black POTUS raving on about the horrible discrimination against blacks in the US. Who the FUCK did he think elected him? The answer, if course, was “the descendants of the men who fought and died for the freedom of black men in America.” Which were very few blacks.
Microtargeting produces odd macro behavior.
If people can do something they will. Laws don’t work because no one is ever punished. The only way to stop it is to physically and technically prevent it.
This applies to everything.
I thought pro-2nd Amendment people were finished after Bank of America support taking our rights away after Parkland happened. I think there were a number of banks after Parkland that support taking our 2nd Amendment rights away. Wake up go and go to a credit union and do not support these large banks. Here is the link to anti-2nd Amendment companies. Do not forget that Walmart and others support Everytown commiecrats also.
https://www.ccrkba.org/?page_id=6730
“Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.”
Benito Mussolini.
Are we there yet?
Yes
While I don’t have hard evidence as to financial monitoring it’s would be child’s play to cross reference purchase locations with FFL registrations or any locations where any card transaction takes place.
Hell I know that with geo-fencing on your phone your cell carrier can tell which locations you visit even if you pay cash. so basically most people carry a tracker on thier body all the time. Even with locations turned off I know you can get a rough idea where a phone is at any given time just by collecting which towers your phone sees and how strong the signal is, yes even my old talk only clam shell phone without GPS or WIFI is track-able to a limited degree unless I pull the battery.
Honestly I would just assume that everything you buy, sell say or do has the potential to be monitored and stored in a Database somewhere that they can crawl through at their leisure if then want to pin something on you “If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.”
We had a local Judge in Austin proclaim some years back that he did not believe he could drive on I-35 from one side of Austin to the other without committing a crime. I was pretty sure of that, but was unprepared to hear a judge state it publicly.
What do you expect from a bank that has paid $76 billion in fines since 2008 for illegal activities?
IMO, BofA is a world-class crook.
Been a credit union member for 30 years. Only dealt with those monster banks occasionally for credit cards or store purchases, lately none of that.
It’s entirely possible to do business without them and we all should. I’ve never understood why anyone would wrap themselves up with BoA, WF, Chase, or any other bank. It ain’t like they give better rates or are easier to borrow from.
That is EXACTLY what is next, if it has not happened already.
And remember, fedzilla would not even have to formally/legally petition an institution to hand over a bunch of customer data. Rather, it is as easy as providing an adequate incentive to an employee of that institution to copy the data and hand it over.
The incentive could involve anywhere from threat of prosecution for real or invented law violations to a lucrative payout — and combinations thereof. How many low-level employees of a corporation are going to shrug that off?
I’ve known about BOAs lack of 2A support for years. I too have been a customer (have multiple accounts with them) for over 25 yrs. I purposely buy most of my pro 2A “stuff” using their issued credit card. Over the past 20 years, I have not paid one penny in interest to them, not one! All the while, collecting over $16,000 in “rewards” from them. Not in air miles. Not in comped hotels. No free blenders or clocks. Cash! Lots of cash! In an ironic twist, they have bought me a ton of guns and ammo over the years. You get your standard “reward” of 1 or 2 % for using the card. When you carry a certain balance with them, they give you an additional 75% of that reward, on top of the reward. Our average monthly reward now is about $200. We have only been in this (new) bonus reward program for the past 3-4 years. Before that, it was from 1% to 3% depending on where we shopped.
Again, never took the various “gifts”. Just cash.
Thanks, BOA!
Yeah, but TANSTAFL. BoA gives you rewards out of the credit card charges it makes on the transactions. So if you have received $14,000 in rewards, you’ve probably earned BoA twice that in net credit card fees. Congrats.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I have paid exactly $0.00 in any kind of fees thru them or to them! I edited this to say that I checked, it is over 16K! There will never be a way for me to control what others do with their credit and fees that they incur.
I am making BOA buy my guns. Pure and simple. I find that ironic. They are anti gun…and yet, they buy my guns!
cea,
When you run a $100 purchase through a credit card company, the credit card company only pays the merchant (who is selling you the actual item that you are purchasing) about $97 for that item and the credit card company keeps the remaining $3. You are indeed paying a fee to the credit company — you are simply unaware of it.
Perhaps it makes more sense to you if you look at it this way: the merchant who is selling you a product or service is paying a fee to the credit card company every time you use your credit card. And that fee is about $3 of every $100 that the merchant sells.
Thus, using your credit card creates profit for your credit card company, even if you never pay them any interest. Whether you think of it as you or the merchant paying the fee to the credit card company is neither here nor there.
Furthermore, even if your credit card company later gives $1 of that $3 (out of every $100 that you “spend” with your credit card) back to you, they are still keeping $2 of every $100 that you charge.
You pay the fees as merchant service fees charged to the retailer for processing your credit card. The store gets charged around 3% + a per transaction fee. Of course, they don’t eat that cost and raise prices to cover it. You’re paying it indirectly, unless the store gives a ‘cash discount,’ which is just taking away the credit card fees.
We’ve always used ‘orphan CC cards’ not connected in any way to our Bank accounts.
I believe it safer that way.
Feds are also using metadata from apps and cell towers to find other possible suspects at the riot.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/05/opinion/capitol-attack-cellphone-data.html
That is an interesting article.
Mobile advertising ID tied to other databases.
Might be time for a super small Faraday cage in my vehicle. Heck, our cars tracking us too.
Wow, so that means that shouldn’t have ANY trouble finding out the names of people who were involved with burning down so much of the country last year?
Guess they’re only “peaceful protests” when they don’t threaten the powers that be. No one cares if the peasants kill each other, but woe unto he who touches the Lord’s manor.
As proven by the actions of the various prosecutors and local governments any riot response is directly proportional to the proximity to the government officials. Basically you can burn a mom and pop store to the ground, but protest too close to a mayors house and a blockade will be set up. Attempt to act against any business that has made political contributions to elected officials and a strong response should be expected as a result.
Law enforcement can expect the same results “there is no such thing as a good cop” if they attempt to defend the non-connected but will be honored if they defend the officials in power.
“but will be honored if they defend the officials in power.”
Or their identity will be hidden in order to protect them. What’s the name of the cop that shot and killed that unarmed woman? His name must be plastered everywhere by now. Are the protestors marching yet? If they aren’t, then they were never more than hypocrites and useful idiots.
Not surprised, but based on my friend’s experiences, I knew BaO was one of the worst banks to do business with. Terrible customer service, high service fee, and pro-Statist anti-2a policies. Never had an account with them, even though my Dad works for them, who unfortunately worked for MBNA but was bought out by BoA years back. At the very least, diversify your accounts.
No surprise. If you have been doing business with BOA for three decades, you might be an idiot. The only bank more corrupt than them is Wells Fargo.
The thing to do is use B of A credit cards and pay them off every month.
The banks hate people like that because they don’t make any money off of them.
I haven’t paid an interest charge or card fee from B of A since I signed up with them 15 years ago and they give me reward points so in effect they are paying me to use their card which probably drives them nuts and if everyone did this it would break them pretty fast.
But be cautious and pay cash when buying things you don’t the world know you’re buying.
As suggested above, they still make money off you in that whenever you use the card they take some of the charge from the business you are dealing with, although in my opinion that is their problem, they would give me no discount if I paid in cash, just pocket the extra profit. I use BOA card for most expenditures each month, pay in full each month, have not paid interest or fees to anyone for anything in 25 years. Yeah, they make money off me, which will end when retailers give me a 2-3% discount for using cash.
They were rotten as hell when they were known as Nations Bank too.
Fortunately I do not bank with these turncoats.If I did I would cancel my banking with them also.With the Obama administrations “Operation Chokepoint” still clear in my mind it seems banks like this haven’t learned their lesson in protecting customers personal information.The next step that I recomend is this gentleman find other customers they did this to and file a class action law suit against the bank.From what Tucker Carlson said last night it involved 211 customers.
You’re done only now with them? Bank of America, along with several other big banks, was targeting gun related businesses and conservative groups years ago. So you thought that they won’t go down the line? 🙂
You have to be careful when moving your money, many financial services corporations and their corporate officers, were enemies of the old republic and helped destroy the republic in a secret cabal, described by Time magazine as “fortifying” the last election. Moving your money to a safe corporate home many not be possible.
I know some of you still believe the Americans, their wacky constitution, and their republic still exist, but I think only some of the Americans are left. The constitution vanishes whenever expedient, so it is effectively dead. No republic can exist where a huge minority of people have no faith in the elections. Was the last election so transparent you would tell a foreigner with a straight face that it set the international standard?
Dumped BofA 35 years ago….I’ve been with Navy Federal Credit Union for 20+years and love them. They definetly treat their customers right.
I do my business on the River bank
You lost me when you stated your information is based on Tucker Carlson. Theres not a bigger turncoat spineless loser on TV.
I wonder if this guy realizes that BofA wasn’t the only bank asked for this information…
If you don’t want to do business with BoA, keep in mind they own Merrill Lynch and you might want to move your retirement account as well.
The gun industry (and everyone in general) needs to start considering cryptocurrency…
Yeah but who among large banks is someone to actually do business with? Local credit unions are fine for checking accounts and small savings accounts but your return on larger amounts of money is severely limited (and, of course, the lack of branches).
TD
Are there big returns for savings accounts at large banks? I thought you had to invest in the market these days to get a decent return above the rate of inflation.
What took you so long, most of us left BofA years ago…..
Bank of America may have been caught, but other banks got the same request and complied. Wireless services also got the same request. So if you jump from BoA, you are probably jumping to another bank that simply did not get caught.
Incidentally, they complied because its the law. Its called the Bank Secrecy Act. If you don’t like the law quitting you financial institution wont do much. You need to get your congress critter to change the law.
Should have listened to Clark and stopped dealing with “Giant Monster Megabanks” decades ago.
Left BofA (actually “Bank of Italy” – look it up) back in the early 2000’s. Couldn’t be happier.
Nation’sBank, rebranded to Bank of America after some scandals, is a horrible, untrustworthy bank and always has been. Don’t let the name fool you, it’s about as American as Ho Chi Minh.
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