Sunday, October 15, 2006

Sunday Evening Rant: Banks

When I purchased my shiny new Apple laptop a year or so ago, I did it through their credit line at MBNA. I didn't pay it off during the allotted "free" time, so I got banged with interest payments. (That was my own doing so I can't complain about it.)

However, in order to keep up with the payments, I put it on auto-pay. Tonight I looked at my account, and found out that I overpaid about $1000, because although the thing was closed, they still kept taking my money. I called them and am getting a check back in a few days.

But that isn't the point. These motherf*#kers CHARGE THE LIVING SH!T out of people in interest, and if payment's a nanosecond late, they send the party to collections, or have some a##hole call at 8 in the morning. Am I getting interest on the grand they held for over a month? Nope. Can I awaken the chairman of MBNA at 6am to ask where my money is? No. I also believe it should be illegal for them to take money against an account that is paid off.

I'm not sure I have a point in this, as I'm just ranting. But one thing's for sure... the personal tip, MBNA will never ever see one thin dime from me, ever again. On a different level, with the multinational banks and the wealthy gaining more and more control, we only have more of this screwing of the middle and lower classes to look forward to. Sadly, most will never notice the fleecing because they're too busy fighting the Pyrrhic "culture war" against gay rights or the teaching of evolution.

Ahhhh. That makes me feel better.

(BTW, if you don't agree with me don't waste your energy posting a comment. Not only could I give a rats ass, it won't be approved, and nobody will see it. I'm not interested in dialog with Republicans, Evangelical Christians, or idiots of any other sort.)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Its wholeheartedly true, and Bush has allowed the relaxation of this kind of stuff to go on. Its corporate fraud to the nth degree. And the American legal system is set up to make you give up. If you sue someone it could takes years to ever get your money and there is a slim to none chance you'll ever get it anyway. Personally I have always been anti-Ebay for this purpose exactly and heres why: Its very easy to make billions of dollars when you have no liability whatsoever. They help you set up a store (buy it now buttons, just like Amazon) and they help the buyer purchase it by sending him an email and showing him how to pay. Surprise surprise, they also own the payment company which they also facilitate and help you complete. But if the guy is a scam and you never receive your product, what does ebay do for you? Nothing. So lets see if I got this right, they get a fee for the posting, a fee for the ending, a fee for the payment, they helped you with the payment, they helped you with the auction, but they are not liable for anything whatsoever? I've never come across a brick and morter store who is so deeply embedded in the sale of an item and not be held liable, at least to some degree, for that sale. Even if the item you paid for never shows up and it was a total scam, eBay still keeps all that money they made off of it. The little guy however, now has to go track some asshole down, serve him, sue him, freeze his assets (not that he has any to freeze) and never see his money again. eBay, however is legally allowed to keep it all. Total scam. I wish I could open up a retail loophole with no liability, how can you not make billions?

BW said...

Here's where I go off into my own little la la land...

THEY (meaning the uber-wealthy) don't need to send stormtroopers into the streets to control the masses. They love the masses fat, stupid, in debt, and let them have just enough freedom (lots of cable channels) that their cage is just big and fluffy enough to be good little worker bees and not challenge the status quo that lines their pockets.

I keep hearing the echos of Marginal Man "Missing Rungs" in my head. "The social laddder, is incomplete. It's missing rungs, to protect the elite."

More true now than it has ever been.

Anonymous said...

You should read a book called Culture of Narcissism: America in the Age of Diminishing Expectations. Its a great book that talks about individualism and how its creating divorce and empty children desperately trying to fill a void where self consumed narcissist parents left off and how this is exactly what corporations want. If kids grow up constantly trying to fill a void that can't be filled most will inevitably fill it with food and products. He goes onto say that America further tries to isolate us from anything of substance by consumerism. They change our history into "retro" which is disposable once the season is over.

Individualism makes us believe that "I" got into college, as opposed to your community that got you here in the first place and your parents that paid for all the Kaplan courses.

If you believe you know what makes you happy, you're destined to forget that it ever will.

Check it out, its a great book. I'm sure it as amazon. (irony)

BW said...

sweet. I'll check that out after I finish Mr. Dawkins' book.

Anonymous said...

The Selfish Gene?

BW said...

Evan,
Not that one, the new one "The God Delusion"