On being held up at the bank

Update: I suppose I should first apologize for blaming this mess on Bank of America since, as I realized on my drive to court this morning, our accounts are now at Wells Fargo. It was wrong of me to lash out at such a fine institution as Bank of America (or this, or this, or this) when it was Wells Fargo I meant to call out. It just goes to show how much I pay attention to the home finances, I suppose.

My wife manages our household budget. I have no desire to deal with the home checkbook and the mortgage and light bill and water bill and grocery bills. Running the business side of my practice is more than enough hassle to deal with on a monthly basis.

Our home accounts are with Bank of America Wells Fargo while my business accounts are with another bank. If you know my wife you'd wonder why she'd be doing business with a banking behemoth like Bank of America Wells Fargo. I would've expected her to use one of the local credit unions in our neighborhood (but that's another story for another day).

Twice a month I deposit a check from my firm's operating account into our home account to cover bills and expenses. On July 2 I went to the  Bank of America Wells Fargo near our house and deposited a check into their ATM machine (quite convenient, actually).

The following weekend my wife tells me she got a letter from  Bank of America Wells Fargo that a bunch of checks she'd written had bounced. She wanted me to check with my bank about it. So, earlier this week I went online and pulled up my business account information. There I saw that the check I had deposited into our  Bank of America Wells Fargo account had cleared my bank on July 3 (this date is important).

My wife then calls  Bank of America Wells Fargo to ask them what was up with the check. She said the person she spoke with told her that some new federal regulation required banks to hold random deposits made through ATMs for up to 10 days to combat fraud. She then said the bank told her the hold was still be on the check for at least one more day. Then she said the person told her that if the check had been cashed at the window and deposited there would have been no delay. I was apoplectic when she told me this.

So let's get this straight,  Bank of America Wells Fargo  You claim you placed a hold on a check written on my firm's account because the feds require you to place holds on random checks deposited in ATMs. The check in question cleared my bank the next day. You have been holding my money for your own private gain while charging NSF fees for checks written on the account. You are generating income for your own operations by holding money that was placed into your trust for deposit in a customer's account. That's called conversion.

And do explain to me, Mr. Banker, the rationale for holding a check deposited in an ATM but not a check presented for cash and deposit. You have no idea in either scenario whether that check is any good or not. Holding that check does not prevent bank fraud. It does allow your bank to take out an interest-free loan for a few days, however - at your customers' expense.

How many other people have you victimized by this scheme,  Bank of America Wells Fargo? How much have you borrowed from your customers without paying interest for the use of their money? How much income have you generated by charging those customers NSF fees on the money you held?

And, need I add,  Bank of America Wells Fargo was one of the banks with its hands out for a bailout check.

It's the end of the world?

For those of y'all not attuned to the rantings of the millennialists, you might just want to call it an early day and hang out in the backyard or the pool or the local watering hole because it just might be your last chance.

According to Harold Camping, an 89 year-old Christian fundamentalist out in Oakland, tomorrow is Judgment Day. According to his research, a series of major earthquakes will rock each meridian at 6pm local time. Thus will begin the so-called Rapture. Believers claim that the souls of the "saved" will be lifted off the earth and transported to heaven on that day. Supposedly the earth will be destroyed five months later on October 21, 2011.



Mr. Camping bases his bold prediction on a few numbers and phrases he found in the Bible over the course of five decades. He claims that the beginning of the Rapture was ordained to occur exactly 5,000 years after the Great Flood that wiped all but eight people. He claims that exactly 722,500 days will have passed between the day Jesus was crucified (April 1, 33) and May 21, 2011 and that the number is significant based upon his own brand of numerology.

5 x 10 x 17 x 5 x 10 x 17 = 722,500

According to Mr. Camping, the number 5 symbolizes atonement, the number 10 symbolizes completeness and the number 17 symbolizes heaven. Well, the numbers 5 and 17 can't be broken down any further, but the number 10 is not a prime number, its factors are 2 and 5. Oops. I guess I missed the significance of the number 2. But that's just a minor detail, I'm certain.

I've lost track of the number of times the predicted end of the world came and went. If Mr. Camping's wrong we still have the Mayan doomsday on December 21, 2012 -- unless of course the reason the Mayan calendar ended was the poor schlub drawing it up just got tired and went home.

For those of our brethren with little else to do but listen to doomsday prophets while watching infomercials all day (and night), an army of volunteers have quit their jobs to caravan across the country warning the unsuspecting that the world is coming to an end tomorrow.

It never ceases to amaze me the numbers of folks who get suckered in by snake-oil salesmen like Harold Camping. We have produced a generation (or more) that believes their fate is beyond their hands; a generation that looks for someone to blame for all of their misfortune. There are vast conspiracies afoot that affect every aspect of our lives. Secret societies sit behind the velvet curtain pulling the strings on the puppet show acted out in front of us. None of us bear any responsibility for our position in life.

These are the folks who sit on our juries. These are the folks who decide whether our clients walk out of the courtroom.

When the earthquakes don't occur; when the rapture doesn't begin; when the world continues on just as it has for years and years charlatans like Mr. Camping will have an explanation for why the destruction didn't happen. And I can guarantee it won't start off with "I was wrong..."

I'm pretty sure we'll be chatting again next week.

White collar crime and punishment

R. Allen Stanford is just the latest in a long line of accused con men to face the prospect of prison time for his alleged misdeeds. He certainly won't be the last.

My question is whether it makes any sense to put a white collar criminal behind bars in the first place.

Mr. Stanford's alleged crimes include lying to investors and diverting investor funds to his own private bank accounts. Mr. Stanford's firm promised huge returns for those willing to invest in certificates of deposit in his Antigua bank. Of course, as I have pointed out before, it is a law of economics that the riskier the "investment," the higher the return.

Apparently no one questioned why a bank was paying exorbitant interest rates on certificates of deposit. Investors were blinded by greed and neglected to perform their due diligence before handing over large sums of cash to Mr. Stanford's company.

Now, if the allegations are true, I'm not saying that Mr. Stanford didn't do anything wrong. What I am saying is that locking him behind bars for the rest of his life doesn't do anything for the people he allegedly bilked.

I guess there's the lottery for the working poor; casinos for the middle class; and R. Allen Stanford, Bernie Madoff and company for the wealthy.