How many people are being legally swindled by banks and savings and loans, who through the use of semantics, get around usury laws???
If, for whatever reason, you inadvertantly overdraw your checking account by even one cent, the bank will make up the difference for you. Since they expect you to pay it back, it is clearly not a gift. Therefore, it is a LOAN.
To get around the ceiling on interest rates that banks are allowed to charge on loans, they don't call it a loan. Rather, they call it a service charge and assess you a whopping $24.00 (some more, some less) for the one cent they lent you, even if it's only for one day.
BANKS COLLECT AROUND 20 BILLION
DOLLARS IN SUCH SERVICE CHARGES EACH YEAR. THAT'S RIGHT,
BILLION, NOT MILLION.
As an aside, now that they've seen that banks get away with it, credit card companies are doing it too. Watch what happens when you go over your limit. They love it when you forget to keep track.
Keep in mind also that banks are planning to start charging $3-6.00 every time we need to talk with a live person. Some have started this already. What's next? Charging by the minute for each transaction? Most people aren't even aware of what these theives are doing until it hits them personnally.
You and I (that means anyone who for one reason or another live from paycheck to paycheck) are the hardest hit by these gangsters.
How do you fight them? Well I know that in numbers there is strength. Let the bank know of your displeasure. Do some research. Find out who the big donors are in the banking and credit card communities, and who the politician are that are accepting this money and then passing laws that allow them to keep robbing us. YOU HURT BANKERS IN THEIR POCKET BOOKS. YOU HURT POLITICIANS AT THE POLLS.
Any suggestions are welome. What do you think? Let's explore the possibilities and give these bastards a run for our money.
ON MESSAGES TO OUR CHILDREN......
What kind of message do we send
our kids when they can open a newspaper and see
stories about judges handing
out life sentences to convicted criminals and further on
in the article it tells how
they can come up for parole in eight years....
To a kid this has to seem
like...well, like the native americans used to say, we speak with
forked tongues.
Just open a newspaper or watch
the news and you can readily see that our politicians
lie about everything, so
why should kids believe them when they are told that smoking
is dangerous. If it were
really deadly then it would be illegal. Wouldn't it? WHY
ISN'T IT????
ON DOWNSIZING.......
Just another term for getting
rid of full time positions with decent pay and
benefits, and replacing them
with part-timers with low pay and no benefits, so that
executives and owners can
add more into their golden parachute fund.