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Jun. 2nd, 2006 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickUpdate on the missing CDs -- the bank lady (Sandy at the West Shore Branch) says, "There's nothing in the affidavit database showing that you redeemed the certificates without having the certificates. I've put in a request to the escheating department but there's a lot of research involved and it may take several days to get any answers." (How many people besides me translated that last part as "Don't call me every other fucking day. We're working on your measley $1200 problem."? :P I told her I'd call next Wednesday to see if there was any progress. I can't, of course, call later than Wednesday because I'll be in Amsterdam for ten days. If this isn't resolved by then, I hope that the bank lady doesn't think I've given up and gone away just because I'm not calling her every other day to see how things are going.)
Escheating, we will all recall, is when the bank dumps your allegedly unclaimed money into the state's unclaimed property database. The bank has to keep records of having done so, showing that everything is all correctly beamed and propped.
Now, when last we visited the issue of the missing CDs, we determined by supreme elite math-based detectoring (Yay me!) that somewhere along the line, my money and brother-the-elder's money got stuffed into the unclaimed property database as belonging to brother-the-younger. It is my considered opinion that this could have happened in one of two places and I'm leaning toward the bank as the more likely of the two places.
Here's why -- Brother-the-elder's money and mine were shorter term and should have hit the Unclaimed Property database in 1992. Brother-the-younger's money hit the state database in 1994. There is only one entry in the state database. I don't think that the state would take three entries, under three different social security numbers, made two years apart, and combine them into one entry. Maybe they did, but... I don't think so. I don't think it works that way because I've known people who had money from more than one source in the database and it wasn't all listed together. Each instance of missing money got a seperate entry even when it clearly was all for the same person. There isn't supposed to be any combining going on in the state's unclaimed property database... and yet I am reasonably certain that there has been combining going on due to the math detectoring previously mentioned.
Depending on what sort of records the West Shore Branch has, they might could determine that they escheated $4200 (or so) to brother-the-younger and nothing to me or brother-the-elder. It's even possible (but less likely) that they may be smart enough to run some fucking numbers and determine that there is absolutely no fucking way that his account should have been worth that much at the time they escheated it. If they get that far, they will probably figure out that they gave my money and brother-the-elder's money to brother-the-younger. The interesting thing, however, is what they are going to *do* if-when they discover all of this. :) Are they going to *admit* what they did? (Yes, I am on the edge of my seat. This is all very exciting.)
What I'd like to have happen, of course, is for them to say something like, "We're terribly sorry for the delay. Our records for escheating do not show that we transferred your money to the state's unclaimed property database. Our records show that you had some $1200 coming to you. Bring us your thrice-damned certificate and we will give you $1200.00." That would be the best-case scenario. Everyone please to be thinking happy thoughts along this front. (The only downside to this scenario is that it would so totally spoil it if I asked them whether or not they found where my money went and were just not admitting it or if they really did run into a brick wall. I'm not going to get to find that out. Pity.)
Why is it okay for you to try to get more money out of the bank than is rightfully yours?
Well, it isn't okay. I'm going to pursue it, but it's not okay and I am well aware of that.
The 100% OK, fully-approved, ethical, moral, correct thing to do would be to tell the bank that a bit of investigation turned up the fact that they stuck my money and brother-the-elder's money in with brother-the-younger's and that I've done the numbers and can show that it all works out and that since we are all on reasonably good terms, we will sort the money out amongst ourselves and stop bothering hapless Sandy at the West Shore Branch. That would be the absolute right thing to do. That would be super-duper right. (It would still not get me into heaven, you know. It is not by works, but by faith. Works ain't gonna do it. You can go about doing works to show willing, but you gotta have the faith. The faith is the important thing. You cannot get into heaven without the faith. Works are not a criteria for getting-into-heaven. [Pointing this out in confirmation class didn't impress our Pastor.] I guess works is how you demonstrate your faith to other people to guilt them into being better people or something but you're not supposed to be prideful so I don't know why you'd be out demonstrating your faith to others anyway... )
What I am pursuing is not ethical. However, the bank does not KNOW that I know where my money is and can get it back. If they'd given my money to, say, Jennifer Got--- or something, I'd be pursuing the exact same course of action that I am currently pursuing. This makes my course of action reasonably defensible. (I can claim that I didn't know how much brother-the-younger's CD should have been worth. Most people, if you ask 'em how much $1000 @ 10.9% should be worth after five years, would not be able to give you an answer.) Plausible deniability. If I were a NORMAL PERSON and the bank had done this to me, I'd be doing exactly what I am doing right now. It is not MY FAULT that I'm smarter than normal and have figured out which shell the bean is under already. I want to see if THE BANK can figure out which shell the bean is under. (I sincerely hope nobody sends a link to my livejournal to Sandy at the West Shore Branch because that would totally fuck up my plausible deniability and ruin the game.)
I'm pretty sure that the bank fucked up and lost my money. (The fact that I know where the money is has no bearing on the fact that the BANK lost it in the first place.) They should not do stuff like lose people's money. It should be expensive to lose people's money. I'm making it expensive in my own little vigilante way. If the bank can *prove* that my money went into the state's unclaimed property database under my fucking name and my fucking social security number, then I will consider the bank off the hook. If that is what happens, I'll go whine at the state's table to see if they'll throw me a bone to get me to go the hell away.
Escheating, we will all recall, is when the bank dumps your allegedly unclaimed money into the state's unclaimed property database. The bank has to keep records of having done so, showing that everything is all correctly beamed and propped.
Now, when last we visited the issue of the missing CDs, we determined by supreme elite math-based detectoring (Yay me!) that somewhere along the line, my money and brother-the-elder's money got stuffed into the unclaimed property database as belonging to brother-the-younger. It is my considered opinion that this could have happened in one of two places and I'm leaning toward the bank as the more likely of the two places.
Here's why -- Brother-the-elder's money and mine were shorter term and should have hit the Unclaimed Property database in 1992. Brother-the-younger's money hit the state database in 1994. There is only one entry in the state database. I don't think that the state would take three entries, under three different social security numbers, made two years apart, and combine them into one entry. Maybe they did, but... I don't think so. I don't think it works that way because I've known people who had money from more than one source in the database and it wasn't all listed together. Each instance of missing money got a seperate entry even when it clearly was all for the same person. There isn't supposed to be any combining going on in the state's unclaimed property database... and yet I am reasonably certain that there has been combining going on due to the math detectoring previously mentioned.
Depending on what sort of records the West Shore Branch has, they might could determine that they escheated $4200 (or so) to brother-the-younger and nothing to me or brother-the-elder. It's even possible (but less likely) that they may be smart enough to run some fucking numbers and determine that there is absolutely no fucking way that his account should have been worth that much at the time they escheated it. If they get that far, they will probably figure out that they gave my money and brother-the-elder's money to brother-the-younger. The interesting thing, however, is what they are going to *do* if-when they discover all of this. :) Are they going to *admit* what they did? (Yes, I am on the edge of my seat. This is all very exciting.)
What I'd like to have happen, of course, is for them to say something like, "We're terribly sorry for the delay. Our records for escheating do not show that we transferred your money to the state's unclaimed property database. Our records show that you had some $1200 coming to you. Bring us your thrice-damned certificate and we will give you $1200.00." That would be the best-case scenario. Everyone please to be thinking happy thoughts along this front. (The only downside to this scenario is that it would so totally spoil it if I asked them whether or not they found where my money went and were just not admitting it or if they really did run into a brick wall. I'm not going to get to find that out. Pity.)
Why is it okay for you to try to get more money out of the bank than is rightfully yours?
Well, it isn't okay. I'm going to pursue it, but it's not okay and I am well aware of that.
The 100% OK, fully-approved, ethical, moral, correct thing to do would be to tell the bank that a bit of investigation turned up the fact that they stuck my money and brother-the-elder's money in with brother-the-younger's and that I've done the numbers and can show that it all works out and that since we are all on reasonably good terms, we will sort the money out amongst ourselves and stop bothering hapless Sandy at the West Shore Branch. That would be the absolute right thing to do. That would be super-duper right. (It would still not get me into heaven, you know. It is not by works, but by faith. Works ain't gonna do it. You can go about doing works to show willing, but you gotta have the faith. The faith is the important thing. You cannot get into heaven without the faith. Works are not a criteria for getting-into-heaven. [Pointing this out in confirmation class didn't impress our Pastor.] I guess works is how you demonstrate your faith to other people to guilt them into being better people or something but you're not supposed to be prideful so I don't know why you'd be out demonstrating your faith to others anyway... )
What I am pursuing is not ethical. However, the bank does not KNOW that I know where my money is and can get it back. If they'd given my money to, say, Jennifer Got--- or something, I'd be pursuing the exact same course of action that I am currently pursuing. This makes my course of action reasonably defensible. (I can claim that I didn't know how much brother-the-younger's CD should have been worth. Most people, if you ask 'em how much $1000 @ 10.9% should be worth after five years, would not be able to give you an answer.) Plausible deniability. If I were a NORMAL PERSON and the bank had done this to me, I'd be doing exactly what I am doing right now. It is not MY FAULT that I'm smarter than normal and have figured out which shell the bean is under already. I want to see if THE BANK can figure out which shell the bean is under. (I sincerely hope nobody sends a link to my livejournal to Sandy at the West Shore Branch because that would totally fuck up my plausible deniability and ruin the game.)
I'm pretty sure that the bank fucked up and lost my money. (The fact that I know where the money is has no bearing on the fact that the BANK lost it in the first place.) They should not do stuff like lose people's money. It should be expensive to lose people's money. I'm making it expensive in my own little vigilante way. If the bank can *prove* that my money went into the state's unclaimed property database under my fucking name and my fucking social security number, then I will consider the bank off the hook. If that is what happens, I'll go whine at the state's table to see if they'll throw me a bone to get me to go the hell away.
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-03 01:15 am (UTC)And what the heck does CD stand for, anyway?
no subject
Date: 2006-06-03 01:30 am (UTC)CD stands for "Certificate of Deposit" -- it's a contract between you and a bank for you to leave your money in the bank for a given period of time, from about three months to about five years, depending on what term you pick. Unlike a savings account or a money market account, you cannot get your money out of your CD until it comes due unless you want to pay a penalty for early withdrawal. In exchange for more limited access to your $$, the bank generally gives you a slightly higher interest rate... and a more higher-er rate for more longer-er period CDs.
Lately (last two or three years) CD rates have been running slightly BELOW money-market accounts for terms less than 1 year. Since MMAs give you flexible anytime-access to your money, I can't see the appeal of less-than-a-year CDs because you're not winning on the rates AND you can't get your money whenever you need it. However, I do still check both on a regular basis to make sure I'm having my money be all that it can be.
CDs gave a 10.9% return in 1984. The missing CDs were started in 1984, when I was fourteen years old. These days CD rates are running about 5.30% for one year term. (Interested parties can investigate this further for themselves at bankrate.com (http://www.bankrate.com). It's FREE!)
Your savings account is ripping you the hell off and I strongly suggest you hie your ass over to ingdirect.com (http://www.ingdirect.com) which has a decent web interface, a not-annoying signup procedure, and a very respectable 4.25% return on savings accounts. Do it now.
If you want to get CDs, you can get 'em from any bank offering rates that do not suck. Generally, if you're surfing bankrate.com for rates, the bank will have either a website or an 800 number. You go from there. Visit the website or call the 800 number. It's not hard. They would like you to have a CD with them so they're not going to make it rocket science.
You can go to your regular bank and inquire about CD products and I hereby assign you to go find out about that next time you do banking. :) They should be able to tell you their current rates and stuff right there at the teller window.
Places like Charles Schwab are full-service brokerages to help you buy and sell stocks and other stuff with heavy-duty service charges. They are not for setting up CDs. They are also not the best place for your investing needs unless you like paying for someone else's boat. Let's work on basic financial vehicles like CDs first, okay? Stocks will come later.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-03 02:00 am (UTC)It'll be another couple of months before I finish paying off my credit card (Oprah says that's the very first thing you should do, financially, and Dr. Phil agrees, so that's what I'm doing. The company is charging about a quadrillion percent interest, so it's not the most unreasonable plan, I think. During my period of unemployment, I lived on the card, and now have to fix that.), but once I do, I'd like to get more into all of this financial stuff. I've started listening to Marketplace on NPR on a fairly regular basis, which has both made me think about how little I know about the subject (it's not like I took any business or accounting classes during school - that math is too linear to be interesting!) and about how important it is that I learn about it. Unfortunately, the Marketplace fellas assume that their listeners know the first thing about investing. Good for those who do, bad for chumps like me.
It's hard for me to think that you're even allowed to have money coming in that you didn't work for. Weird.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-03 02:39 am (UTC)While you're right that the math for investing isn't very hard and totally lacks excitement of the gee-whiz sort, it's important to be able to run the numbers. Many, many people do not know how to run the numbers or never bother to do so. (You'll probably get to see the unhappy results of this, writ large, in 2007 and 2008 as mortgage defaults go through the roof -- the result of ARMs starting to adjust for people who are in houses that they truly cannot afford.)
Feel free to shoot me questions on matters financial -- I'll clarify what I know and admit what I don't -- because it's a field I find kind of entertaining. Dude, it's money. What's not to like?
It's hard for me to think that you're even allowed to have money coming in that you didn't work for.
Why? You're paying the damn credit card company money that they didn't work for, right? Howcome THEY get to receive interest and you shouldn't? The bank gets to receive interest on mortgages and car loans and so forth -- that's money they aren't working for. Howcome they get to receive it and you don't? Sauce for the goose, is what I figure. You're just as allowed to earn interest as banks and credit card companies.
Also, my interest income (I made about $2500 last year in interest) is not entirely work-free. I do a certain amount of legwork looking for the best rates, checking out borrowers, bookkeeping, and so forth. It's not sweat-of-my-brow work, but I don't reckon your job actually has you *sweating*, either. You work with your mind, right? This is more of the same... actually, it's better because it's convincing your money to work for you. Huzzah!
You work hard for your money, so your money should work hard for you. Thing is, earning the money in the first place is only half the battle. What you do with it after you earn it is where you can really clean up. Sadly, that's the part where more than two-thirds of the population totally drops the fucking ball.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-05 12:21 pm (UTC)I think you've got that slightly twisted, at least by ING standards. It isn't the terms less than one year that are behind the going rates, but rather the terms *more* than one year which have been biting the wax tadpole. I made the mistake of putting money into a couple two-years last winter which look to be out-performed by ING's own savings account rate in a month or two, while I've got a single one-year due in October which is currently getting it's head bashed in by the savings account. Meanwhile, ING isn't even *pretending* to keep their new multi-year offerings ahead of their one-years, which are better by a quarter-percentage-point. Why anybody would want to lock in a 5.0% for five years when you can get 5.25% & your money back in a year is beyond me.
Yes, I'm sure I could find something better than 5.25%, but I'm much less likely to lose my money to neglect and obscurity if they're all sitting in a single cluster at ING rather than scattered here to the horizon in a dozen fly-by-night clones of "Bank of Ethel".
no subject
Date: 2006-06-03 02:26 am (UTC)So you're writing about the soteriology of escheating?
(No, I didn't make up any words in that sentence, and the sentence both makes perfect sense and is a joke.)
no subject
Date: 2006-06-03 02:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-03 04:08 am (UTC)more money than I need to live onmoney at all) and makes me wish I were more on top of things and were making money already. Then again, I'm 21, what do I expect?My mom has some savings bond whatchahoozit in my name from when I was born that I think is worth like $100 or something and I can never decide if I should just cash it in on the terms that the value of the whatchahoozit can't be going up faster than the value of $100 is going down, or let the whatchahoozit collect more pennies so as not to spend it, but that's as far as my money anything goes so far.