The whole time I was in China my Canadian account had barely enough money in it to cover my 100 dollar a month storage fees. I ordered a new bank card a bit more than a year ago to replace my card that expired in November of 2017. I sent a "secure" email to the TD website where I do my online banking and bill paying. They have the easiest job in the world there. I want this job. All they do is send you back an email saying how they completely understand your concern and/or frustration at the problem you are having but the can't do anything at all to help. I really don't think they need those last two words. They just can't do anything at all. Why? Because the secure email isn't actually secure. So in the end after all the empathetic words they can find in their hearts, really don't need those first two letters because they always give the same pathetic response, "You need to call our toll free helpline."
You get what you pay for. It's free because it comes with a requisite 30-minute minimum of wait time before anyone answers. But you're not paying for that... in Canada. Over here in Korea when I use my Korean phone 1-800 don't mean jack shit to them! I'm paying for an overseas call. It was the same when I called the first time from China. When you call this toll free "help" line sometimes you get a person on the line who can actually help and most of the time you don't. I was told when I called about a new bank card that they could not receive my Chinese address by "secure" email and they could not mail a bank card to China. So I had to give them my Mom's address and have her mail the card to me in China. She mailed it, and Mom always adds some extra goodies like pictures or newspaper clippings, but whatever she sent, it never made it. She might have sent some cash or maybe somebody saw the card and thought it was a credit card. Either way I have no doubt my letter was stolen. Because China.
So now that I have an address in Korea that has worked for me, I called again to apply for a new card. After trying unsuccessfully to ask for one over the "secure" email, of course. The person who answered told me they can't mail one to Korea either and told me it's not safe to even give him my Korean mailing address over the phone. He said I needed to have it mailed to my Mom. I asked how he wanted me to give him my Mom's address. "Oh we know that," he replied. Ostensibly because they had mailed her a bank card over a year ago. But it's interesting that they kept it on file. Wonder if Mom gets any more TD/Canada Trust ads than she used to...
The funny thing is, I requested in my "secure" emails for the pop ups for additional security to my online banking to stop. EVERY time I check my account or pay a bill I get the annoying 30-second battle with them. "When will you add more security? Now or Later" No "never" or "fuck off "options. I choose later. Then they ask a few more questions before they take the hint I just want to do some banking. I told them in the email and on the phone that I NEVER want to update this because I don't want to remember any new usernames, passwords, skill-testing questions, favourite actors, first schools or which of these I chose as my skill testing question. I felt like saying, "You got my Mom's address just ask me that and remove the annoying ads!" Of course even though that would be the perfect solution, there probably was some sneaky reason they were asking me to update. They don't care a lick about my convenience or security. So one day I selected the "Okay for the love of GOD let's do this and get it overwith," selection. Ah HA! The bastards just wanted to have a phone linked to my account. THAT is why they are forcing this ad down my throat every time I use the website. So I actually said, "What the hell, if it'll stop the damn pop up..." and started typing in my phone number. They gave me the +82 for Korea in one box. I was actually impressed! But then when I tried to put my phone number into it, 010 5011 1984, the computer program automatically removed a digit. It was reading 010 as the area code and expecting 7 digits. I COULDN'T do the update! I sent a "secure" email letting them know I had tried and asking would they pretty pretty PLEASE remove this fucking pop up, but was ignored.
Anyway, they mailed the new card to my Mom, and Mom mailed me some postcards, newspaper clippings, photos, my bank card and a little letter. All arrived safely. I was to use the card in a bank machine to activate it. So on November 9 I think, I went to a bank machine on the SKhynix campus where I work, put in the card and took out 10,000 Korean won. That's worth a little more than 10 Canadian dollars. $11.68 exactly at present. Holy crap that's bad exchange! I remember when I first came here I could buy 10,000 won for about 6 bucks. Anyway, the maximum allowable interest rate for any money lender used to be 23% in Calgary where my bank is. It was recently lowered to 15%. What do you know! Something good happened! But this is a bank I'm talking about. They are not subject to city, state or federal regulations. They are omnipotent. That's POTENT with an omni in front of it. I am reminded of two things. Lilly Tomlin:
and the updated and more vulgar:
Genius! Pure genius! Because it's true. But the phone company and cable company have nothing on the banks. Just to remind you because it's way up there now, maximum interest rate in the province where my bank is located is 15%. Now it DOES say in the link that's on 100 bux but I think it's pretty much standard for any amount. My bank charged me $17.17 for the $11.68 I took out of the bank machine here. That's 47% interest if you calculate on the 11.68. Now 5 bucks of that was a bank machine charge, but that shouldn't make a difference. It should still be illegal. But banks are omnipotent! I've said this many times before: If you or I did what banks do, we'd be in prison. So we KNOWINGLY deal with criminals. Walking into a bank is like walking into Satriale's Pork Store or the Bada Bing strip bar. They're no different than the mob. In some cases worse! Tony Soprano would charge me 47 points! But I'm not even at the GOOD part yet!
The day after I activated the card somebody started removing money. I didn't even think of using the card until about a week later when I looked for some online sites for buying Christmas gifts and cards. But I didn't order anything and I'm almost positive I didn't give any site my card number.
I had somebody use my bank account to apply for a Canadian Tire credit card in Canada several years ago. $700 was taken out of my account. It was replaced when the fraud was exposed but only after several expensive and time-consuming overseas phone calls. Then a couple years later the same thing was attempted by the same person. I was IN Canada and demanded that they tell me who was doing it. I was pretty sure it was an employee of the bank who they didn't even fire after doing it the first time! There was a guy beside me that very day who had the identical problem in the identical bank. I didn't ask the name of the thief that showed up on HIS account but I bet it was the same. I was told to calm down, the money was returned but they were not at liberty to expose the identity of the thief.
Another thing I noticed. The "new" bank card is the identical number as my old, HACKED bank card. Why the hell wouldn't they change the number and give me a truly NEW card? And you know what, I bet the one they sent to China was the same too. Probably in order to make it easier for them to steal my money again.
However, there was no Canadian Tire credit card this time. This time it was legitimate sounding businesses removing small amounts then large amounts then actually DEPOSITING small amounts a few times. This, I guess, was to make it look like I was a member of some club or online service. There are a couple of possibilities, one boring and one interesting. The boring one is it's the exact same asshole STILL working for the bank and she's trying again. But what if when I activated the new card that was sent to Korea, the card that was sent to China was also activated? What if some Chinese hacker is using my card to charge porn site memberships or shop online at Ali Baba? Or what if the first replacement card actually arrived at my Chinese mailbox really, REALLY late and the new tenant, a fucking bitch who ripped me off for a couple month's rent, found it in the mailbox and is somehow using it?
It would be too optimistic of me to say that maybe someone in China stealing a small amount from my account might have gotten to me before my bank could steal a larger amount from me. Am I losing my marbles just giving that half a thought? Am I grasping at straws trying to find one small favour the illustrious RACH, who took over my apartment in Taiyuan did for me? Am I trying to sterilize my China experience by accepting bad things as partial good things?
Either way I sent a "secure" email, was told to call, waited the requisite half hour for an answer and explained my situation. Unfortunately, I couldn't do it right away because I had to replace my phone...eeeehhh sorta. My phone is now in my name. I have been using a plan that was purchased by my supervisor because I didn't have an alien card when I started work here. Not my fault, but guess who has to pay for 6 months extra if I don't get another year of work or if I work somewhere else? I couldn't buy 6 months and I couldn't get the same plan as Andrew, my supervisor, because, you know why, I'm a foreigner. If you recall the whole situation 6 months ago I was ready, willing and able to go to Japan, get my alien card and my new visa, but somebody at my company dragged their ass so I couldn't go till over a month after I had started working.
But back to the phone call (which was made on my new MORE EXPENSIVE foreigner plan) I was told they had to shut down my account to report the fraud. I told them this had happened to me twice before and neither time did they need to shut the account down. They investigated, found the fraud and returned the money. The guy said it's not that way now. I would have to shut down my account. Well I still want to use it to pay my storage every month and maybe if I need to get a new job, use it to pay university document fees. So I don't want it shut down. I told him I'd been paying the fees for well over a year after my first card had expired. It would be the same situation if I just cancelled the card. At first he said it was different with an expired or cancelled card but maybe a superior corrected him because later he agreed I could just cancel the card. So I did.
I wonder if I'll still be able to send money home. There's another sweet deal for my bank! The remitting bank here in Korea changes my Korean won to U.S. dollars at the proper rate plus a little more. It's always a bad exchange rate they give. Then it's sent. No money is actually exchanged and no money actually moves anywhere. It's all just buttons being pushed. And for that I am charged a fee of about 20 Canadian dollars. Then when the notice arrives in Canada the U.S. dollars are exchanged, at the worst rate possible, another fee is charged and then the Canadian dollars are deposited. This on top of my $16 monthly fee which I pay them for the privilege of allowing them to invest my money and make more money. None of which is given to me.
You should see the shafting you take when you use international bank machines! And I've been told credit card charges are just as usurious.
So I haven't noticed any further theft yet. I guess that's a good thing but if anyone says, "Well at least you got THAT problem sorted out," I'll chop off their head, shit down their gaping throat hole, sew their head back on, wait till they shit again and make them eat my shit that they just shat!
Nah, actually I'm not that mad. I kinda want to be, but I'm not. It was over 200 bucks, but I think I might be getting used to the commonplace fraud, theft and deceit in my life. Are the banks winning?
Banks suck.
Stop using them.
yada yada yada...
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