quote: After sending in the check, they checked online to see if their account had been duly credited. They learned that the check had arrived, but the amount available for credit on their account hadn't changed.
So Deana Soehnge called the credit-card company. Then Walter called.
"When you mess with my money, I want to know why," he said.
They both learned the same astounding piece of information about the little things that can set the threat sensors to beeping and blinking.
They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified. And the money doesn't move until the threat alert is lifted.
Someone tell me the rational behind this, please? I'm planning on paying off my credit card completely tomorrow, and I want to make sure I'm not going to raise suspicion.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
If you pay it off completely, I'm fairly sure DHS is authorized to outsource your torture to Albania.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
*sigh* Couldn't they at least torture me someplace warm?
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
Well then it wouldn't be torture, now would it?
I wonder if they at least stopped charging interest on their bill when they got the check.
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
Didn't you see the speech where Cheney reminded everyone that good credit is a threat to national security?
Posted by Stasia (Member # 9122) on :
quote:Originally posted by zgator: I wonder if they at least stopped charging interest on their bill when they got the check.
Probably not. And the people in question were probably charged a late fee because their payment didn't didn't go through in time.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
I think its funny this Walter guy thinks his available credit on his card is HIS money...
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
My guess, Homeland In-Security assumes that if you are a forger, a crook, or taking large amounts of cash from Al Queda, one of the first things you will do is pay off your outstanding debt, before you go and buy explosizes. They may have some idea involving money laundering.
On the other hand, it might by the excuse-du-jour for the credit card companies to hold onto your cash for a bit of time.
Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stephan: I think its funny this Walter guy thinks his available credit on his card is HIS money...
Not that I think you can arrive at your claim about Walter from the facts at hand*, but the idea itself is pandemic in America. Trust me. I work for a major credit card company.
* I mean, yes, he made reference to "my money", but that could just as easily be referring to the hold on his check (which was his money) as to the available credit on his account.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
Sidetrack: I've always defined the word pandemic as "a worldwide epidemic". The definitions I see online somewhat follow that, but somewhat differ.
Does anyone have a good definition? Is it an epidemic covering a large area (such as a country or continent)? Is it a global epidemic? If it's not a global epidemic what's the critical mass for an epidemic to become a pandemic?
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
quote:My guess, Homeland In-Security assumes that if you are a forger, a crook, or taking large amounts of cash from Al Queda, one of the first things you will do is pay off your outstanding debt, before you go and buy explosizes. They may have some idea involving money laundering.
It's nice of the suicide bombers to pay off their debts before strapping on the vest.
Posted by Stasia (Member # 9122) on :
quote:Originally posted by Juxtapose: It's nice of the suicide bombers to pay off their debts before strapping on the vest.
Those suicide bombers can be such considerate people.
(To the folks at Homeland Security: ha ha just kidding...)
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stephan: I think its funny this Walter guy thinks his available credit on his card is HIS money...
I think the over $6000 that was recieved and not posted to his account was pretty definitely his money, don't you? If their goal was to pay down debt, it's not like they were anxiously awaiting that available credit being freed up. If they'd've had something big they wanted to buy, they apparently could have just written a check instead of sending it in.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Totally outside of the whole "homeland security" thing.
You would be amazed at what touches off the "fraud alert" in most bank operating departments (since I work at a bank) -- like multiple fund transfers (I once set it off when I transferred funds from my savings to checking (to cover checks to keep from overdrafting) because it was such "frequent" activity, etc.
With fraud just killing banks, and on top of that government compliance and security issues, everyone has become way too "trigger-happy".
I'm assuming this is also the case with credit card companies. There is so much fraud that they have red lights on every little deviance, because fraud kills their profit.
FG
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Not that I think you can arrive at your claim about Walter from the facts at hand*, but the idea itself is pandemic in America. Trust me. I work for a major credit card company.
Then you're part of the problem.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
FG, putting a fraud alert on it would be one thing. I can totally see waiting for the check to clear before posting it to the account, too, on an amount that size. But notifying Homeland Security? So now these people have a record there, if they didn't already? For paying their credit card? Ridiculous!
Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
quote:Then you're part of the problem.
Only in the sense that the guy who helps administer user accounts and computer security at Smith & Wesson is "part of the problem" with violent crime in east Baltimore.
Posted by Maria (Member # 9209) on :
Oh dear! I just paid off a rather large chunk of credit card debt this month. Who'd have thought it would be a terror indicator? Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
Depends. Did you use your credit card to buy large amounts of fertilizer?
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
Because, you know, fertilizer is only really used for two things: making bombs, or cooking up meth. Both if you're lucky.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
You can make bombs with fertilizer?
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Originally posted by KarlEd:
quote:Then you're part of the problem.
Only in the sense that the guy who helps administer user accounts and computer security at Smith & Wesson is "part of the problem" with violent crime in east Baltimore.
I see we understand each other. Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Originally posted by adam613: Isn't that what Timothy McVeigh did?
Yes.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
*removes tongue from cheek with an audible "schlurp"*
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Whose cheek?
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Because, you know, fertilizer is only really used for two things: making bombs, or cooking up meth.
And all this time I thought the political campaigns were the primary use for fertilizer.
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
No, they're the primary producers of fertilizer.
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
damn, I was just about to use that one.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
quote:Originally posted by Juxtapose: Because, you know, fertilizer is only really used for two things: making bombs, or cooking up meth. Both if you're lucky.
Just like cold and sinus pills, which is why now when you buy them, they take down your driver's license information and home address.
-pH
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
When Cor and I left our old job in Miami, we were given a check for the portion of our income we had deferred in order to make it through the summer months. They gave it to us as a lump sum: roughly 20% of each of our annual incomes. I don't remember exactly how much, but this must have been in the ballpark of $12,000 minus whatever our taxes were. Because we were moving to Central Florida, I wanted the money to clear immediately, because we had a lot of expenses that very weekend. So I decided to go to the school's bank, cash the checks, go to our bank, and deposit them as cash.
Turns out that when you deposit over ten thousand dollars in cash, you attract the government's attention. Who knew?
So they gave me a form to fill out, not really asking me to explain the money, as I recall, but simply documenting the deposit for the Federal Government.
I thought it would be funny--and, technically, true--to write, under Employer, "Unemployed" . . .
This was before 9/11. If I did that today, I suppose I would simply be arrested and deported . . .
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
I knew that there have been restrictions involving amounts over $10,000 for a long time. . . you're not supposed to take that much money out of the country in cash without reporting it, either.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I'd like to know more about this - there was a law floating around from the mid-90s that required banks to report "suspicious activity" without really defining it. I wonder if this is a DHS requirement, a bank's interpretation of a fuzzy rule like "suspicious activity," or a bank simply using a convenient excuse for slow posting. All three sound equally likely to me at this point.
Every rule I've ever heard like this requires reporting, not holding up of payments, so I'm thinking something hasn't been related correctly. It could be they can't cash the check until they report, and they were slow reporting.
I hope someone follows up with credible reporting, including the statute and regulation invoked.
P.S., mandatory reporting of cash transactions over 10,000 has been around for at least 20 years. There can be serious criminal penalties for not reporting or for "structuring" deals to avoid the limit (two $5,000 payments, for example).
[ March 03, 2006, 06:00 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I didn't claim otherwise, Dag . . . just that I was unaware of it before this point, having never in my life seen or held $10,000 before.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Icarus, that was just an FYI.
Also, you should look into a cashier's check if the same situation arises. Many banks make those available the same day. Check first if it's really important, of course.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Get a cashier's check from the employer's bank?
Won't that cost me money?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I don't know. My bank is really cool and doesn't charge anything.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
Costs me 5 bucks at my bank.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Anyway, I just thought it was a funny story.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
quote:Originally posted by ElJay: FG, putting a fraud alert on it would be one thing. I can totally see waiting for the check to clear before posting it to the account, too, on an amount that size. But notifying Homeland Security? So now these people have a record there, if they didn't already? For paying their credit card? Ridiculous!
If your DHS has its way, they will ultimately have such records about everyone:
quote:What sets ADVISE apart is its scope. It would collect a vast array of corporate and public online information - from financial records to CNN news stories - and cross-reference it against US intelligence and law-enforcement records. The system would then store it as "entities" - linked data about people, places, things, organizations, and events, according to a report summarizing a 2004 DHS conference in Alexandria, Va. The storage requirements alone are huge - enough to retain information about 1 quadrillion entities, the report estimated.
I guess Total Information Awareness may have lost its creepy logo, but it lives on in spirit through this and other initiatives.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
When I was selling computers 15 years ago, the $10,000 limit was explained as a way of catching Drug Money--most of which is passed around in cash.
I fear that this same "follow the money" idea is behind this policy as well, though still aimed more at Drug Money instead of terrorist money. It boils down to the present administrations questionable reasoning:
1)We can do things in the war on Terror that normal procedures won't allow, because we are at war.
2)These new rules should not be restricted to just terrorists, but generic crimminals as well.
Such is the reasoning behind the anti-terrorist hyped "Patriot Act" legalizing procedures that are not limited to terrorism.
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
Icarus, I thought it was funny. And what was it like to hold twelve grand in cold hard cash, by the way?
Posted by Rich Lewis (Member # 9192) on :
When I worked for one of the major credit card companies a few years back, it was explained to me that large transactions like that had to be reported to the Treasury Department for investigation of money laundering.
In the particular case that brought it to my attention, a man who owned a banana distribution company had overpaid his credit card bill by about $25,000. He wanted us to cut him a check for the balance and have it overnighted to him. Suspicious, but I can't say exactly how he would be laundering money, unless the payment check had been sent in by someone else.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Pretty intoxicating, mack. In the let's forget about the rest of the summer and take a European cruise instead kinda way. Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
I would be more sympathetic towards the reporting if they had posted the payment to his account in the meantime. I mean, I still don't think they should do it, but at least don't freeze the transaction.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
Ic, be thankful. If you've gotten it cashed and driven up I-95 with 12k in cash you'd have been pulled over by police and had it confiscated as drug money. A while back, a lot of people with verifiable reasons for carrying that much cash had serious problems getting all of it back from such confiscations.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
quote:Just like cold and sinus pills, which is why now when you buy them, they take down your driver's license information and home address.
Well, out here, they have the pseudoephedrine products available, but you have to sign for them (name only) at the pharmacy. That's fine and all when it comes to the pills. My question is this: who is making grape-flavored meth with Children's Sudafed? Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
I think the one episode of Sally Jessie Raphael that I ever saw featured a guy who made meth out of children's medications, as that was all his mom bought.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I had to sign a tedious business contract the other day. They wanted my corporation number -- fair enough -- plus my Social Security number -- well, if you insist -- and also my driver's license number -- hang on, what's the deal with that? Well, we e-mailed over a query and they e-mailed back that it was a requirement of the Patriot Act. So we asked where exactly in the Patriot Act could this particular requirement be found and, after a bit of a delay, we got an answer. And on discovering that there was no mention of driver's licenses in that particular subsection, I wrote back that we have a policy of reporting all erroneous invocations of the Patriot Act to the Department of Homeland Security on the grounds that such invocations weaken the rationale for the act, and thereby undermine public support for genuine anti-terrorism measures and thus constitute a threat to America's national security. And about 10 minutes after that the guy sent back an e-mail saying he didn't need the driver's license number after all. I'd be interested to know how much of this bureaucratic opportunism is going on. A couple of weeks earlier, I went to the bank to deposit a U.S. dollar check drawn on a Canadian financial institution, and the clerk announced that for security reasons checks drawn on Canadian banks now had to be sent away for collection and I'd have access to the funds in a couple of weeks. This was, she explained, a requirement of -- ta-da -- the Patriot Act. And, amazingly, that turned out not to be anywhere in the act either.
...
I have no idea if the original article falls is an example of private exploitation of false claims about the Patriot Act. However, I've heard enough anecdotes that I thought it plausibly could be. This is the first account of the phenomenon I've seen that can attributed to someone specific, though.
Posted by Goody Scrivener (Member # 6742) on :
Today my boss sent in the application for renter's insurance at our new offices. They had to either elect to pay for or sign a waiver of coverage for terrorist related activity - in other words, if someone decides to firebomb the building, do we or don't we have an additional rider to our property coverage. So the agent - who I'm on good terms with - called and told me that "we need the Terrorist Disclosure Statement to process the request". My reply, "oh, is this the new form where we admit to being terrorists?" Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
Personally, it angers me that I have to deal with the consequences of meht dealer's actions. Do I deal meth? No. Do I have the faintest clue how to make meth? No. Do I even know what meth is, other than a drug? No. So why is it that I have to give pharmacies all of this information about myself because I have a cold and left my sudafed at home? Not to mention that generally in this situation I feel awful and can't talk (for some reason the first thing to go when I get a cold is my voice) and thus don't feel like having a long conversation with the cashier about which type I want and how big I want it. Couldn't we just, you know, go after the people who are actually doing the illegal thing instead?
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
Great article, Dag. I hope more people push on "Patriot Act" requirements.
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