• Wilco@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    That is a bank rush. It’s how banks die if enough people do it.

  • GooberEar@lemmy.wtf
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    4 days ago

    This made me recall an odd bank related situation that happened to me a few weeks ago, and which I am still a bit perplexed by.

    Due to a couple of things coming up, I needed to stock up on some bills of various denominations. Nothing all that crazy, in my opinion, 20 $1 bills, 20 $5 bills, stuff like that, a few hundred dollars at most. Where else do you get bills like that? The bank, I assumed.

    When I got up to the teller, I explained that I needed to pull out X amount from my account, and I that I needed specific number of each denomination. She looked at me like I was asking something completely unheard of. She even told me, I don’t think I have the money for that as she shuffled through some drawers.

    Eventually she asked another teller who told her she’d have to go to the central terminal (I don’t recall the actual name they used) and make a request for each denomination. So the teller walked across the back of the bank to a computer that looked like it was from the 80s. After about 10 minutes of typing, with multiple people helping her, 2 people came out from a room, walked over to a floor vault and opened it. While one pulled out the cash I requested, the other stood guard. It was surreal. They counted the money twice, the teller counted the money twice, and then finally came back to the counter and gave me the deposit. She seemed to be barely holding back her level of irritation at me.

    All that for just a few hundred dollars in cash. It had me really wondering if I was mistaken about the role and services provided by banks and whether I was out of line for asking to receive specific denominations. Was I supposed to leave a tip or something?

    • rmuk@feddit.uk
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      2 days ago

      It’s amazing how stuff that was simple even twenty years ago is so unusual now. I’m in the UK and we simply do not have cheques any more, for example. About ten years ago I had to pay a supplier in the US by cheque and I actually had to go to my bank and get them to print one for me - the staff member who helped me said they’d worked there two years and it was the first cheque he’d had to produce. When I was a kid people paid with cheque constantly, everyone had a chequebook, though I’ve got to say I’m glad to see the back of them. If guess that withdrawing specific denominations of cash is the same. If I just wanted to withdraw an amount of money, I’d use my nearest cash machine, but to specifically ask for this quantity of that denomination is, presumably, a bit left field.

    • SmokeyDope@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Sounds like either your bank is a local one struggling on business or its run by really incompetent management who failed to properly stock up the tellers. As them to pull out some 2$ bills next time everyone likes those

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Those are just terrible employees who likely have such a sedentary way of working that they serve the same dozen clients every week and feel put out by anyone they don’t know.

      Go back and fucking do it again. Seriously.

      Punish them for not handling their goddamn job like professionals. In fact, when you go back to do it again, casually mention that you’ll be writing the branch manager and you’re glad they’re able to go to such lengths for you. I am not even kidding, they’re being passive-aggressive by performing this big act and deserve to lose even more of their time and patience. You don’t owe them anything, much less an explanation, you pay all their paychecks. You’re the person who has the money, they should be falling over themselves to make sure you, the guy with the money, is taken care of and secure. Their entire business model depends on making people feel comfortable leaving their money with them. You’re the boss.

      edit: if this triggers you, you’re probably an entitled employee. You either do not understand how businesses and employment work or you have an emotional issue and shouldn’t be working a customer-service role. Seriously, if you call this “karen” attitude, you’re emotionally spoiled. We have, unfortunately, a capitalist society where if you want to afford basics and succeed at all, you HAVE to work for it (unless you’re born into wealth, in which case jump into a volcano) and if you don’t understand what makes businesses succeed, you won’t succeed, change your delicate little perspective. I get this site’s demographic but you HAVE to work to survive, you’re not toppling the system through fucking Lemmy. Go get a job and succeed at it so you have some money to throw around at your causes and be respected. Save money, break your bad habits, take control of your health, go fucking outside and breath. If you’re getting upset about things you read on the internet you’re part of the problem whichever side you’re on.

      • rmuk@feddit.uk
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        2 days ago

        Oh my god FUCK OFF, KAREN. That first paragraph is entirely a product of a situation you - and you alone - imagined, based your own self-indulgent righteousness and prejudice. If the bank has bullshit processes, even the most egregious simpleton would see that by throwing a tantrum at the working class labourer who is as bound by them as you are, all you’re doing is succeeding at making their life worse while utterly failing to address the systemic issue causing the problem. You want to write a letter to their boss, complaining that the worker was hesitant to address an unusual query, you UTTER FUCKING NARK? Get a sense of perspective. You soulless husk.

      • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
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        4 days ago

        They’re just people doing a job that their boss made needlessly annoying. They shouldn’t need to open a vault to get a couple hundred bucks.

        Don’t punish the workers, punish the boss

  • WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works
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    4 days ago

    Hmm, are you still covered by the FDIC if you deliberately engineer a bank failure? Let’s say all of Bank of America’s customers decided that they just really wanted to fuck BoA hard. So they arrange to all demand the complete liquidations of their accounts, all at once. Or maybe people arrange a series of bank failures as part of some broader political movement. But hypothetically, if a group of people deliberately caused their bank to fail, would their deposits still be FDIC-insured? In other words, if you deliberately arrange a bank run, will you still be covered by FDIC insurance?

    • DannyBoy@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      It’d be hard to prove a single participant. An organizer, maybe? But if you just heard everybody’s doing a bank run on the 20th and you’re scared of the stability of your bank, so you decide to withdraw your money on the 19th so you can put it into another bank, that seems reasonable.

      (i know nothing about digital transfers between banks)

    • bestagon@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      It exists to cover bank runs and it is your money. There is nothing wrong with wanting your money in any given moment. That’s just my take though, I’m not a lawyer.

      I think it’d basically defeat its preventative purpose though if a story got out that people weren’t covered, even in an engineered bank run. What if you’re not in on the plot? What if it happens tomorrow at your bank? Are you just fucked too? Better withdraw all your money to be safe

      • WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        What a potentially powerful tool of protest. Imagine if you got a movement of a few million people. They all move to a target bank. A few months later, they all demand their full account liquidation. Then you move on to the next megabank. One by one, drop them like flies.

        • KinglyWeevil@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 days ago

          With a few million people it doesn’t even need to be a specific bank. It would cause an enormous problem. Especially since we’re used to assets being digital these days. Request enough actual physical cash and it would rapidly reach a breaking point.

    • Aneb@lemm.ee
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      3 days ago

      Hi, I don’t think my withdrawal of $20 from my collective accounts with BOA would really cause a failure… but I’m willing to try! Sincerely, -Poor

      PS there are no ethical millionaires

    • Vent@lemm.ee
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      4 days ago

      You can easily do a same-day wire transfer of this amount. Technically there’s no limit on the size of wire transfers. There’s probably a point where the bank will start asking questions, but car / mortgage down-payment sized transfers aren’t an issue.

      But, yeah, I bet cash withdrawals are another ballgame. Not least because the bank probably doesn’t actually keep that much cash in typical customer-facing locations.

        • scoobford@lemmy.zip
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          4 days ago

          The “large vault” you’re referring to is either old enough to predate the internet or full of safe deposit boxes for rent.

          Even busy bank branches probably only need a vault the size of an armoire these days. People just don’t use much cash.

          • Vent@lemm.ee
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            4 days ago

            Lol, agreed. Though, I’ll point out that many, many buildings (and people) easily predate the internet.

            • scoobford@lemmy.zip
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              4 days ago

              Exactly, that’s why they’re still around. They still haven’t been used at their intended scale since before most working adults had left home.

              If anyone else wants to feel old, MySpace is old enough to drink and the iPhone can vote. College graduates have never seen someone type on a t9.

  • Mr. WorldWide@feddit.org
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    4 days ago

    You: buys a digital thing from an online store

    Store: takes your money right away with no waiting time

    You: Decide you don’t want it anymore, too expensive to renew

    Store: okay, you’ll get your money back in 5 to 10 business days

    • Lojcs@lemm.ee
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      4 days ago

      I don’t think the store takes your money right away? They mark it paid when the transaction starts not when they receive the money.

  • saltesc@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    I struggle to understand what modern insurance companies actually exist for, apart from money people donating money to them for nothing in return.

    • bleistift2@sopuli.xyz
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      4 days ago

      Insurance prevents people from hoarding money that they would need in case of a (personal) disaster to rebuild/repair/re-purchase their losses. If you know insurance will cover your house if it ever burns down, you spend the money, which helps the economy.

      • LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Huh? Most people don’t have enough cash to pay off their home, let alone save up enough to be able to buy a backup home. That’s what insurance is for- it protects you from expenses that would be ruinous if you had to pay them out of pocket. The insurance company takes in more than it pays out, but it’s worth it for home insurance (and health insurance in the good old US of A). It’s why buying insurance on some $100 tech thing is always a ripoff.

    • Kitathalla@lemy.lol
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      4 days ago

      Some are mandated, like auto insurance. Some are because your relative loss from buying insurance is waaaaaaaay less than your loss from an actual disaster. I for one don’t mind paying (and this is an example, lol, like I can afford a home in my area) $200k over 40 years when the cost to rebuild my home after a fire, flood, hurricane, tornado, earthquake, or godzilla would be >$400k.

      Health insurance is the real head scratcher. It’s almost a guarantee that you’ll need it at some point. Pet insurance falls under this as well. A friend was telling me that it was a no brainer unless you’re the type to shoot the dog as soon as it gets mildly sick. It’s something along the lines of $40 a month, which means you’re paying $480 a year, or maybe $4,800-$9,600 over the 10-20 year lifespan of the dog (it’s a dog in this example because my fingers like the d more than the c). You know how much a single emergency with a dog can cost? Probably the entire amount you’d pay over a 10 year life span. If it is a longer problem, it balloons even more. And, importantly, right now pet insurance is where health insurance was at years ago, where they didn’t scratch out your eyeballs over every payment. It may take that turn here soon, once the industry is more established. That’s what my buddy actually wants to do, is review cases for pet insurance companies. I might have to toss him out of the car one day if it gets to the point of our human health insurance.

        • Kitathalla@lemy.lol
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          4 days ago

          See, if I liked the c more than the d, I would be using a cat as an example. You know… typing? My fingers like the d, which is on the home keys, more than the c, which is a downwards reach.