GT's BANKING HORROR STORY

This is an edited version of the letter I sent to Dan Norcini (Trader Dan on JSmineset.com) with whom I have an email relationship. Dan has been attempting to move up here for the last two years from Houston (what a Bush shit hole!) He's very tardy and may not make it. I offered to protect him and his family and show him how to acclimate to this area as fast as possible. I had suggested to him to rent, not buy, up here, as the market is yet to fall another big percentage. If he must buy in, I suggested a good sized parcel of raw land and to put a nice mobile home on it, and then, when the bottom drops out, build his dream home. So here is my slightly edited copy of my letter to Dan Norcini last night. Here's my banking story: GT ********************************************* Well, yesterday the final straw fell on this camel's back. I usually sit down on Friday night, or Saturday mornings, to pay my bills online. I have lots of cheap loans with banks, as I prefer to be a debtor in a period of inflation. Besides, my big plan has been to buy all the toys I want, in my later years, and then die... thus fucking the banks that have been fucking us for so long. And yes, I have a high sense of ethics, morality, etc. But when the 'powers' keep on fucking us, no matter how fairly and honestly we play the game, there comes a point when you just say, "I am now part of the insurgency!" This is all preamble to the story I am about to tell you. I have definitely appreciated our 'email friendship' knowing how many kooks who attack you. But it is important for you to know at the outset that I am the most honest and dependable person you will have ever known. I have spent a lifetime trying to do 'the right thing' only to have been kicked in the nuts by everyone, including my family...(lots of stories to tell there...GOOOOOD stories!) Stories you won't even believe...and I can DOCUMENT them! But... what we all learn...eventually...is that you can't fool Mother Nature, and Gravity. So here I go with today's most incredible story of the very low level of integrity to which our culture has debased itself. Today, as I began to pay my monthly bills, I logged on to my Sears/Citibank account (Citi bought all the Sears credit business a few years ago) to see what my next payment would be before my paper statement would arrive. I keep a spreadsheet of all my accounts with every possible variable I need to know. I have taken advantage of all the low interest money that has been offered for several years. Hey, it's my own carry trade, right? Borrow cheap from the banks and trade with it. Well, my last teaser loan expired this last month at 2.99% and was supposed to jump up to 14.83%. Not a pleasant rate, but at least I knew what the terms were supposed to be. Well, when I saw what the next payment was supposed to be, I said, "what the fuck is going on?" The payment was DOUBLE what had been at the 2.99% rate. Now my math is pretty damn good having taken calculus and Martian trigonometry, so I knew something didn't fit. It turns out that Citi has chosen to raise the purchase rate on the card of a customer who has paid off every loan, and made every payment ON TIME, and has NO BLEMISH on my superb credit rating, to....hold on to your hat......23.99%!!!!! These IDIOT BANKERS have INTENTIONALLY just created a whole passle of defaults and will get NOTHING. Rather than being 'reasonable', MORAL, and ETHICAL... especially in a time when they KNOW that their 'financial providers' (the majority of Americans) are in a world of trouble, they have chose to GOUGE every last penny they can squeeze out of their dying 'golden goose'. Back to my CitiBank story... I asked to speak to a supervisor when I called in, and got one of those 'syrup voiced' shills they have to repeat the script of rules to you. I told her I knew what the whole game was about (in so many words)...after being told by the initial little girl that they use to field calls... who told me that the time period to 'opt out' of this rate increase had expired on March 31st and that they had notified us in our bills (in a mail stuffer) of this date. Well, I save ALL of the vital mail stuffers, (not the crap offers to buy over-price crap and credit insurance, etc) and would DEFINITELY have saved that one. Anyhow, this 'supervisor shill' tells me that, "I have checked the mystery data, and the opt out period has expired.' She had previously, as they all do, told me how 'sorry she was for the inconvenience', several times, as had the previous little girl. This, after being told REPEATEDLY by the taped message how 'important my business was to them' as I waited for a human being to pick up the damn phone. We all know that one. Well, as I took command of the conversation to avoid the scripted bullshit, the 'superv_shill's' attitude descended rapidly into that of..."they don't pay me enough to listen to an intelligent, and pissed off customer". She fell into repeating, "do you want me to cancel the account?" I told her to not only cancel the account, but that they would not get a single penny of their usury tax from me and that they could go ahead with their practice of ruining a reliable customer's credit rating by defaming me on the credit companies' data banks. As you know, you are only permitted to go up one level to a supervisor to discuss/complain to these criminals. After that, they insulate themselves by requiring you to WRITE to them to some address where, I'm sure the mail goes down a chute to the furnace in the basement. Well, Ms. Superv_shill gave me the address of CEO Vikram Pandit (oh my god, one of the most blatant of the current covey of criminals roaming Wall Street!) Not a VP at Citi, but Vikram himself! Like that asshole is going to care a whit about my objection of HIS DECISION to move the company into LOANSHARKING! (like the message would ever reach him, or anyone with a functioning brain! Second issue... I also got a series of letters for each of my Bank of Amerika accounts that they are also raising my interest rates, and to call them to find out how bad they were going to stab me. They weren't as blatant as Citi, but the whole concept of the TARP takers gouging their client base is BEYOND THE PALE for their exhibition of GREED and lack of any sense of human values. So, what it all comes down to... is that I am THROUGH WITH TAKING ANY MORE SHIT from the assholes that run what's left of this country. I AM NOW ONE OF THE GUERRILLAS who hope to frog march these financial and political pricks out to the cherry trees in DC and hang them!....SLOWLY! For the Wall Street Pricks, I want to take dollar bills and jam them down their fucking throats until they suffocate! I can see this whole country falling into complete BEDLAM this summer, and for sure, before the end of the year. I have all the tools it takes to deal with a moderate sized parcel, and enough weapons and experience to hold off all but the most intensive SWAT attack. I doubt we will survive what's coming anyhow. I fear for peoples' wives and children, especially your youngest babies, in being able to deal with what's coming, because you can't possible educate them fast enough, if at all, to be able to cope with the disaster that is about to unfold. Sad, but true. I'm not a pessimist....I'm just an optimist that hasn't arrived...(Mark Twain) When Citi precipitates the inevitable destruction of my credit record... I am out of here. If there's a heaven...I hope it has all my pets in it and NO PEOPLE! I am prepared to go down in a hail of double ought as the 'do-gooders' come to shape me up to 'fit in' to the new structure. Hey, I've already survived short of 65 years, and I still haven't become a senile idiot. I have much more to convey, but for now this gives you the ESSENTIAL info which you MUST make a decision about....BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE for you to set yourself up in a fairly SAFE environment. There really is no place left that is truly safe. It will take some VERY SANE people to band together to hold off the hordes of imbeciles that will soon be roaming the land to take whatever they can grab to fulfill their immediate needs. All those horror movies of the collapse of civilization are now about to become reality. *****************************