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If you’ve ever been unjustly completely locked out of your finances for an extended period, it’s a bizarre experience and a wake up call. I once had a purely on

If you’ve ever been unjustly completely locked out of your finances for an extended period, it’s a bizarre experience and a wake up call. I once had a purely online bank ask me to prove my identity by mailing a copy of my passport. The only issue was they were asking me to prove I was someone else (they sent an email to me, but referencing someone else’s name in the email). They then locked me out because I didn’t respond fast enough and took that as suspicious activity. When I tried to explain I couldn’t prove I was someone I was not, they tried to skirt the fact they had messed up. Point being - banks need to protect our money, but banks make lots of silly mistakes that can ultimately harm the people they are trying to protect

Foobar8568 2y ago
Someone opened a bank account using my email. Bank rejected the fault on google who created a duplicate account and I was somehow accessing the other person email. Yeah sure buddy, they stopped their bullshit when I claimed I was going to contact the local authority.
- netsharc 2y ago
  Reminds me of getting someone's phone bills in my email (say it's foobar@gmail.com) because they thought their e-mail is foo.bar@gmail.com (GMail ignores dots in email addresss). I emailed the phone company telling them I'm not that guy, and they replied saying "Well as you can see we sent the mail to foo.bar@gmail.com, and that's not you".. OK genius, how did it arrive in my inbox, then? After 3 more of these I just set up a rule to immediately trash emails from them.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
derf_ 2y ago
This is a great reason to not put all of your financial eggs in one basket. You hear stories around here all of the time about people's businesses being ruined by Google's automated abuse systems and lack of customer support. There might only be one Google, but there are a lot of banks. They might all have similar policies, but at least it is less likely they will all try to screw you over at the same time. If you have rainy-day savings for at least six months of expenses (as everyone is advised to do), there is no reason you cannot split those up.
- pants2 2y ago
  IMO, the best place to keep that rainy day savings is in gold coins that are well-hidden in your house. It'll keep up with inflation, easy to transport or grab in a pinch, cannot be taken by your bank, and are very quick to liquidate into cash for a single-digit percentage spread.
TacticalCoder 2y ago
> If you’ve ever been unjustly completely locked out of your finances for an extended period, it’s a bizarre experience and a wake up call. Happened to my mother-in-law for she was sharing a family name with someone who had his account locked (she only learned that it was due to that reason and mistake months later). One solution is multiple bank accounts. For a small account, a unicorn like Coinbase can be used too: keep a few thousand USD/EUR at Coinbase and have a debit (not credit in this case) card which you can refill at any time from Coinbase (doesn't have to a debit card emitted by a Coinbase partner: it can be, say, from bitpanda too and then you just refill bitpanda from Coinbase). This "fintech" / crypto backup is my middle finger and backup plan in case the bank decides to freeze my account for a while. It doesn't work for everything but at least it fixes the "cannot buy groceries / cannot fill up the car" pressing issues. BTW nobody needs to believe in crypocurrencies to do that and nobody needs to go all in either: you can just use these companies as some kind of bank, with a little amount as emergency, just in case the proverbial shit hits the fan of your real bank.
- batch12 2y ago
  Dont you hit the potential centralization issue with coinbase? Cash works too.
K0balt 2y ago
Been there, diene that, also had thousands of dollars fraudulently seized from my account (took 2 years to get it back) I use banks for the minimum necessary at this point.
Ferret7446 2y ago
For many people, it's an "epiphany" that leads to a more measured stance on cryptocurrency (or at least, the reason it was invented).
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Foobar8568 2y ago

Someone opened a bank account using my email. Bank rejected the fault on google who created a duplicate account and I was somehow accessing the other person email. Yeah sure buddy, they stopped their bullshit when I claimed I was going to contact the local authority.

netsharc 2y ago
Reminds me of getting someone's phone bills in my email (say it's foobar@gmail.com) because they thought their e-mail is foo.bar@gmail.com (GMail ignores dots in email addresss). I emailed the phone company telling them I'm not that guy, and they replied saying "Well as you can see we sent the mail to foo.bar@gmail.com, and that's not you".. OK genius, how did it arrive in my inbox, then? After 3 more of these I just set up a rule to immediately trash emails from them.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

derf_ 2y ago

This is a great reason to not put all of your financial eggs in one basket. You hear stories around here all of the time about people's businesses being ruined by Google's automated abuse systems and lack of customer support. There might only be one Google, but there are a lot of banks. They might all have similar policies, but at least it is less likely they will all try to screw you over at the same time. If you have rainy-day savings for at least six months of expenses (as everyone is advised to do), there is no reason you cannot split those up.

pants2 2y ago
IMO, the best place to keep that rainy day savings is in gold coins that are well-hidden in your house. It'll keep up with inflation, easy to transport or grab in a pinch, cannot be taken by your bank, and are very quick to liquidate into cash for a single-digit percentage spread.

TacticalCoder 2y ago

> If you’ve ever been unjustly completely locked out of your finances for an extended period, it’s a bizarre experience and a wake up call. Happened to my mother-in-law for she was sharing a family name with someone who had his account locked (she only learned that it was due to that reason and mistake months later). One solution is multiple bank accounts. For a small account, a unicorn like Coinbase can be used too: keep a few thousand USD/EUR at Coinbase and have a debit (not credit in this case) card which you can refill at any time from Coinbase (doesn't have to a debit card emitted by a Coinbase partner: it can be, say, from bitpanda too and then you just refill bitpanda from Coinbase). This "fintech" / crypto backup is my middle finger and backup plan in case the bank decides to freeze my account for a while. It doesn't work for everything but at least it fixes the "cannot buy groceries / cannot fill up the car" pressing issues. BTW nobody needs to believe in crypocurrencies to do that and nobody needs to go all in either: you can just use these companies as some kind of bank, with a little amount as emergency, just in case the proverbial shit hits the fan of your real bank.

batch12 2y ago
Dont you hit the potential centralization issue with coinbase? Cash works too.

K0balt 2y ago

Been there, diene that, also had thousands of dollars fraudulently seized from my account (took 2 years to get it back) I use banks for the minimum necessary at this point.

Ferret7446 2y ago

For many people, it's an "epiphany" that leads to a more measured stance on cryptocurrency (or at least, the reason it was invented).

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