Posts by Terry Howard

Peter Rivera5 said:Anyone able to help me out here? I’ve got an auto loan on my name, and there's a life insurance policy tied to it. On top of that, I’m juggling two smaller personal loans and a negative balance in my checking account. I don't own anything else—not sure if the car counts as an asset or what. Honestly, I'm just done. I have zero desire to keep going and just want everything to disappear. I feel like I'm backed into a corner with no way out. If I pass away, does my husband or someone else in the family have to pay off these debts? Thanks for any insight.

Look, don't throw your life away over debt—it's honestly not worth it.
Like they said, maybe sell the car to knock down some of what you owe, then sit down with the bank to work out a repayment plan or a restructuring. Just take it one step at a time.

When you're filling out the transfer info, just put down whatever you guys agreed on—or if you don't really care, just stick it in the Model 99 field and leave the rest blank. You don't even need a payment code for now.
From what I’ve gathered, anonymous transfers aren't actually allowed.
The real kicker is that transaction reports from your CNN account go straight to the IRS, whereas the ones from your checking account haven't been flagged yet.

If you’re sending money to someone at a different bank, don't expect that cash to hit their account instantly.
Plus, it really comes down to how fast the receiving company actually processes their incoming transfers—whether they're doing it in real time or just waiting until the next business day to check their statement.

Wait, isn't the child allowance supposed to go into a separate account that's protected from any garnishments or freezes?

neonhound10 said:I’ve been giving this a bit more thought lately... and if my logic holds up, money like this can really only move through affiliated banks. You'd likely see a transfer from the Austrian Central Bank over to a major US bank like Chase, probably with a hefty commission attached to the deal along the way...

Of course, there are also those wire transfer services like Western Union where you end up paying high fees, though those operate on a different model since they rely on their own physical branch networks...

But hey, I'm sure there are plenty of brilliant economists out there who understand exactly how these global flows work. Looking back, once the US moved away from the gold standard in the 1970s, money lost its true intrinsic value... Nowadays, everything just feels like a collection of ones and zeros sitting in some digital database...

Actually, the term you're looking for is "correspondent banking," which basically just means one bank holds an account with another. If the bank you're sending from doesn't have that kind of setup with the destination bank, they have to go through an intermediary that's connected to both. Sometimes the cash ends up bouncing through several different banks—and yeah, every single stop along the way takes its little slice of the pie.
The whole banking group thing doesn't really change that. You could send money from Chase straight to the Austrian Central Bank without any drama.

So, picture this: your aunt decides to wire you some cash all the way from the United Kingdom to the US. She drops the money into her account at Bank of America, while you’re sitting there with your own account over at Chase.
Since Bank of America doesn't have a direct link to Chase, they'd essentially move those funds—electronically, obviously—to a third bank, say one based in Germany. Then, that German bank transfers the amount to Chase, and Chase finally lands it in your account. It's all just digital handshakes.
Make sense?

neonhound10 said:What I’m actually curious about is what would happen if we all collectively decided to pull our money out at the exact same moment...

In that scenario, banks would basically be scrambling to call in every single loan they've handed out just to scrape together enough liquid cash to pay everyone back.

silentowl7 said:I agree—you shouldn't have to pay that. Try appealing their decision or whatever official ruling they sent you. Hopefully, they gave you something in writing. Next step would be finding a lawyer. Not much else left to do...

Those costs aren't your fault. It’s not your job to play detective and figure out where the charges came from. You did everything right—filed the dispute with Bank of America and froze the card the second you saw unauthorized charges.

I honestly don't get how anyone on this forum could side with the bank. 👎
Look, I get that banks have interests, but we all carry credit cards.
I don't monitor my statements every single day—maybe once a week. When I'm swiping at a grocery store or a gas station, who's to say someone didn't just skim my info and use it for some online order? And I'm just supposed to eat that cost? 😕👎 Give me a break, people. Seriously.

Let me tell you about my experience with American Express. I was traveling through the Czech Republic. Once I got home, I spotted a charge I definitely didn't make. It was for about $100. I disputed it with Amex, and they immediately reversed the amount on my Account and started an investigation. They told me the whole process would take about two months. After roughly two months, they sent over a scanned copy of the receipt showing clearly that the signature wasn't mine. For the record, I never lost sight of my card, but obviously, it was cloned or the numbers were swiped. Naturally, they didn't hold me liable for a charge I didn't make.

The bank needs to investigate how that transaction actually happened. They should have a department dedicated to cybercrime or fraud disputes. It's all trackable—where the card was used, who was using it, when the purchase went through... all of it.

It's easy for them to just pin it on the customer so the bank doesn't take a hit. 👎 👎

So, what, the bank should just hand over the cash $2.00 simply because Ron claims he didn't spend it? If that were the rule, people would be running up massive bills and then playing the "it wasn't me" card just to get their money back. Imagine the chaos.

silentowl7 said:I agree—you shouldn't have to pay that. Try appealing their decision or whatever official ruling they sent you. Hopefully, they gave you something in writing. Next step would be finding a lawyer. Not much else left to do...

Those costs aren't your fault. It’s not your job to play detective and figure out where the charges came from. You did everything right—filed the dispute with Bank of America and froze the card the second you saw unauthorized charges.

I honestly don't get how anyone on this forum could side with the bank. 👎
Look, I get that banks have interests, but we all carry credit cards.
I don't monitor my statements every single day—maybe once a week. When I'm swiping at a grocery store or a gas station, who's to say someone didn't just skim my info and use it for some online order? And I'm just supposed to eat that cost? 😕👎 Give me a break, people. Seriously.

Let me tell you about my experience with American Express. I was traveling through the Czech Republic. Once I got home, I spotted a charge I definitely didn't make. It was for about $100. I disputed it with Amex, and they immediately reversed the amount on my Account and started an investigation. They told me the whole process would take about two months. After roughly two months, they sent over a scanned copy of the receipt showing clearly that the signature wasn't mine. For the record, I never lost sight of my card, but obviously, it was cloned or the numbers were swiped. Naturally, they didn't hold me liable for a charge I didn't make.

The bank needs to investigate how that transaction actually happened. They should have a department dedicated to cybercrime or fraud disputes. It's all trackable—where the card was used, who was using it, when the purchase went through... all of it.

It's easy for them to just pin it on the customer so the bank doesn't take a hit. 👎 👎

The difference here is that your situation involves an online purchase, whereas that guy had a signed receipt. Proving you didn't make an online transaction without filing a police report and starting a full-blown investigation is a nightmare—especially since it happened abroad, which makes the whole investigation thing a total headache.

It really just comes down to which bank you’re dealing with.
Check the fee schedule on your specific bank's website—the one where you actually hold your account—and you'll see exactly what they're charging.

I haven't seen anything from gljeeva lately—wondering if they've gone off the grid or just moved on to bigger things. kaže:
Terry Howard, that rule was scrapped too—Americans can open accounts abroad without any restrictions now.

You ever hear about that new regulation passed back on December 17, 2009? Turns out it actually voids the whole move to scrap that specific article—so yeah, things are right back where they started.

I can't see any link here—looks like you forgot to paste it! Send it over and I'll take a look.

citat:

Article 4.

In Section 78, Paragraph 1—right after where it says "Section 35, Subsection 3 of this Act"—you need to drop a period and just cut the rest of the sentence. Simple as that.

Under Section 1, we’re adding subsections 2, 3, and 4—they go like this:

As of January 1, 2010, we’re officially sunsetting a whole bunch of sections from this Act—specifically Article 14, paragraph 3, Article 18, paragraphs 2 and 3, Articles 36, 37, 38, Article 42, paragraph 6, Article 63, paragraph 1, points 9 and 15, and Article 68. Basically, they’re out.

So, I was digging through some old paperwork today—you know how it is when you start cleaning out that junk drawer in the kitchen—and I stumbled upon this legalistic mess regarding the rules for transferring personal assets abroad as gifts or aid. It’s one of those official decrees published back in the day in The New York Times, specifically under those old filings from 2003. Honestly, reading through these types of regulations always feels like trying to decipher ancient hieroglyphics just to figure out if you can send a birthday check to your cousin in Chicago without the government breathing down your neck. Just one of those things that makes you realize how much bureaucracy we actually live with every single day.

The rules regarding how much cash, checks, or securities you can bring into—or take out of—the United States (check The New York Times, issue numbers 111/2003, 69/2006, and 82/2006 if you really want to nerd out on the legal jargon) and...

So, there’s this whole regulatory mess regarding how residents can handle cash transactions—whether we're talking US dollars, foreign currency, or even checks—when doing business with non-residents. It was laid out in that specific ruling back in the day (check *The New York Times*, issue 54/2006 and 132/2007), though you have to navigate around a bunch of specific exceptions in sections II, III, IV, and so on. Basically, those rules stay the standard until the new sub-legal act mentioned in Article 34 actually kicks in. It's one of those "read the fine print or get stuck" situations.

Starting July 1st, 2010, we’re officially seeing some changes to the books—specifically, Section 28, Subsection 6 and Section 63, Subsection 1, Point 10 of this Act are being scrapped. Just a heads-up on that little legal shift.

(4) As of January 1st, 2011, Article 28, Section 4 and Article 29 are officially off the books.It all boils down to Section 63, Subsection 1, specifically points 8.a and 11 of this Act—plus that whole Decision regarding the requirements for getting approval to open an offshore foreign currency account (as laid out in The New York Times, issue nos. 111/2003, 189/2004, and 124/2006).

So, looks like the old paragraph 2—which is getting bumped down to become paragraph 5—is being swapped out. Here’s how it stands now:

Once the United States officially joins the European Union, Article 47, paragraph 4 of this Act just becomes a dead letter—it stops applying entirely.

Since I work in dev over at Chase, I actually get the heads-up on this kind of stuff before it hits the news. 🙂

mistywolf68 said:I’m looking into opening a foreign currency account abroad.
Since I’m an American resident, am I facing any legal hurdles, or were all those restrictions scrapped back on January 1st, 2010?

Turns out it’s still on the books after all.

If you’re looking to open an account overseas, you actually need to get the green light from the Federal Reserve first—otherwise, you're looking at some pretty annoying foreign exchange violations.
To even get that approval from the Federal Reserve, you’ve gotta have a legit reason for doing it, like medical stuff, studying abroad, or something along those lines.

From what I gather, opening accounts abroad wasn't part of the recent deregulation, so you still need to jump through those hoops to get permission.

In the States, I’m a big fan of using Visa Prepaid Gift Cards as go-to presents.

As of January 1st, 2010, you actually need the green light from the Federal Reserve to open an account overseas. Your reasoning for doing it is solid enough that they’d likely grant you permission—but the real question is whether you even need to bother asking for something so minor (even if, technically speaking, you’re currently out of compliance with foreign exchange regs).

Regarding the IRS side of things, you’re probably better off getting a straight answer from a lawyer or a CPA.

I used my American Express for everything while I was traveling through the States, and honestly, it was smooth sailing. The only real headache was dealing with those annoying exchange rate fluctuations after the fact.
I don't really see the point in using a debit card abroad—credit cards have that built-in fraud protection, whereas with debit, I’m never quite sure how much coverage I actually have if things go sideways.

You sure about that?
From what I gather, you can only swap them at a local bank in the country where the currency is actually used—though our banks here could probably buy them from you and wire them over, provided you're okay with paying some hefty fee.

Mark Sullivan62 said:Thanks, really needed that, because I was just sitting here enjoying my six hours of weekly lectures on the subject...

Yeah, sure, but it was also made perfectly clear that in my specific situation, the blunder was on the sender's end, not the bank's.

So why am I still sitting here without a single coherent answer from anyone—not even from the bank itself?

I'm talking about an airline wire transfer reversal here.

If we're talking about roughly the same amount of money, they'll both get a deal, but one is going to be significantly better, and I think you can guess which one that is.😍

Well, funny thing is, I see reversals for sender errors every single time I check my February transaction history.

The airline openly admitted they were paying out based on the wrong list—so the mistake lies with the airline, not the bank.

So how does that work then?

Look, I really shouldn't have to spell out the difference between a reversal and a withdrawal for you—you clearly get how this works. You already know that a reversal isn't about pulling money out of an account; it's just canceling out a payment that was already made.

Mark Sullivan62 said:Thanks, really needed that, because I was just sitting here enjoying my six hours of weekly lectures on the subject...

Yeah, sure, but it was also made perfectly clear that in my specific situation, the blunder was on the sender's end, not the bank's.

So why am I still sitting here without a single coherent answer from anyone—not even from the bank itself?

I'm talking about an airline wire transfer reversal here.

If we're talking about roughly the same amount of money, they'll both get a deal, but one is going to be significantly better, and I think you can guess which one that is.😍

Well, funny thing is, I see reversals for sender errors every single time I check my February transaction history.

The airline openly admitted they were paying out based on the wrong list—so the mistake lies with the airline, not the bank.

So how does that work then?

I wouldn't know, honestly. Like I said before, I didn't see any actual reversal being processed because of some client error—but just because I didn't see it doesn't mean they aren't doing it behind the scenes. As someone else pointed out earlier, I'm pretty sure they tucked that little detail right into the fine print of the account opening agreement.

Mark Sullivan62 said:Thanks, really needed that, because I was just sitting here enjoying my six hours of weekly lectures on the subject...

Yeah, sure, but it was also made perfectly clear that in my specific situation, the blunder was on the sender's end, not the bank's.

So why am I still sitting here without a single coherent answer from anyone—not even from the bank itself?

I'm talking about an airline wire transfer reversal here.

If we're talking about roughly the same amount of money, they'll both get a deal, but one is going to be significantly better, and I think you can guess which one that is.😍

Well, funny thing is, I see reversals for sender errors every single time I check my February transaction history.

The airline openly admitted they were paying out based on the wrong list—so the mistake lies with the airline, not the bank.

So how does that work then?

You? 😉

Mark Sullivan62 said:Oh, brilliant. Really. Now why don't you walk me through the logic of how you can just "reverse" a payment once it's already been cleared and posted to the recipient's account? Makes perfect sense, right?

I remember this one time I accidentally sent $67 over to the wrong checking account, and despite me fighting with Chase for an entire month, those funds vanished into thin air—never saw them again, and they wouldn't lift a finger to help.

So, if anyone can reverse a payment, why am I stuck in limbo? Aren't we all supposed to be equal under the law? At least, that's what the textbooks say.

They told me point-blank that they couldn't touch a single cent from someone else's checking account $67 without the owner giving the green light.

And when I actually asked them who the hell owns the account so I could go talk to them myself—since the bank obviously won't help—they had the nerve to tell me that was protected by banking privacy laws.

So, tell me, who's the crazy one here?

Look, if I were going to explain a reversal to you, I'd basically have to give you a crash course in accounting basics.

It seems pretty clear from what's being said: a bank can fix its own screw-ups, but they aren't touching anyone else's mistake.

On another note, think about this: you and a representative from ExxonMobil both walk into a bank asking for a better exchange rate on foreign currency (you for yourself, and he for ExxonMobil). Who do you think is getting the better deal?
I think it's a similar situation to what we're talking about here.
I've seen several times where a bank teller's error was fixed immediately and the transfer was reversed (even after the cash hit the recipient's account). But for an error made by the sender? I've never seen that get reversed.

Kimberly Nguyen said:Even with Chase, they have that option available, but there's a catch—it only works if you're registered as a business entity.

For corporations, account numbers are public info because of the business registry.

Nicholas Turner said:Since we’ve veered into the territory of banking privacy, I have a question—if I were to just type in a random account number on Bank of America's online banking portal (assuming it's an account held at Bank of America, obviously) and hit "Verify," wouldn't the app just spit out the owner's full name and their city? It feels like banking secrecy is practically non-existent here—why isn't anyone raising an alarm about this?

I'm not entirely sure which bank you used to initiate that transfer, Edgar, but if you had tried it through Bank of America, finding out who is behind a specific account number would be a total breeze—privacy basically doesn't exist in that scenario. 🙂

And would you honestly prefer if they didn't allow that? This feature actually helps prevent people from sending money to the wrong account, and I don't see any harm in accidentally finding out that Joe Biden has an account ending in 3200000001.

Mark Sullivan62 said:I went through something pretty similar recently when ExxonMobil was paying out dividends based on a faulty list... since I hold positions in both, I wasn't technically losing anything, but looking at my checking account activity, I saw a deposit, then a withdrawal, then another deposit

I sent an inquiry over to Chase and got an official response stating that because I signed off on their Basic Account bundle, Article 1 explicitly states the bank has the right to correct any bookkeeping errors without needing my approval—in fact, I basically gave them the green light to do exactly this type of thing

How are we even supposed to know if it's a bookkeeping error? Well, based on what I saw:

On my deposit history, it showed something like:

+ $33
- $33
+ $33

It was obviously an error because these weren't actual payouts—those transactions $33 didn't show up on the credit side, they were on the debit side

If they had been actual withdrawals, there wouldn't be a minus sign; it would just show the amount $33 (at least, that's how it looks on the mobile app...)

Lesson learned: read what you're signing. I signed that basic account agreement five or six years ago—I honestly have no idea where the copy is anymore, let alone what the fine print actually says🤣

But then my personal banker reached out and sent me this note:

On X, you signed the Comprehensive Account Bundle Agreement while setting up your Y package. According to Article 3.2 of that agreement:
3.2. The Account Holder authorizes the Bank to rectify errors occurring within payment processing that cause account balances to deviate from the actual payment orders issued for or against the account, without requiring additional specific authorization from the Account Holder.
Please feel free to reach out if you have any further questions.

That’s what you’d call it if you were being all technical about it. So, I just saw that chargeback hit the statement—basically a total reversal. It’s one of those annoying little administrative hiccups that always seems to pop up right when you think everything is squared away. Just one of those things, I guess.Look, it’s not like someone just reached into an account and pulled money out—it was a transaction reversal. So, we can't even really say the bank was skimming cash from the account; they were just voiding the payment.

Thomas Fowler84 said:I am not sure how Chase handles things, but when I transfer money between my own accounts at the same bank, my available balance jumps almost instantly. The system recognizes the incoming funds immediately, even if the official settlement doesn't occur until the next business day. I will double-check the specific mechanics next time, but it seems clear that the recipient's balance reflects the deposit right away.

Look, you really have to distinguish between internal transfers and anything going outside the bank—especially when it’s gotta run through the Nationalist Party and can't happen instantly. When money gets pulled from someone's checking account, it just sits in a clearing account until it actually hits the Nationalist Party. It's not immediate.

Kenneth Brooks5 said:"What kind of changes? The balance is perfectly fine."

When I talked about "changes," I was referring to the specific debits and credits hitting the account over the last few days.

Walk me through your logic here: the balance is spot on.[/I]

When I talked about "changes," I was referring to the specific debits and credits hitting the account over the last few days.

Walk me through your logic here: the balance is spot on.[/I]

When I talked about "changes," I was referring to the specific debits and credits hitting the account over the last few days.

Walk me through your logic here: the balance is spot on.
Just sign up for SMS alerts and Bank of America will ping you whenever something shifts.
And honestly, if you're that eager to play philanthropist, just make the donation yourself instead of dragging the bank into it.

Honestly, this topic has been covered about five million times already on this forum

You’ve got an entire thread dedicated to overseas insights here