Posts by Walter Thomas18

Our bank had absolutely zero influence over the USD exchange rate. Apartment prices dropped simply because demand cratered.

Exactly. There aren't any laws against it.

Timothy Mitchell29 said:🤣🤣 You’re calling other people stupid? That is the absolute peak of ignorance right there.
Do us all a favor and actually put in some effort to learn the subject before you come in here barking about things you clearly don't understand... you and Richard Taylor3
don't have a clue what's actually going on.😒

I’m just hoping this whole mess either disappears or those interest rate clauses get wiped out soon so we can finally put this nightmare behind us.

A masterclass in refutation. This post is absolutely overflowing with arguments.🤣

fadedfalcon19 said:It’s going to be quite an interesting ride seeing how our US Federal Courts ultimately rule on this. Honestly, they really shouldn't feel intimidated—not by big international players, nor by those massive banks, or anyone else for that matter. They just need to hold their ground.
I really hope they take the time to think this through and provide some crystal-clear guidance and interpretation, so we can finally understand exactly how these foreign currencies are being treated under the law.

If I were placing a bet, I’d go with this logic: "No one should be forced to pay for goods or services using barter or trade-offs. As long as the actual exchange hasn't taken place, either party should have the right to change their mind—meaning the provider could demand cash, or the buyer (the one who originally requested the service) could insist on paying in standard currency."
And that would be true regardless of any prior contractual agreements where the buyer might have initially promised to provide a different service or some other kind of goods instead.

Let the judges make their rulings and see where we land.

Read through the nonsense you're writing a few times.

Furthermore, you can always back out of a loan, especially before the funds are actually disbursed. You can even do it later—though in that case, you’ll have to settle the remaining principal amount all at once.

Casey Cook10 said:Well, it was so "legal" that even the US Federal Courts ended up deciding it wasn't.
The banks aren't even suing based on that specific argument. I guess you're just talking nonsense here.

The whole thing was basically just a product of the Wild West era we were living through back then. If it weren't for the Swiss Franc situation, this entire sector probably wouldn't be as heavily regulated as it is today.

Up until 2011, these guys couldn't even explain how they calculated interest rates on those loans—not just for the Swiss Franc ones, but for everything else too. People really should be suing over that, but I suppose nobody is pushing them to do it except for AARP.
They only finally cooked up some formulas in 2011, which, honestly, just ended up screwing themselves over in the end.

🤦
US courts have ruled on all sorts of nonsense, from accounting tricks and shady dealings to property grabbing on the coast and the "adoption" of children from the Congo...

Like I’ve said many times before—everything regarding the interest rates was handled poorly. If the banks had just taken the hit to their profits and compensated the borrowers, it would have been perfectly fine.

Casey Cook10 said:I mean, if they were acting as the regulators, they probably should've just stepped in and banned that whole practice altogether.
If they had the guts to mess with the entire US economy through one-sided moves—like selling off gold reserves or rushing the transition to the Euro right now...—then they definitely could have stopped this too. It makes me wonder why they didn't, I guess...
I bet you were probably up in arms about that, too.

They could have. But they didn't. That’s why the currency clause remained legal.
If it hadn't been legal, every single bank would have pulled those loans almost immediately to avoid penalties. This is precisely why banks have grounds to sue the government for the damages caused by the conversion process.

Another issue was the interest rates. They could be set at whatever level fell within the allowed range based solely on a "decision from the bank management." Those rates lacked transparency for everyone involved. While those specific contract terms could be overturned in court, the currency clause itself could not.

One positive development is that the interest margin is now fixed for the entire life of the loan. This prevents some member of the board of directors from arbitrarily hiking margins just so they can trigger a profit-based bonus for themselves. Fixed interest margins should have been implemented a long time ago.

Richard Taylor3 said:That’s just not true—Vujcic actually warned people about the dangers of the Swiss Franc Loan multiple times, even on national TV. But I guess nobody was really listening, you know? Everyone was too focused on how low the interest rates were, which was clearly the only thing that mattered at the time. Who honestly cares about a few warnings when money is cheap?

Yes, it was on TV several times. And in the papers. But nobody gave a damn.
I know of a case where someone took out a Swiss Franc loan to buy TWO apartments, even though they actually had enough cash on hand. Then, later on, everyone acted shocked when that person struggled to meet the monthly payments.

The first and most basic rule is: don't take out a loan if you already have the cash. But apparently, many people think they're smarter than everyone else and ignore expert advice.

Richard Taylor3 said:I’m pretty sure that was Aleksic. He actually ended up becoming one of the main leaders of that massive crusade that eventually led to that law where every single taxpayer in the USA had to foot the bill to compensate the banks during the conversion process. It was a pretty slick move on their part—they worked right alongside the Democratic Party to pull it all off perfectly.

Either him or that Smajo guy, I can't recall anymore.
The bottom line is they played games, thought they were clever, and lost. It reminds me of some user on this forum who was tearing into a service provider because they came after his assets. What did he actually do? He signed up for the most expensive plan just to get the high-end phone at a massive discount—back when phones in those top tiers were ridiculously cheap. But he never even put the new SIM card in a phone; he just kept using his old SIM and his old number. This guy genuinely believed he wouldn't have to pay the subscription fee since he wasn't technically using the new number with the premium plan. He thought he found a loophole to snag an expensive device for nothing. Then, once the collectors showed up, he crawled onto the forum to trash the provider, whining about how they had violated his Constitutional Law and other nonsense. He refused to listen to anyone else's logic because, in his own mind, "he is right."

Casey Cook10 said:Well, obviously... it was all over the massive billboards.
And Iván Rohatinski mentioned right there in the US Congress where those warnings were supposed to be. I already told you exactly where...

It was basically just the low-level bank staff signing those contracts.
The higher-ups were getting tips.
So, how on earth were the people who were being tipped off supposed to know?

Come on, don't embarrass yourself...
The whole product was broken and compromised from the start, specifically targeted and marketed... Consumers fought back and won their rights in court (including within the European Union).
The fact that certain members of the Democratic Party are shaking things up here at the US Supreme Court is honestly just an embarrassment to the US Judiciary.

I guess you can tell how much influence he should actually have by looking at this...

https://groups.google.com/g/cro-news...sMuR6LQJ?pli=1

What you're writing is complete nonsense. Nobody was giving out "tips." At most, someone might have advised someone else that it wasn't a smart move (for the same reasons cited by the Federal Reserve).

Why would it need to be on a billboard? For most people, even that wouldn't have been enough. They'd just complain that nobody warned them personally.

No one in America could have predicted the Swiss Franc would surge like that. No one. Anyone claiming otherwise is foolish because they're giving our banks far too much credit. What happened with the Swiss Franc had nothing to do with our domestic banks, so there was no possibility of some insider "tip." It was just common sense and logic: if you absolutely must borrow, do it in the currency you receive your paycheck in.

The courts issued populist rulings under pressure from politicians (who love populist measures because they secure votes, while costing them nothing since they play around with either public funds or someone else's money).
Speaking of courts, they've ruled on everything from finger-pointing to absurdities. They've handed down all sorts of ridiculous decisions.

Casey Cook10 said:So, they just dropped a single little line in their own newsletter? Wow, what a massive warning right there.
I mean, I guess you have to wonder if they ever actually told their tellers above a certain level to steer clear of those loans. Most of the folks working at the counters probably didn't give a damn...
And the branch managers? Not a chance.

Plus, with how they handled collateral requirements—like not requiring guarantors, for instance—it feels like they were subtly nudging everyone right toward those exact loans.

If you crawled into a cave, then sure, you couldn't hear the warnings. But if you watched TV, read the news, or checked online portals, you absolutely could have been aware. All that does is prove you didn't care about any warnings; you just wanted to sign the contract and get that money into your account as fast as possible.

Even the bank employees themselves were taking out Swiss Franc Loans because they were either careless or simply didn't care what they were signing.

Casey Cook10 said:But I guess, whose fault is that? Mine?
The bank really should have figured out how to manage their own supply of those Swiss Francs they were buying with my dollars every single month just to balance their books.

Wait, which Bank Board Decision are we talking about when it comes to the maximum possible rate???
Back when the Swiss Franc was surging and they were buying it up, LIBOR was basically zero. So, I mean, they just bumped up the portion of the rate that doesn't involve interbank lending...
It's all been laid out already, both in the news and in the US Judiciary...

Don't even try to troll me...

You lack any sense of logic, yet you accuse me of trolling!?
Is your problem that the interest rate went up? Yes. You signed a variable rate agreement, so it became your problem. If the rate had been fixed, then it would have been the bank's problem.

If bank boards were allowed to decide whatever maximum interest rate they wanted, they would be significantly larger than they currently are. However, the highest interest rates aren't set by bank boards; they are set by the regulators.

Casey Cook10 said:So, after ten years of this nonsense, I guess we’re still stuck listening to the same old nonsense from folks like this.
I mean, if someone is saying this in 2023, they either have no clue what happened or they're basically just a mouthpiece for the big banks.
Let me say this one more time, and really, just this once: the banks protected themselves by using those variable interest rates that they kept hiking without any real logic behind it.
It’s kind of funny, though... when the exchange rate went up, the interest rates didn't drop. They stayed right where they were... or wait, I guess they actually went up? Pretty wild.

Interest rates rose because all rates were rising, including savings rates.
Regarding the variable interest rate where changes were made per Bank Board Decision—that was indeed a disaster. But look, if the Swiss Franc had plummeted by 30%, the interest rate would have had to rise above the legal maximum just to keep the debt amount constant. In that scenario, you wouldn't even be able to stay at the same level of debt in USD. Instead, the Swiss Franc shot through the roof, soaring over 40%. If it had crashed that hard, there isn't a legally permissible interest rate in existence that could have offset the loss.

Zachary Wood77 said:It really isn't as simple as you're trying to make it. Look, if you borrowed Euros, you received the equivalent value in Dollars; over ten years, you might have ended up with more or less the same amount of Dollars for those Euros simply because the Federal Reserve kept the exchange rate stable. With the Swiss Franc, that wasn't the case. The Federal Reserve should have stepped in the moment those Swiss Franc Loans started appearing, because they were essentially speculative products from the get-go. We all know how that story ended—there's a reason the US Supreme Court eventually declared those Swiss Franc clauses null and void.

The Federal Reserve did react—they warned people against taking out loans with a Swiss Franc currency clause.

Of course you received the equivalent in Dollars; back then, the Dollar was the legal tender in America. That doesn't mean you weren't allowed to buy foreign currency; it just means you couldn't legally use those foreign funds to pay bills in the US. That is why the Swiss Franc was converted to Dollars at the rate on the day of disbursement. Consequently, you pay your annuities in Swiss Francs based on the rate on the day of payment. If the Swiss Franc had dropped, you would have paid fewer Dollars. But it didn't drop; it rose, and our banks had absolutely no influence over that. Anyone who thinks they did is giving our banks far too much importance.
When you take out a loan with a currency clause, you are essentially "betting" on the exchange rate (hoping it stays stable or that the foreign currency loses value). You lost the bet, and now you're blaming everyone else.
If the Swiss Franc rate had fallen, you would have been celebrating. One of the loudest voices in the "Swissman" case was trumpeting about how he screwed the banks because he took out a Swiss Franc loan and used it to close his debt in Dollars or Euros—I can't remember which. He thought he was brilliant, but he turned out to be quite foolish. Later, he claimed he didn't understand what a currency clause meant. Please...

frozencanyon14 said:You’re honestly acting like you don't get it—we borrowed CHF (nobody is arguing that part), the value of the CHF shot through the roof, and during that SAME PERIOD, the bank kept hiking interest rates (in my case, FOUR different times!!!). And you're telling me that was fine and legal? Well, in our corrupt system, they actually say it isn't. The proof is in the sheer number of people who sued their banks and actually won.

I'LL SAY IT AGAIN: if you haven't sued your bank yet and you were stuck with a non-convertible loan, you better do it, because you're almost certainly going to win.

If you actually read my posts, you’d see I’m only saying that the interest rates were the one bad thing banks did, and that they should be punished for it. That is my only point.
When it comes to the principal, it has absolutely nothing to do with interest rates. If you borrow 100 of something, you owe 100 of that thing—plus interest. Principal is one thing; total debt is something else entirely. If you borrow 100 today and pay it back the same day, you’re paying back exactly 100. Once a single day passes, interest enters the equation.

fadedfalcon19 said:Well, look, nobody can be legally forced to pay for goods or services using other goods or services (and yes, that includes foreign currencies)—it has to be money, specifically USD or EUR.

The Bank offered a service to lend Swiss Francs at a specific price, and I am paying for that service—or that "banking product," as the banks love to call it—exclusively in USD/EUR based on the agreed-upon rate.
There is no changing the price of the service—the product the client is paying for.
I’m certainly not paying with any other kind of counter-service or goods (including a foreign currency).

The Bank can only demand the return of those Swiss Francs if there's a severe breach of contract caused by the client's malicious intent through their own exclusive fault.
And if a client does the right thing and notifies the Bank that, say, they lost their job and won't be able to make payments for a while, that isn't a reason to terminate the agreement either.
It's especially not a reason to terminate if the client's failure to pay was actually triggered by the Bank's own actions—perhaps as a way to later squeeze clients out of their real estate and assets.

If the Swiss Franc had fallen to $0.33, I would still be paying according to the initial agreement at a price of, say, $1.00.
In any case, that same Bank bought back those very same Swiss Francs they lent out the very second they could at a price of $1.00, and they could have sold them for 7-$2.75.
The banks never once suggested, nor did they advise clients to try selling those Swiss Francs themselves at perhaps a more favorable rate, giving the client the choice to either sell them back to the Bank at $1.00 or hold onto them to pursue their own interests.

Conversions into USD/EUR should only happen if it’s actually more favorable than the original terms of the Swiss Franc loan.
Banks must return extorted money.

You are writing nonsense and insisting on it. If you write a lie five times, it doesn't become the truth.
You borrowed a specific amount in Swiss Francs, and you must return that exact amount. You agreed to a Swiss Franc currency clause (it wasn't prohibited, despite what is written or the fact that many don't understand what it means), which means you accepted the risk that comes with it. If the exchange rate for the Swiss Franc had fallen to $0.33 per 1 Swiss Franc, you would have paid back exactly at that rate, not the initial one. Why are you lying or talking about something you clearly have no clue about? When I see what you write, I start to believe some people truly have no idea what a currency clause means. They need a guardian.

fadedfalcon19 said:Well, sure—but only based on the price we actually agreed upon for the entire duration of the loan repayment period for that good or service.
If the Swiss Franc had plummeted to $0.33, I’d still be paying my Swiss Francs at the $1.00 rate, assuming that's what we shook hands on—and honestly, it's entirely up to the seller's good nature if they decide to give you a discount or not.

Now, canceling a contract and asking a seller to take back the goods or services—well, that really only applies if the client is solely, and I mean exclusively, at fault, or perhaps acting in bad faith by failing to pay for what they received.

You didn't sign anything stating the Swiss Franc exchange rate would remain at $1.00 for the whole repayment period.
Besides, the Swiss Franc was never $1.00 anyway.
If the Swiss Franc had fallen to $0.33, and your annuity was 500 Swiss Francs, you would be paying the Bank $167 every month, not $500. You clearly have no idea what you signed, though I shouldn't be surprised. Nearly 100% of people have no clue what they are signing; they just care about getting that money into their account as fast as possible.

frozencanyon14 said:Look, let’s not pretend we don't know what happened here. If everything had actually been handled by the book, people wouldn't be walking away with winning court rulings right now. Think about it—you take out a $120,000 Swiss Franc loan, you dutifully pay it down for eight years (on a twenty-year term), and somehow, you end up owing more in Swiss Francs than the day you signed the papers—not to even mention how much worse it looks when you convert that back to USD. "By the book," my foot. We weren't even considered creditworthy enough to get a standard USD loan, but suddenly, miraculously, we were perfectly qualified for a Swiss Franc loan? It just doesn't add up. IF YOU HAVEN'T FILED A LAWSUIT YET AND YOU DIDN'T CONVERT YOUR LOAN, YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED TO DO SO. I filed mine, and I won. My only real regret is that I didn't jump on it sooner to cover the first part of the claim. Honestly, the process wasn't even that long—it took about two and a half years from filing to actually getting paid. Plus, you don't have to worry too much about massive upfront costs, because the lawyer's fee ends up being covered by the settlement itself.

You're talking nonsense. After 8 years, you are certainly owing less than 120,000 Swiss Francs if you are looking strictly at the principal. Secondly, you clearly don't distinguish between principal and interest. When you add them together, the total debt can indeed be higher than the original principal amount. But that applies to everyone, regardless of whether they took out a USD, EUR, or Swiss Franc loan. Unless you took out an interest-free loan, the total debt will remain above the initial principal after your first payment (or annuity, since most chose annuities anyway).

briskcanyon12 said:This is exactly my take; I sign off on everything said here, word for word!

I assume everyone is aware of this, but let’s be real: when the political landscape shifted, it handed these institutions a lifeline to cover for their own disastrous decisions. It’s the classic double standard: everyone loves capitalism when it’s time to pocket the profits, but the moment it’s time to swallow the losses, suddenly everyone wants someone else to foot the bill. In this case, we're all paying for them through hiked interest rates and various banking fees, because a bank will always find a way to pass their unplanned expenses onto us.

If the Swiss Franc had weakened or stayed flat with lower interest rates, and the crisis hadn't hit, everyone would have been laughing at the "idiots" who played it safe with Euro-denominated loans, asking, "Why didn't you just go with the Swiss Franc?!" But while the Swiss Franc was weakening and monthly payments were temporarily lower, everyone kept their mouths shut and smirked about how brilliant their choice was.

The sheer scale of human hypocrisy and audacity is truly immeasurable.

Exactly. If the Swiss Franc had "tanked," they would be mocking those who opted for USD or Euro loans instead.

You took out a Swiss Franc loan, and your principal was always denominated in Swiss Francs. They didn't increase the actual amount of the principal in Swiss Francs.
The second mistake you made was opting for the Swiss Franc in the first place—you clearly thought anyone taking out loans pegged to the Dollar or the Euro was an idiot. If you had just gone with a loan tied to the Euro, you wouldn't be in this mess. It is an undeniable fact that the Federal Reserve warned against taking out loans tied to the Swiss Franc because they defend the exchange rate between the Dollar and the Euro, yet plenty of people ignored those warnings.
The only thing that was indisputably wrong with all these loans—whether they were in Dollars, Euros, or Swiss Francs—was that interest rates were subject to the whims of bank executives. The Federal Reserve should never have allowed that. As for the currency clause, there is nothing to debate there. It was legal, regardless of what anyone claims.

What kind of nonsense are you peddling regarding the Swiss Franc? I truly hope you don't actually believe the garbage you just typed, and that you're only spouting this drivel out of pure bitterness.

mistyjackal842 said:This thread is supposed to be about the flu, but I suppose I should weigh in regardless. Personally, wearing a mask has always kept COVID-19 at bay for me, since I haven't caught it once. I don't really hang out in massive crowds, I'm not much of a cafe person, and I make sure to wear a mask whenever I'm in enclosed spaces—and so far, I've stayed clear of the virus. People are still passing away from COVID-19, though, mostly the elderly. As for immunity? I guess I don't really have any, simply because I haven't had much actual exposure to the virus itself.

I went to cafes every single day without a mask. I hit the grocery stores without one too. I finally caught COVID-19 from the woman I live with, and that was two years after the pandemic started. So, zero points to the "it's all about masks" crowd regarding cafes, restaurants, shops, or crowds. I didn't wear one—or when I was forced to, I just wore it under my nose. It's nonsense to claim someone avoided it solely because of a mask. I know people who wore them religiously everywhere and still ended up getting sick.