Rubénerd!

I tend to be skeptical of class action lawsuits because often the solicitors or lawyers keep more of the money than the clients they represent, but in this case I'm making an exception, if only for a very selfish reason ;).

From FinancialRedress.com.au:

Until very recently, some banks charged you up to $60 if you became overdrawn, went beyond an agreed limit, or made a late payment. The true cost might only have been a few dollars at most on each transaction. Banks have made billions from these unfair charges. [..]

If you have incurred at least one of these exception fees on any of your bank or credit card accounts, register by clicking here to help get your money back.

Personal adventure things

I closed my account with BankSA (now a subsidiary of Westpac, go figure) because of repeated and provable fee abuses. One time I was charged $25 for not having a minimum balance, which put me in the red, which caused them to charge me another fee. Then there was the time I forgot to prove I was a student for the umpteenth time, which meant new fees kicked in. The latter was probably within their legal right, but the former was an unabashed con.

That said, I went with the Australian Central Credit Union which was great for a while, but then they started treating me like a bank would anyway by refusing to do what I asked to, sending me predatory credit card applications in the mail and long queues at their branches. Curiously this started happening when they got bought out by the imaginatively titled Savings and Loans.

What is about financial institutions and their mandate to screw their customers? What other industry charges people for the right to take our money? Sheesh.

One would think a website celebrating Singaporean SMEs would be sponsored by, say, the Development Bank of Singapore not the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation! I suppose it's like the Bendigo Bankbuying the short lived Bank of Adelaide despite the latter having 17 times the population of the former.

Aiyo, bank make no sense, lah.

That mouth on their site has always scared the crap of me!

As I've said here in the past, the primary reason why I use Firefox isn't for the superior browsing experience any more but rather for the security and privacy extensions, though sometimes they do break some sites.

In the case of the Australian Central Credit Union online banking site (try saying that three times in a row really fast!), simply enabling cookies and scripting with PermitCookies and NoScript on the accu.com.au address still generates "you need to enable cookies in your browser" errors, and if you get past them you then can't enter in your unique personal icons combination because they don't appear!

As with some other sites that uses frames, the problem is the ACCU frame is hosted on their primary domain, but one of the pages in the frame references an external site which means your whitelists don't include it.

The solution:

1. Right click (CTRL-Click on Mac) on the error page
2. Choose This Frame > Open Frame in New Tab
3. In the new tab, enable cookies and JavaScript with PermitCookies and NoScript
4. Close that tab, return to the ACCU site

I've been told by more than a few people on Twitter that I'm paranoid by going to these lengths to block cookies and scripting, but to be blunt we are talking about dealing with bank accounts online and I'd rather be safe[er] than sorry. And besides, once you've set it up once, you're good to go each time you visit. For me, the minor initial inconvenience is offset by the security and privacy of only having cookies and scripting I explicitly authorise running on my machine.

Now if you'd excuse me, my tin foil hat fell off and I ran over it with my computer chair. Might need to make a new one.

Photo is of the ANZ and Westpac bank buildings on an appropriately drizzly day in central Adelaide, by Dodge 76 on Flickr.

So I saw Westpac's latest television advertisement on the television. Which was a good thing because I spent weeks looking at a banana expecting to see a Westpac television advertisement but all I got was banana. It did start changing from yellow to brown though in it's fourth episode, but by then I'd lost interest due to obvious scripting problems.

The new slogan Westpac was proudly trumpeting on television:

We're a bank you can bank on.

Need to read that again?

We're a grilled cheese sandwich you can bank on.

Don't believe me? After doing a bit of digging online to determine whether or not I had in fact heard what the advertisement was saying correctly, it turns out they're so proud of it you can download it from their website!

Now ladies and gentleman having just seen said advertisment, I have so many words and thoughts spinning through my head as we speak that I don't quite know in what order to type them here if at all. Perhaps starting from the beginning would be a useful thing to do.

Firstly, I know what you're thinking. I'm not psychic, I'm just very good at reading people. The Westpac Bank advertising itself by saying that line is silly because we ALL KNOW this line was already used in a BusinessWeek article from 1992 about the Chicago Bank. I checked Wolfram Alpha, and this is the difference between Adelaide where Westpac aired this advertisement, and Chicago where I've divined the Chicago Bank has its headquarters:

The second, perhaps more subtle aspect of this advertising campaign which you probably haven't figured out for yourself is just how needlessly unnecessary it is. Yes Westpac you're a bank, and if I do business with you I know I can bank with you. This I can figure out from the fact you're a bank, I don't need restaurants telling me I can eat their food, or the vending machines at the Mawson Lakes campus of my university telling me they'll take my change and give me nothing in return. This is to be expected. You're not crediting (HA!) your audience with much intelligence.

Perhaps the problem is Westpac is being direct and forthcoming, but they're not quite at the point where Captain Obvious swoops down from the sky to proclaim he's Captain Obvious. I suggest this slogan with a very clever pun for their next campaign.

We'll keep your money safe, as well as in a safe.

I wonder how much Westpac paid their advertising agency for their current slogan, and whether they're kicking themselves now that they know they could have just come to Rubenerd.com and got one of equal calibre for free.

When I was in primary school in Singapore I entered into a Skippy Peanut Butter writing contest and won 800 bucks. Especially for a 12 year old kid this amount was gigantic, so the first thing I did (without my parents telling me to I might add!) was open a bank account to put it in. At the time most Singaporean banks required a minimum deposit of $1000 so I went with a POSB student account.

Now I'm 23 and I still have that account, but am thinking of moving to something else. DBS has long since owned POSB (but curiously kept the brand alive) which was convenient given my dad had a few DBS accounts, but every time I go back to Singapore I'm reminded of why I dislike them.

1. They closed their Liat Towers branch (the building next to Wheelock Place) meaning if I need to fulfil banking needs or however you're supposed to phrase that my closest branch is Plaza Singapura which is several MRT stops away and is always packed.

2. They might be too popular, whenever there's a series of ATMs there's almost never anyone queuing for the UOB or OCBC ATMs but the DBS and POSB ones often have as many as 10-15 people, especially in student hotspots along Orchard like Far East Plaza and Plaza Singapura.

3. On a related note to 2, why is DBS/POSB not part of the Atm5 network which lets you use your card in a different bank's ATM?

4. Finally, DBS on occasion supports creepy ultra conservative organisations like Focus On The Family which spread misinformation, fear and prejudice against women and the LGBT community, as I wrote about last year and followed up on here.

So now I'm left wondering which Singapore bank I'll create an account with. I've heard ANZ is buying out RBS in Singapore, perhaps I'll be able to keep my local ANZ account and use that in Singapore too. Nah probably not, there are probably charges for accessing funds in foreign currencies all the time.

Why must dealing with banks be so messy and confusing? Why can't they pink, fuzzy and squishy?

ANZ and Westpac bank buildings on an appropriately drizzly day in central Adelaide, by Dodge 76 on Flickr

After reading the headline, I was expecting this news story from the ABC (Australia) to be about predatory lending,exploitation or other unwarranted behavior on the part of financial institutions. Alas no, it was a report on how people are becoming victims to people who steal their credit card information, not banks!

ABC News: Credit card fraud on the rise: report

By Online business reporter Michael Janda and staff

An industry report has identified a rise in the rate of internet and telephone credit card fraud.

Figures from the Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA) show the credit card fraud rate was 45 cents per $1,000 in 2007, but in 2008 it had climbed to 53 cents.

Original Clipmark link

There were very good points regarding why banks themselves don't in fact do more to prevent fraud which I encourage you to look at if you're interested.

Several comments though were about using your credit card to shop online, but they were mostly limited to discussing virus protection. I usually just click the "Agree" link next to comments because people on the ABC News website are generally more eloquent and succinct than I am, but this time I figured an explanation was in order.

Kudos to people saying they were expecting the article to be about exorbitant credit interest rates, I did too!

As for the technical question, virus protection and firewalls are only a tiny part of the equation. Especially if you run Microsoft Windows you absolutely MUST keep your system current with patches and security fixes. Viruses, worms and trojan horses (three very different beasts) take advantage of weaknesses that often have already been fixed but that people haven't bothered to guard against. Confiker is the latest example of this.

There's also the issue of "social engineering" where instead of blindly sending messages out to millions of addresses, they watch your online activity so they can gather enough information about you to send you an email as a trusted person who you may let your guard down for.

If you use Mozilla Firefox (anyone still using Internet Explorer is dumb, sorry that's just accepted fact now) the SSL Blacklist plugin from CodeFromThe70s.org helps guard you against suspicious "secure" web authorities, and the "BetterPrivacy" plugin (just Google it) helps guards against the next generation of malicious cookie spying. The weakest part of any system though is the USER, so just stay vigilant and remember if something is too good to be true it usually is. Like those misleading "low balance transfer" advertisements!

In retrospect I shouldn't have called Internet Explorer users dumb. Some casual computer users may still not know, other people like my dad wish they could change but can't because their company machines can't be altered.

Kallen doesn't like predatory mail credit card applications either!

As I've previously blogged about here on several occasions under the economics category, when I moved back to Australia on a part time basis to study, I decided to go with a credit union instead of a bank. My decision was based on my previously poor experiences with banks such as the long queues at branches where half the teller desks are closed; what I consider exorbitant fees; having to prove I'm a student every five minutes to keep my rates down; being bullied into purchasing services I don't want or need; I could go on. I also take issue with some of their business practises such as predatory lending and their seemingly indifferent view to consumer rights.

While I still stand by my decision, the honeymoon period with credit unions for me is now officially over thanks to a personally addressed letter from the Australian Central Credit Union I received this morning. Inside was a letter explaining how I can use balance transfers to lower my interest repayments along with a "fast track" application form to apply for one of their MasterCard plastics.

Financial regulations in Australia are some of the strictest in the developed world, but as far as I know there's no law against sending people letters like this which I consider akin to predatory lending. Encouraging people to take advantage of lower interest rates on credit transfers only to crank up the interest rates to the same or higher than the debtor had before reeks of misinformation at best and exploitation at worst.

What also worries me about this is what criteria they used to send these credit card application forms. I still use my bank account in Singapore for most tasks, relegating my credit union account here in Australia for small purchases and for paying bills. If I were a responsible financial institution I wouldn't offer to lend someone like me money in this form if I had the knowledge that they only had this amount of money in their accounts.

To play Devil's advocate, on the application form they do ask for employment and income details, but my point above still stands. The Australian Central Credit Union knew my balance and transaction history, and they offered me an application for credit.

It's reckless lending behaviour like this that was part of the reason for the current financial crisis. If I get time I'll be writing a brief letter to the Australian Central Credit Union telling them that I'll be keeping my account with them because their service is still exemplary especially when compared to dealing with banks, but that I'm disappointed with their behaviour and hope they reconsider sending out such material to people in the future.

The flustered rent and webhost episode!

Fun with dealing with broken corrupt backups, misleadingly labelled auto rent payments and my former webhost Servage now that I'm safely typing this from Segment Publishing!

Am particularly flustered and fast talking which saves on file download times for your convenience. Thank you.

Download MP3 to listen 20:55 9.7MiB

You can also view previous episodes, subscribe via iTunes or another client, stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

ANZ and Westpac bank buildings on an appropriately drizzly day in central Adelaide, by Dodge 76 on Flickr

ABC News is reporting Aussie banks are taking advantage of vulnerable consumers. And you know what my first reaction was? I questioned whether they were also going to tell me the sky is blue, you need oxygen to live and grilled cheese sandwiches are generally made with bread. It's sad our financial systems around the world have become such... I'm trying to think of a word that's less harsh than "cesspools" but has more bite than "meanie companies".

I know my writing this here won't make a lick of difference, but it's time to throw out Thatcherism, Reaganism and it's derivatives that define all regulation as burdens to capitalism and dampners on growth, and regulate the crap out of these guys! The regulations have to make sense; mindless red tape doesn't get us anywhere; but conversely no regulations are not the answer. We need some serious checks, balances (terrible financial puns) and oversight on these guys. And it needs to be done globally.

If we've learned anything from this financial crisis, it's that banks and other large financial institutions cannot be socially or financially responsible by regulating themselves. It didn't work in the 1920s, and it ain't working now.

As for the article about Australian banks? I remember discussing a similar case with a conservative guy on Twitter when the subprime mortgage crisis was first rumbling in the United States. He claimed liberals (American not Australian sense) were to blame for it because they had the gall to want affordable housing for people, which in turn led to unrealistic loans being given out to people who couldn't afford it. It's interesting how predatory lending, extortion and and blatant exploitation of the most vulnerable people in our society can be twisted to be entirely their fault. I would think even from a conservative standpoint this argument wouldn't make sense.

And to think banks around the world are receiving tax dollars to stay viable, only to pull stunts like this on decent people, some of whom perhaps need education in fiscal prudence and management but who nevertheless don't deserve this treatment. It generates some resentment in me, but mostly it just makes me... sad.

clipped from www.abc.net.au

Banks are being accused of exploiting their most vulnerable customers by offering them credit they cannot afford.

Many face bankruptcy with no prospect of paying down debts totalling tens of thousands of dollars and banks are being accused of taking advantage of them during the boom via direct marketing campaigns.

Chris Gration from credit reporting group Veda Advantage says those in the greatest financial trouble are the ones most likely to take up an offer.

NAB says it is winding back its direct mail campaigns and Westpac is doing the same.

But the CBA and ANZ continue to direct market at the same levels they did 12 months ago.

ANZ and Westpac in Adelaide, by Dodge 76

Just when I think it's okay to do business with an Australian bank, a situation like this arises again that makes me remember why I went with a credit union. Go Australian Central!

This morning I went across the street and down the block to our local Australian and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ Bank) branch with deposit book in hand to pay the rent. I get paid into a Singaporean account which means I could theoretically do a telegraphic transfer direct into my landlords account, but ironically it's much faster and cheaper to just use my Singapore ATM card to take out the rent from the machine outside then walk in and pay the rent manually. Welcome to the 21st century.

After withdrawing said funds I proceeded inside, took a number from the machine and sat down to wait. I was the only person in the bank; quite literally. There wasn't anyone behind any of the teller windows or the consultation desks. After a few minutes of waiting I cleared my throat loudly causing a woman to appear from what I assumed was a break room or something.

Now generally what happens is I hand over the deposit book and the cash, the person behind the counter deposits it, and I'm on way way. You know, what the people there are supposed to do.

Today though after I had handed over the deposit book the teller noticed I was making a rental payment, so she asked me if I had contents insurance. I replied I did not, and I explained that we're just studying here and anything of any real value is in either my bag or my sister's bag when we leave the house. We're being irresponsible she said. She said we needed to start taking our home responsibilities seriously.

I've been told I look younger that 22 years old because I'm fairly pale and don't have any facial hair, but even if this were true and I was only 18 I didn't appreciate being talked to in such a condescending tone. She acted as though we had just left high school and needed to be talked to like kids.

This verbal jousting though was only just beginning. When I reiterated why I wasn't interested in contents insurance because it would cost more than the goods it's supposed to protect, she proceeded to open a new window on her computer terminal and started asking for my contact details, where I lived, whether I was a student, what my income was, whether I had an existing account with ANZ... and so on. I refused to disclose the information because I didn't want any more junk text messages or advertisement phone calls than I already get, but she kept pressing me for information.

Finally I just instructed her to please make the deposit I asked her to, and to please stop trying to sell me a product I didn't want or ask for. At this stage she took on a defensive tone, as if she was just trying to help us and I was being ungrateful! What should have been a 20 second transaction took over 5 minutes (not including the waiting beforehand).

What I didn't tell her was that I was interested in contents insurance at one point but that I did the number crunching several months earlier and determined even with a minimal excess it just wasn't worth it. I get the feeling telling her this wouldn't have made much difference.

I may change my mind in the future though; perhaps at some point I will look into getting contents insurance once we have more than just a microwave, a table and a few chairs in this house. What I will keep in mind for future reference though is that I will not be looking into any insurance products from ANZ. What an irritating waste of time.