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From: jab@uokvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Don't Bank On It - (nf)
Message-ID: <5357@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 3-Feb-84 23:39:02 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.5357
Posted: Fri Feb  3 23:39:02 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 8-Feb-84 05:44:00 EST
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#R:uicsl:4300134:uokvax:2200027:000:3289
uokvax!jab    Feb  1 22:10:00 1984

I agree, although for different reasons.

(To people who are running "news" (boo, hiss), the story is that this
student at U of I isn't really keen on the fact that banks have you
over a barrel and let you know it, and an Oklahoma City person agrees.
The above sentence, therefore, means that "I agree with the agreement.")

I just bought most of an apartment full of furniture. Hearing that "getting
a loan for such things helps the credit rating," I proceeded to hit up my
local bank for the cash. (Keep in mind that I just got out of school, don't
own a car, etc...) The officials at the bank were less than polite when they
told me that unless I either had something for them to hold (I got the
impression that they wanted my first-born) or a cosigner, I could take my
business elsewhere.

"Sure, Jeff," I hear you say. "It's bad business to loan money without something
like that!" Well, fine, but there has to be a way out of this "Catch-22". I got
them to tell me that if I wanted the money badly enough, I should deposit an
equivalent amount in savings and let them use it as collateral. (I'm not keen
on THAT, either.) After getting the money to put into the savings account, I
found out that the processing of the loan would take long enough for a
particular sale I was interested in to end. In short, getting the loan would
cost me interest, frustration, and about $700 extra because of the time delay.

I borrowed the money from myself. No paperwork, no time delays, no nasty bank
officials.

---

Perhaps I should tell you about the time that I deposited a check for $150
in the 24-hour machine and verified that $100 had been added to my balance,
as far as the computer for the 24-hour machine was concerned. (The $100 was
a figure that someone had decided on as the most that the computer could
assume was "safe". Any larger amount had to wait for the humans to verify.
Okay, I can understand that.)

The balances on the computer were synchronized with the bank's balances every
night at midnight. You can imagine my suprise when I tried to draw money out
the next day (for a haircut!) and the damn thing had totally forgotten about
my $150 deposit! It wasn't even kind enough to remember the $100 credit that
it had registered the previous day.

"Okay," I said. "The computer's out of sync with reality. I need $15, and
I need it NOW. How can I convince the computer that I have the money?" (You
should remember that a student's account tends to run on "empty" a lot.)

Well, you can guess. I wrote a check to myself and deposited it into the 
24-hour machine. This was just like cashing a check, I told myself. I know
that there's money in the account to cover it, so there's no problem. The
computer then registered my balance to something reasonable and let me
withdraw my $15. I went to my appointment and forgot all about it.

The bank called me up and told me that they were turning off my card. They
were SURE that I was trying to rip them off (like the roommate of mine who
financed a color TV with a 24-hour card!) and so on.

I switched banks to a bank with a more primitive (read: usable) 24-hour
machine. (Technology's all fine and well, but keep those Cobol programmers
away from me!)

	Jeff Bowles
	Lisle, IL

(Forgive me, Captain Hopper, for I have sinned.)