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Bank of America pisses me off.... I accidentally overdrew my account, put enough money in to cover it same day, and they charged me the $35 overdraft fee... then I had to wait to get paid to put more money in my account, and because their fee made my account negative, they charged me another $35 fee for having a negative account for too long.

yea, I hate bank of america.

Yeah Chase is just as bad, a couple times I made debits the night before I got paid (by direct deposit), and would check the balance the next day, which would show the debit AND the deposit. All's good I thought, and proceeded to pay bills from my account, using the balance shown, Three days later, BAM overdraft fee on the first item and then EVERY OTHER item afterwards because they would withdraw the biggest ones first (overdrawing again because of the first overdraft), then the next, and then the next and so on. Last I checked my account was over $500 in just fees due to this practice. I let my account just sit (mainly because I also lost my job), got the "please pay us" letters, then the "account closed and sent to collection agency" letter and finally the phone calls. When I got the phone call, I told the collection agency to stop calling me, I don't pay thieves to take my money (Chase) and I certainly don't pay the people who buy the 'rights' to the 'debt' I seemingly owed the thieves. After getting the Manager I told him to stop calling me or I'd sue his company for harassment AND report them to the attorney general. Stopped getting calls, but my credit's fethed for a while. Oh well. Somehow I don't think I'm alone in that.

If you're not involved in the games business this piece of news may have slipped your notice.

In the UK, legal censorship of recorded media (tapes, DVDs and some games) is done by the British Board of Film Control, by authority of the Video Recordings Act 1984. The Act makes it illegal to sell a recorded media item in the UK without it having been vetted by either the Video Standards Council or the BBFC. The VSC deals with low rated stuff and refers any high rated stuff to the BBFC for double checking.

It was discovered a couple of weeks ago that the VRA 1984 and its updates in 1993 and 1994 were never referred to the EU Commission. This was an essential legal stage since the Acts affect trading with the EU in recorded media, and potentially violated EU free trading laws. Thus, the Acts are not legal laws and no-one can be prosecuted for not obeying them.

Argument is currently underway whether the hundreds of people/companies who have been prosecuted under the Acts can claim compensation. Some lawyers say yes, and others say no. A decision will come in time, no doubt.

In the meanwhile, the games industry is continuing to use the PEGI system, which is due to replace BBFC for games in a year or two anyway.

What can we think about the politicians who invented this piece of legislation, passed it, reinvented it twice, and never noticed they had DONE IT WRONG.

How many other pieces of law from the past 25 years have been screwed up in some way?

How do some people keep their jobs? We used to say that they must have pictures of the CEO blowing a German Shepard.

MagickalMemories wrote:

Khornholio wrote:Thumbprints to cash a cheque?! Seriously?! Driver's Licenses, military ID cards, passports or any multiple combination of government issued ID is unacceptable even if you aren't a customer of the bank? Seriously? I'm sitting a bubble of disbelief here. WTF is happening in North America? Who are all these "scammers" they are all worried about? The ones they only ever seem to catch work at banks or in high finance like that Madoff guy. But as a poster above stated, we don't know all the facts (the amount of the cheque, etc)

I hope buddy gets a nice settlement from BoA. I'm sure the manager was just following company policy despite the obvious.

Seriously?
Have you ever worked in a bank?
Do you know how many fraudulent items get cashed/processed at bank branches every week?
That isn't even accounting for the ones presented and refused!

I cannot tell you the number of times I've turned people away (or secretly called the police) holding checks that had been reported stolen, or that the sigrature didn't match on. it's ridiculous.

Now, let's bring in the illegal aliens who come in with their paycheck from (enter dodgy employer here) and have 2 ID's. One being a Resident Alien ID card and the other a social security card (if you understand where I'm going, you understand the impossibility of someone having both of those cards)... or (especially) the FAKE Resident Alien ID and fake Social Security card. These fake cocial security cards are printed on basic printer paper, and the FAKE R.A.I.D.'s look like they cut out a picture of themselves, pasted ot over the original image, and laminated the thing.

Yeah. It's big business and needs to be protected against.
I didn't even scratch the sirface above.

One week working in a bank branch would (IMO) change your opinion.

Eric

Yes. I worked in a bank when I was at Uni and then at an investment bank in Tokyo for a few years awhile ago. I'm not doubting anything you're saying. But in how many of your examples above did you need to finger print the guy to figure out that they were trying to fool you and rip the bank off? That was the point I was trying to make. That is why I was gobsmacked with disbelief. Fingerprinting now, retinal scans in a couple of decades and then some DNA scan further down the road just to get access to your cash or to stop nickel and diming chiselers. The real scammers, not some joker with a Driver's License from Home Depot trying to walk off with $100, are in the bank themselves syphoning 100s of thousands to millions of dollars. That was the second point of my post. One week working at investment bank might change your opinon.