Remember that guy a few years ago who figured out to hack into ATM codes so that every time someone made a deposit, the software rounded it up to the nearest dime and deposited the difference -- never more than a few pennies -- to his own account? He made millions, because there were so many deposits -- until he was detected by penny-chasing software. The discrepancies were so small that they went unnoticed.
Something like that seems to be going on all the time, not just at the level of toxic loans, insecure securities, and underwater mortgages, but also at the gas pump, the grocery store, and the county clerk’s office, little bits of chiseling, add-ons and sleight-of-hand. I’m foaming over the latter today because I went down to the county court house to register a “beneficiary deed” which on my death will automatically transfer the ownership of this house to my niece without probate. I thought I was escaping lawyers. What I discovered was that I could not register this document without a “Realty Transfer Certificate,” a “confidential tax document” that makes her liable for any county taxes on the property. At this point she would not have to pay the taxes until my death, which makes it seem all harmless, but who knows what circumstances will be when I DO die? She might not be in a position to pay any taxes and there may not be potential to sell this house. It might be a liability instead of a bequest. What the State wants is to know ahead of time whom to go after for money. There are lots and houses sitting empty in this town because they are a liability, for instance, the lot where a former gas station’s leaky gas tanks caused contamination VERY expensive to clean up. All inheritors are claiming NOT to have inherited -- in expensive lawsuits, of course.
I keep seeing stories in the newspaper that make me deeply dubious about the practice of levying fines or punishments in the form of imposing a debt. Today there was a story about a woman who embezzled over a hundred thousand dollars. The judge’s sentence was a year in jail and the requirement that she pay back all the money, but how realistic is that? Who will hire an embezzler who’s been sitting around talking about swindles with felons for a year? Assuming she finds a job, at the level of salary she might draw -- which won’t be the top of the market -- how long will it take her to make a hundred thousand dollars? What does she live on? Does the court say how much she can pay for rent, how much for groceries? Won’t she be pretty well trapped unless she embezzles again, this time more cleverly? Or leaves the country?
I just paid off my Exxon bill. Two months ago I paid off the gas I had bought. Since then I’ve been paying off the late fees that were levied because I didn’t have enough money to pay for the gas at what they considered on time. When I first got the charge card, I strictly paid off the total monthly. There was no definition of “late.” Then we went to five dollar gas. Then the bill began to show a “minimum payment” that was acceptable and I used that option. Pretty soon there was a $10 late fee -- which was really unavoidable because the bill always came a couple of weeks later than the others so it was paid in the next Social Security cycle. Then the late fee began to increase. Notification was in those eye-straining tiny print pamphlets that come with the bill. (Unreadable by some elderly.)
Sometimes I sent the money on time, but blizzards and holidays intervened so that it didn’t get there on time. Also, I began to suspect that it DID arrive on time but sat in a pile until someone had time to post it. When I called to protest, the woman on the phone coolly informed me that the solution was to give them access to automatic debit, the ability to take money out of my checking account without my permission or even my knowledge. At the same time my bank began to impose a fee for overdrafts (I’d been exempt as a courtesy for senior citizens) and then raised that fee. I think it’s up to fifty dollars now.
I only have one automatic debit, which is Netflix, $20 a month. Twice I incurred an overdraft fee from the bank because Netflix always debited on the day just BEFORE my SSI deposit showed up in the bank, when funds were lowest. An amount as small as fifty cents can throw one into overdraft. The debit date is the automatic result of the time interval from signup. That is, if you sign up on the tenth, that’s when the debit comes. At least the Netflix telephone staff was willing to explain it all. I had to cancel Netflix, wait until the debit date safely interacted with the deposit date, and then re-enroll. Who knew all this stuff? It was a fifty dollar tutorial. That’s five per cent of my income.
How much sense does it make to impose fees because people don’t have enough money? But if we confine people, which is our only alternative punishment, it costs the PUBLIC money to feed, house and clothe the wicked. Jails are expensive and when we crowd the cells to extreme levels with our severe sentence decisions -- as California has done -- then the courts step in and some felons will go free. Public service sentences quickly becomes a substitute for paying people to do jobs as regular work. Some use credit-rating services as threats, but as we get deeper into the bowels of finance, they turn out to be no indicator of ability to pay.
Will we get so frustrated that we go to Taliban-type whipping? When people used to talk about what would keep drunk drivers from driving, Bob used to remark dryly that if their hands were chopped off, they would drive with their elbows. Will we go to such extremes in our determination to make laws work?
Hopefully, with a new government beginning to take up regulation, inspection and “nudging,” things can be channeled constructively.
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