Privacy?? You ain’t got no stinking privacy!!
Let me tell you about a five minute experience down at my local bank today. I use Wells Fargo simply because the branch is close and I never leave much in there anyhow except for a lockbox..
My eldest daughter remarried a few months ago hence a last name change. Since she’s the primary Successor to our Trust I decided to do a little maintenance on the Trust, went to the bank a copy of Trust out of the lockbox to markup for the paralegal at my lawyer’ office…
Big Surprise! We no longer had access to our own lock box and a big red flag was stuck in the folder saying that one of the signees had a last name change. This was true because, as successor trustee, our daughter had signed the access card to the box (long time ago).. Now she had moved to Arizona and gotten remarried. So what? you say? We never advised the bank of the change, yet here it was with a big RED Notice that locked us out of our own lockbox because one of the signees for the box had changed her last name..
Now ain’t that cool! Upon thinking about this for a while I’ve come to one conclusion. Wells Fargo (and if they’re doing it, so is everybody else that you have any accounts with) is using bots to continually sweep the public records sites throughout this country (and who knows where else) and compares each and every name/I.D. against a list of Wells Fargo customers and their accounts.
My daughter did two things; she changed her driver’s license to Arizona (public record) and changed her telephone number. Her address was, of course, changed and if I can think of it, I’ll ask her what other public records she modified upon moving.
Now sweeping public records is not illegal or really an invasion of privacy. You stick your name, address, telephone or other personal data out there on a publicly accessible data base, you loose any rights of privacy. But you never think about the tentacles of slimy bots combing through such mundane data and just think of the total picture they could construct if they had a mind to do it.
But the simple fact that a lock-box account at a Bank in a separate State that she does not do business with (except to be signed on our lockbox) triggered a flag that ended up in our file is quite a remarkable achievement especially if thousands of businesses, local, state and federal governments do the same.
Think about it before you pass out anything that can (or could) be sucked up and used in some fashion.
MA
We must assume that every phone call, text, e-mail, internet purchase, &TC is monitored and recorded by someone, somewhere. 1984 anyone?
Muck, as soon as you get it sorted out and your daughter is back in town have all trustees attempt to access the box to verify there are no hang ups.
For everyone else with a safe deposit box, this is nothing new. Banks have routinely used obituaries and death records to lock people out of safe deposit boxes. Best not keep a will or anything else in a SDB that might be needed after your death as it will take a court order to open the box and then the contents have to go through probate.
Muck – very interesting story! Thanks for posting it.
I wouldn’t trust ANY bank with my valuables in a safe deposit box, and certainly not Wells Fargo.
Fuck a ‘safety deposit box’… it’s not safe for YOU. It’s safe for the fucking BANKS and their IRS goon buddies.
Ever since I found out that way back during the FDR administration, The Powers That Be declared that if you had a safety deposit box and you wanted to access it, it could only be done “legally” if there was an IRS agent there with you at the time…
Yeah… fuck that.
Meaning, you want to squirrel away anything of any value? Then wrap that shit up in plastic, throw it in a steel 20mm ammo can with a handful of O2 absorbers and moisture absorbers, slam the lid and bury that shit in a place only you know about… and not someplace obvious like “in the rose garden” or some shit. Burying it and then pouring a thin concrete walkway over it would be better. Burying it NOT on your property would be best…
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These fuckers got some beef! It would take decades for them to rust out, especially if you wrapped the ammo can in heavy plastic first, and then sealed it like a mylar bag. They’re air- and water-tight. Just use some spray silicone on the rubber gasket before burying it, so the rubber doesn’t decay. They’re even thick enough so that you can weld a steel hasp for a padlock on it.
Fuckin’ thieves…
Billy, when you say not on your property what do you mean? I’ve heard this before in gold bug forums. So, where the fuck are you going to bury your loot, lockbox? Your buddy’s backyard? In a public park?
Come on Archie, use your imagination. We all own land in every state of this country. This trick is to pick a spot not subject to the building of logging roads, unstable geology, flooding or prospecting.
IS, I don’t have an imagination! Seriously, if I bury something that is mine on someone else’s property, and if said something is found by person X, isn’t that something his?
What is the argument against burying something, a valuable pile of old shoes for example, on your property? Really, I don’t get it.
Got my coin collection out of my SDB that I had with BOA.If /when that bank collapses they will take anything in those boxes. They could do it using a bank holiday as an excuse. I put my coins in my gun safe.Thieves would have to tear out the floor to get anything.
Hey, Archie. Relax buddy. Store your valuables on your own property (properly sealed and contained) and forget about it. Worrying about this sort of shit all the time can/will make you miserable.
Use a local credit union and stay away form the big banks like Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, etc. These big banks are nothing but predators. The local credit unions lend you money at lower rates, charge you lower fees and do not use Gestapo tactics whenever they feel like it. If everyone did this, the big banks would disappear and cease to be a problem
Archie,
IS is correct. Use your imagination.
Folks buried stuff all over the place in the past to keep their valuables safe. If you’ve got some shit to stash – PM’s, guns, ammo, whatever – then split it up into more than one cache. Yes, you run the risk of having someone else find it, but you can minimize that by being smart. (Being smart means don’t do shit like making a big “X” over the cache site). Ever hear of the Confederate Gold that’s buried all over the South? That shit is REAL. Knights of the Golden Circle. They left themselves – and other initiates – clues as to where the burial sites were, so only an initiate can decipher the signs. They also doubled down by leaving a shitload of false clues to misdirect anyone who came looking afterwards…
I’m not saying go to that level of sophistication – you can if you want – but take a page from their playbook. Be smart – Don’t bury shit on your own property because that’s the first place anyone will look. Concealing the site by covering it with something semi-permanent is also viable.
Archie, from one of my favorite mags:
Hiding a gun, or coins, or……..
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/wolfe140.html
Anybody see what is happening in France? You have to prove you are not a terrorist before you can claim your money.
“Recently, France decided to crack down on those people who make cash payments and withdrawals and who hold small bank accounts. The reason given was, not surprisingly, to “fight terrorism,” the handy catchall justification for any new restriction governments wish to impose on their citizens. French Finance Minister Michel Sapin stated at the time, “[T]errorism feeds on fraud, money laundering, and petty trafficking.”
And so, in future, people in France will not be allowed to make cash payments exceeding €1,000 (down from €3,000). Additionally, cash deposits and withdrawals totaling more than €10,000 per month will be reported to Tracfin—an anti-fraud and money laundering agency.
Currency exchange will also be further restricted. Anyone changing over €1,000 to another currency (down from €8,000) will be required to show an identity card.
Do you need to make a deposit on a car? That might be suspect. Did you just deposit a dividend you received? It might be a payment from a terrorist organisation. Planning a holiday and need some cash? You might need to be investigated for terrorism.”
I’m sorry Archie but if the man or anyone else shows up to take your shit that you’d rather not have taken, you’ll just have to tell ’em to help themselves. A hundred bucks says you’ll develop some imagination after it’s gone.
I don’t actually expect door to door confiscations but I’m ready just in case and if I fail to retrieve a stash it’s fun to think that eventually I’ll make someones day or maybe life.