Surviving

I do some part time driving hauling railroad crews to their trains patiently waiting on siding around the Nebraska countryside. I go as far West as Ravenna, NE and as far East as Creston, IA. Toss Sioux City in on the North and Kansas City on the South and you have my box of influence.

Sometimes, the conversation is very interesting. Most of the time it isn't. But last night was very interesting. The crew was engaged in a conversation about surviving. No, I am not talking about surviving my driving or them surviving their train trip, I am talking about people surviving in a country that could see total collapse.

Can't happen you say. I heard that on my Kilo Mike book tour and then 9/11 happened. Now this crew was a little different than most. They were Iraq and Afghanistan vets. I might add, highly trained ones.

And unlike most Americans, they are prepared. If the food supply got interrupted it wouldn't take long before shelves went empty and people started looking at your food as their food. Your animals would be their food. Your water would be their water. They are prepared for a total civil breakdown.

They discussed the various ways to purify water. They discussed the best places to go for such a problem. They discussed food. They discussed guns and which ones to have and for what purpose.

(My 380 is almost worthless because I can't find ammo for it.) They own 40 and 9mm guns. They own AK's. They own 22's and 17's. They are trained in how to use these guns and others and they have trained their wives and children.

They're ready. I am not. Are you?

Don't think it can't happen. A lot of things that can't happen already have.

The End of Fee Fargo

Let the horses and the chariot of the Wild West past on. I am done with this lame excuse of a bank. An overdraft fee on an insurance fee on a Wells Fargo insurance plan that I canceled finally sealed the deal. In questionable practices lingo, that's called a fee on a fee.

I was furious.

What set me off was a call from the "overdraft department" of Fee Fargo. "You will have to pay this our we will report it to the check approval companies and you won't be able to write any checks," the dizzy bitch on the other end of the phone said. She apparently thought I would drop to my knees and plead for mercy.

I unloaded. I told her that the overdraft was caused by a trial of an insurance product. The product came in a Fee Fargo promotional letter to me. The product had a two month "Free" trail period. I made a mistake and said OK. I corrected the mistake and called them after one month and canceled. At the end of two months, they billed and caused an overdraft to the no-longer-used account. Close the damn account!

Miss Sure of Herself told me she could not close the account because guess what..."it has a negative balance."

You caused the negative balance, Miss Dizzy Bitch. Close the account.

No, she didn't have the authority to do that. She was just a phone harasser.

About that time, CNN ran a story about how big banks, the big three, to be exact, were charging their customers more fees to make up for losses in their credit card division. Good for you Fee Fargo. Off to the bank.

I was hot when I entered the main downtown branch of Fee Fargo. After enduring their pleasantries of "Welcome to Fee Fargo, how can we help you today?"

"Close my damn account."

The "personal" banker looked around at the people waiting in lines to get some service from Fee Fargo who were now looking and listening to me.

"Well our systems are down so I can't close it right now," Mr. Helpful said.

I told him about the overdraft.

"Well I can't close a negative account. We will have to file a fraud request and recover that and then refund your overdraft fee."

"Send it back, return the fee NOW, and close the account," I said. "It's not that hard."

We went round and round and the volume went up and up until some in the line were listening.

"Please give me two minutes in my office," he said.

Twenty minutes later, my account was still overdrawn. My account was still open. I would receive a packet in a few days from the great Fee Fargo out there. I needed to fill out and sign what was ever in the packet and return it. Pending that, the fee would be credited to my account.

If Warren Buffet thinks this outfit is a winner, he is about to lose a lot of money.

Fee Fargo is good at screwing people and they use a network of local dummies with no authority to get the job done.

Some of my business friends have been teasing me for a long time about why I still banked at Fee Fargo. They learned the poor service/high fee lessons a long time ago.

Most people feel shame when they overdraw an account and banks play on that. Your "free checking" account at some institutions is planned to generate 9 overdrafts a year with overdraft fees ranging from lows around $20 to the real stinger in the mid to high $30 range that you will find at place like Fee Fargo.

To hell with shame. Let's remember who is really writing the biggest bad checks. 1929. The South American loan crisis. The Savings and Loan crisis. And now the current mess. In all of those instances, Fee Fargo had a hand in creating them and had a hand out for a taxpayer bailout to save them. Maybe this time, they should go the route of the DeSoto or Chrysler.

If we are going to have a secure banking system, the people overseeing them have to be more upright than the ones we have doing that job now. Sen. Dodd got a sweetheart deal from Countrywide. I don't want to know about Congressman Frank's sweetheart deals. Both have to go and some of the corrupt banks have to go with them. Gitmo might be a good place for them to go.

Get a smaller bank like Pinnacle. You'll get the service you really should get instead of the screwing you might get from a bank that has a history of screwing the country.