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The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars

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Re: The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars

#81

Post by lucastx »

010a wrote: post #54
mathgeek wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Morally, there are several things not to like. Of course, this is arguably no more or less morally sound than someone who legally games the financial system and buys the same lifestyle. Lots of grey areas, I suppose. I keep wanting to compare it to tech firms that profit off chiseling away at our privacy using social and game theory, but I'm not completely convinced that the two systems are similar enough to warrant…

I'm not sure I feel comfortable talking about morality when banks are involved.

“What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?” -- Bertolt Brecht

Re: The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars

#82

Post by jgrahamc »

fastball wrote: post #68
bryanlarsen wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would have crossed the line from being just immoral to being illegal. Not buying the gold bars, but failing to disclose & surrender them during court proceedings.

It's only illegal if you get caught.

Um. No. It's definitely illegal.

Re: The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars

#83

Post by rconti »

dgreensp wrote: post #59

> I was just unlucky I guess that it happened to me. People like this who have no sense of personal responsibility are an evil in the world. He spends millions of dollars of other people's money, declares bankruptcy (presumably), and when his actions are deemed dishonest and immoral, though not technically illegal, he acts like that's just name-calling and gets right back up on his high horse. Remind you of any Presi…

You know, I'm not saying he's a great guy, but that quoted comment seems very out of line from the rest of the article. "I was just unlucky" seems taken out of context somehow. For example, he said he wouldn't have done it again because of how it destroyed his life and wasn't worth it. So I suspect the "luck" was about some narrow specific component and not the fact that he got arrested. Obviously he knows why he got arrested.

Re: The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars

#84

Post by rconti »

scandox wrote: post #20

The big story for me here is: don't rely on your lawyers. Not unless they cost enough to rely on. Form a strong idea of your own case and your own defense. Even if you're not representing yourself.

Don't rely on lawyers working for free.

Re: The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars

#85

Post by pc86 »

TheArcane wrote: post #48
jdavis703 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually called fraud, at least in the US, and will be investigated by the Secret Service. If you experience such a windfall in your account, seek written permission from the bank before spending any of the money.

Isn't the Secret Service supposed to protect the president?

They were a part of the Treasury Department until 2003 (now DHS) and deal with counterfeiting and other financial crimes. I don't know for sure that fraud like this would land in the Secret Service queue and not the FBI but it's certainly plausible. It mostly depends on which specific statute(s) you're being investigated for as to which agency(ies) do the investigating.

Re: The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars

#86

Post by rconti »

jomohn wrote: post #10
jlebrech wrote: post #5

they weren't charging him interest? if so, why waste money on things that don't yield a return on investment. you could day trade and just put it back in the account. and that way you probably wouldn't get arrested.

>you could day trade and just put it back in the account. That way he would have spent just as much money, but sitting in front of a computer instead of being coked up with strippers.

Ironically, despite having all the money he could spend, he STILL ended up starting a business!

Re: The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars

#87

Post by bluejekyll »

ben0x539 wrote: post #75

> My six months behind bars gave me a unique perspective on jail. I suspect it's really not all that unique.

Well, it's unique in that most people still don't spend that time in jail, and then on top of that he was able to get out without any criminal record.

It did give him enough experience to find something worth doing with his life.

Re: The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars

#88

Post by TAForObvReasons »

mikeash wrote: post #65
dgreensp wrote: post #59

> I was just unlucky I guess that it happened to me. People like this who have no sense of personal responsibility are an evil in the world. He spends millions of dollars of other people's money, declares bankruptcy (presumably), and when his actions are deemed dishonest and immoral, though not technically illegal, he acts like that's just name-calling and gets right back up on his high horse. Remind you of any Presi…

Seriously, what an asshole. He "was just unlucky"? No, there was not a single piece of bad luck for him in this whole affair. Something strange happened to him, but it was easy to handle without screwing anything up: just tell the bank they messed up, or even just ignore it. Deciding to start spending the money like crazy was not bad luck, it was bad judgment. The bank was clearly in the wrong as well. They shouldn't…

> No, there was not a single piece of bad luck for him in this whole affair. Something strange happened to him, but it was easy to handle without screwing anything up: just tell the bank they messed up, or even just ignore it. Deciding to start spending the money like crazy was not bad luck, it was bad judgment.

There's another way to look at it: The "bad judgment" is only bad if you view the standard as "tell[ing] the bank they messed up". If the standard is to blow all the money on strippers and cocaine, then the bad luck in this situation was that he was presented with the anomaly in the first place.

Re: The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars

#90

Post by johnward »

adekok wrote: post #51

The article doesn't way why he was found not guilty, but I'll make my guess. He did nothing to defraud the bank or mislead it. He simply had access to a large line of credit, and used it. If the bank wants it's money back, that's a civil matter, not a criminal one. It's their responsibility to ask for it back. This reeks of incompetence on the part of the bank, followed by outright malice. They put an innocent guy in…

Things like this are why it takes me 3 months and numerous trips to the bank to get a home equity loan. I also need to provide proof of what I was going to do with the money. On the plus side I got to witness the loan agent having to use a typewriter in 2016.
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