Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 254 posts

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#241

Post by lazide »

mywittyname wrote: post #222
lazide wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which if you have a dashcam, paperwork, and lawyers could put him in jail or get you shot. You do have enough lawyers right?

None of this matters. The police are definitely not going to be put in jail for doing their job. And seizing "large amounts" of cash falls squarely into their job description. The department has an army of lawyers who deal with civil asset forfeiture all the time, and they can call in federal assistance if needed. There's a 95% chance the department will keep all of the cash, and in the other 5% they merely keep some…

Civil asset forfeiture requires some degree of at least suspicion that things are not above board, AND they need to know it’s there. A receipt for a cash withdrawal sitting on top of the stack of cash that 100% shows every dollar came from a legit bank? And it was in a place you didn’t give them consent to search, and you can show there was no probable cause to search?

Someone’s gonna lose their job over that, at least if you have enough lawyers

Where civil asset forfeiture comes in hard core is when you can’t show the source of the money.

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#242

Post by lazide »

garmaine wrote: post #179
lazide wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which if you have a dashcam, paperwork, and lawyers could put him in jail or get you shot. You do have enough lawyers right?

No because once your money is charged (not you, your money) it is very difficult to get standing to fight it unless you luck out with the judge or something. And no matter the outcome the cop never sees consequences because of qualified immunity.

Nah, if you can show the source of the money was legit (drawn from a legit bank for instance), you at a minimum have a solid claim for civil damages.

Where the civil asset forfeiture stuff really gets people is when they don’t have a paper trail.

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#243

Post by bouncycastle »

stronglikedan wrote: post #238
bouncycastle wrote: post #218

I like to use cash for the privacy. If you are concerned about giving your data to Facebook, then you should also be concerned about giving your data to the banks. I'd argue that the banks have more important information on you, and you never known who they share it with

I like to use cash for the bribery. Not the illegal/corrupt kind, but the little things. Like not having to wait for a table at a restaurant, or having my valeted car already at the curb when I walk out. There will always be a place for cash.

Exactly! Cash is king in this. You can just slip it under, no need for anyone to carry electronic terminals and fiddling with buttons or touch screens.

And also vending machines! (Especially when you're a tourist in another country.)

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#244

Post by knownjorbist »

hunterb123 wrote: post #219
knownjorbist wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't the same at all, other than it's a lot of money going somewhere in the middle east. It was their own money being returned to them and not pallets earmarked for development disappearing into the night.

Well that's the official story. The ulterior is it was basically a ransom payment for hostages released at the same time. But really I was just noting how we love sending pallets of cash to our adversaries. We have no way of knowing how they spent those pallets of bank notes in either exchange. The whole point was our government loves to use cash in deals yet label civilians with too much cash as criminals!

The former was not sending pallets of cash to our adversaries.

Agreed that asset forfeiture should be illegal.

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#245

Post by OldHand2018 »

tobyjsullivan wrote: post #228
r00f wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be just bank policy, not related to any shortage or whatever. My bank allowed me to withdraw $ 30k, and didn't even ask why, they just said "come tomorrow, we don't have that cash today".

Yeah, it's not a shortage. It's bank policy to mitigate the risk of bank runs. What bothered me was the 24hr (or 48 hr in my case) notice requirement. That day I learned that my money is only actually mine (in the sense that I can use it as I please) if the bank decides to allow me. As time goes on, those dollar maximums and notice periods are malleable and completely outside my control.

> That day I learned that my money is only actually mine (in the sense that I can use it as I please) if the bank decides to allow me.

It’s possible that the kind of account you have with that bank plays a role here. There has been a lot of deregulation over the last 10 years or something, but it used to be that your account had a descriptive name - passbook savings, demand deposit, etc. And those names meant something! A demand account meant you could demand your money any time you wanted, but it was against the law to earn interest. A passbook savings account earned interest, but you were limited in how often you could take money out, etc.

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#246

Post by garmaine »

lazide wrote: post #241
mywittyname wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this matters. The police are definitely not going to be put in jail for doing their job. And seizing "large amounts" of cash falls squarely into their job description. The department has an army of lawyers who deal with civil asset forfeiture all the time, and they can call in federal assistance if needed. There's a 95% chance the department will keep all of the cash, and in the other 5% they merely keep some…

Civil asset forfeiture requires some degree of at least suspicion that things are not above board, AND they need to know it’s there. A receipt for a cash withdrawal sitting on top of the stack of cash that 100% shows every dollar came from a legit bank? And it was in a place you didn’t give them consent to search, and you can show there was no probable cause to search? Someone’s gonna lose their job over that, at lea…

It requires no such thing. Police have argued (successfully) many times in many jurisdictions that the mere possession of large amounts of cash is suspicious in and of itself, and being able to show legal sources is pointless because the argument is that it COULD be used for a crime.

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#247

Post by chiph »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #100
chiph wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hurricane season started in the southeastern US on June 1st. It's not uncommon for folks to have a few hundred in cash for when the power goes out and the credit card terminals aren't working.

Sometimes the card systems don't work on a normal day. I was checking out food at a supermarket with debit when the card reader crashed. Cashier rebooted it but it complained that I didn't have enough money in the account, which I definitely did. I checked my banking app and it showed as if the transaction had succeeded, but the supermarket couldn't produce a receipt and refused to give me the groceries. When I calle…

The other advantage to having some cash post-hurricane is in getting your roof repaired. Roofing contractors will put customers paying with cash at the top of their list.

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#248

Post by lazide »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #201
lazide wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[ https://www.hyundaimib.com/tech-guide/ocr/ ] Up to the bank as to what level of detail they record and where the data goes, but the sensors are usually there. If you know 100 people pulled cash out of various amounts over time, and 1 person deposited $100 from each of them - that tells you 100 people all made nearly the same purchase of something around $100 from that person correct? Even better if some portion of…

The great thing about cash is you can use it everywhere, not just for things you want to keep on the down low. You take that fat stack of bills you made selling dime bags and you go to Walmart and you buy groceries with it or whatever. Only the things that require a non-cash method of payment need to involve the banking system. Even then you can buy prepaid visa gift cards to handle most of those case if you're ok wi…

Hard to do that with a million/month though (like the local dispensary seems to do)

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#249

Post by leppr »

mdp2021 wrote: post #199
leppr wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's much much harder to acquire a privacy-respecting contactless payment setup than carry a bunch of coins.

> privacy-respecting contactless payment setup Do you know any? If I could vet its security and """reasonably total""" privacy, the idea could be tempting - e.g. to buy a cheap device to only do monetary transactions. I am not sure, first of all, how you would transform cash into credit into a personal device.

I don't know of a way that's both widespread, cheap and legal.

* Country-specific: prepaid cards like Suica in Japan, purchasable with cash from ATMs.

* Not that cheap: offshore bank account.

* Not legal: crypto card with "borrowed" KYC.

So basically unless you're lucky to be living in a country with a privacy-respecting culture, you have to act like a criminal to regain the basic right to privacy.

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#250

Post by FateOfNations »

silexia wrote: post #239

Wells Fargo recently charged me $12 to deposit $9,000 cash. I have more cash, but why would I deposit it if they take it? I can use it to get discounts from service companies instead.

Transacting in cash isn't as "free" as many people like to think. There are real costs associated with processing, transporting, and securing it that someone has to pay.
Post reply on HN