‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks

#51

Post by lb1lf » Fri, Mar 25, 2022, 2:41 PM UTC

rosndo wrote: post #37

berkes wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me think, that, indeed, the extra friction of paper mail, holds some scammers at bay. When you have to pay the postage and printing costs, it is far less attractive to throw out 10.000 scam mailings, because the ROI is quite likely negative. Edit: whereas with email, you proably need just one of the 10.000 to bite in order to break-even. Whereas the phone company (or any legit business) can easily carry those e…

This is a bizarre idea. Scammers printing scam letters can just as easily print fake postmarks. > When you have to pay the postage and printing costs, it is far less attractive to throw out 10.000 scam mailings, because the ROI is quite likely negative Try to do think about the math here. What kind of scam mail are you sending to reach such bad ROI? Let’s imagine these are fake utility bills for around 50 euros and t…

> This is a bizarre idea.

> Scammers printing scam letters can just as easily print fake postmarks.

-While that is true, it is impractical on at least a couple of levels:

a) You need to get that fake mail into the postal system, somehow - and do so in a way which escapes attention.

b) (The worrying bit, if you're a scammer) - You've just gone from attempted fraud (sending out scam emails) to defrauding the postal service of whatever country you try to pull this one off in; the authorities are quite likely to take a dim view of your efforts.

Re: ‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks

#52

Post by phil21 » Fri, Mar 25, 2022, 2:42 PM UTC

rosndo wrote: post #19

jacquesm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think paper invoices should continue to be the way that this is handled unless otherwise requested, if only because you are - where I live - supposed to be able to prove this sort of thing for many years to the tax man. All these electronic records can disappear into thin air without you even realizing it has happened and good luck on your tax audit 7 years into the future.

Why would you ever need to prove this kind of transactions to the tax man as an individual? As a business it’s your duty to take care of your recordkeeping, print out the invoices if you so prefer.

It's an American urban legend passed down from a time it may or may not have mattered.

What did matter in living memory (thus passed down to at least this generation) is that saving utility bills for 7 year can establish credit.

My parents still tell me to do this to this day, since that's how they were able to qualify for a home loan having not participated in the credit system otherwise.

Nowadays most such transactions are reported to a credit bureau, so they are either already on record or (almost?) no banks will care to see them.

Re: ‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks

#53

Post by AniseAbyss » Fri, Mar 25, 2022, 2:42 PM UTC

Macha wrote: post #3

I've had to assist an elderly neighbour after her phone company cut off her phone service. Why? The way she had paid for it for the preceding 40 years was she would get the paper bill in mail, and then go down to the post office and organise payment using the details in that paper bill. They switched her over to paperless billing with an email that they've done so but you can opt out. She either did not understand th…

"they should just eat the cost"

No consumers will eat the cost of a bunch of boomers who want to keep using cheques.

And here's what will happen: the non boomer consumers will choose a cheaper bank. So unless the government wants to pick up the bill any sensible company will tell those senior citizens to get with the times.

Re: ‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks

#54

Post by grover35 » Fri, Mar 25, 2022, 2:42 PM UTC

Hopefully this is the moment we start realizing that capitalism is not serving the public the way we need it to. How can we expect the old to be cared for without a profit motive? How long will we ignore expert opinion that communism is the most ethical option in nearly every way? How many more cases like this man's will we need to see?

Re: ‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks

#55

Post by akhmatova » Fri, Mar 25, 2022, 2:43 PM UTC

joshstrange wrote: post #46

> it hurts to see that the digital world has dehumanized us to the point that loyalty has lost all of its worth sigh , this has almost nothing to do with the "digital" world as much as it does with the fact that corporations never cared. If they could have saved a single cent by moving to "tellers"/ATMS that were mechanical in nature, 51 years ago when he first opened his account, they would have. The corporations we…

Sigh, it does have to do with the digital world actually (in that everyone now seems to think that everyone is on their platform. Further, it has been been observed that digital systems promote cognitive fatigue and empathy depletion across the board). There's no need to be so dismissive. Sigh.

Re: ‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks

#56

Post by s3ker » Fri, Mar 25, 2022, 2:44 PM UTC

I hate that paywall for reading the article.

Re: ‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks

#57

Post by pif » Fri, Mar 25, 2022, 2:44 PM UTC

joshstrange wrote: post #46

> it hurts to see that the digital world has dehumanized us to the point that loyalty has lost all of its worth sigh , this has almost nothing to do with the "digital" world as much as it does with the fact that corporations never cared. If they could have saved a single cent by moving to "tellers"/ATMS that were mechanical in nature, 51 years ago when he first opened his account, they would have. The corporations we…

> corporations never cared

This is a pet peeve of mine: I understand it can be liberating to blame those greed corporations for giving profit the top priority, but the truth is that corporations never cared because consumers never cared.

We, the consumers, have the nasty habit of looking for cheap before anything else. Whoever tries to sell quality, or to offer his hard-working employees a respectable wage, is painfully bitten by customers moving elsewhere.

The race to the bottom is a bit*h.

Re: ‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks

#58

Post by kube-system » Fri, Mar 25, 2022, 2:45 PM UTC

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #47

kube-system wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first mortgage bill of the year typically includes tax statements for the prior year. Etc.

But the mortgage giver already sends those to the tax authority. How else do you think they have all your mortgage data pre-filled when you file your taxes ?

I wish my tax authority did that... on any of my tax returns.

Re: ‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks

#59

Post by pif » Fri, Mar 25, 2022, 2:47 PM UTC

grover35 wrote: post #54

Hopefully this is the moment we start realizing that capitalism is not serving the public the way we need it to. How can we expect the old to be cared for without a profit motive? How long will we ignore expert opinion that communism is the most ethical option in nearly every way? How many more cases like this man's will we need to see?

> communism is the most ethical option in nearly every way

Citation needed.

Re: ‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks

#60

Post by saganus » Fri, Mar 25, 2022, 2:48 PM UTC

adriand wrote: post #36

Macha wrote: post #3

I've had to assist an elderly neighbour after her phone company cut off her phone service. Why? The way she had paid for it for the preceding 40 years was she would get the paper bill in mail, and then go down to the post office and organise payment using the details in that paper bill. They switched her over to paperless billing with an email that they've done so but you can opt out. She either did not understand th…

I recently endured a Kafka-esque nightmare with my bank. I had this personal VISA card for several years but I rarely used it because I also have a Mastercard that I prefer. Anyway, two years ago when I started my current venture I opened a business bank account with my preferred bank for business banking (same bank I had the personal VISA through), so I applied for a business VISA. At the same time, I told them I wa…

What happened to you is clearly not your fault, but after having similar issues with big institutions, I've realized that doing more than one "important" operation on a " big business/bank" account is always finicky.

So now I do things one at a time.

E.g. To cancel a card, first move all money (or debts) from acct A to acct B. Go home. Couple of days later, pay any outstanding fees of acct A. Go home. Couple of days later, request cancellation. Inevitably find that something else needs to be done, so do that thing. Go home. Couple of days later....

You get the idea. It sucks big time, but I've found it's better that way, since the probability of error is somewhat lower (and even then it happens!)