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

nytimes.com

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

#81

Post by vorpalhex »

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…

I find it so obnoxious when people put sighs in comments as if they are talking down to a dumb child that my instinct is to immediately jump to insulting them.

The worst part is that the sigh always precedes some generic hot take with no evidence or actual argument, just some copypasta we've seen on twitter before.

If you think the response to someone is stupidly obvious, then don't say it. Keep it to yourself.

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

#82

Post by Femtio »

kradeelav wrote: post #70
AniseAbyss wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Checks are awesome - I use them all the time and I'm at least a third of the age of the elderly. Accessibility is huge to think about especially with "requireables" like the banks, and so it's just good practice and the right thing to do to think about the elderly and edge cases for folks who don't do email/smartphones. It pays to have empathy to all cross sections of society, not just the ones that are the most visi…

Checks are ridiculously stupid. They are not save, expensive and you need to go to the bank to cash them in.

All of this just because our society is to stupid?

Old people are not stupid, they are just old. They should be able to either teach themselves or being teached.

Our society should focus on helping them to navigate the current world and not try to keep things like checks alive.

And I'm pissed about this though because I believe it's a mindset thing which needs to change to be able to act on real problems like climate change.

When I talk to old people about solar energy holy shit do they care more about how those Solarpanel look at buildings then the benefit of them.

If we don't help those people they are being limited by society one way or the other anyway!

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

#83

Post by pndy »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #65
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…

Doing that by email is a real dick move. They should send a letter with the last bill. And do it opt in of course. Old people are exactly the type of people that would carefully study letters that come in the post. Unlike people my age that would bin anything that comes with the bill thinking it's probably just commercial crap. But of course this is precisely the reason they do it by email. Dark pattern..

> And do it opt in of course.

In my case, ISP charges you extra if you decide to keep the paper bills instead going for "eco bill" pdf file send by an email; same goes if you decide to opt-out from company selling your number elsewhere. Last time while getting new contract, 3 different people at local company's office tried to convince me that I can "win some fantastic rewards" if I decide to let them do with my number and personal information whatever they like.

I did opt-outed but they manage to sell all my numbers present on account elsewhere and somehow every month around time when bills arrive, I'm getting bombarded by robocalls - either about photovoltaics or central heating replacements. They claim they didn't do it but they can't explain why newly added number that has all opt-outs receives calls at the same time with the rest.

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

#84

Post by nix0n »

berkes wrote: post #13
dazc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, my dad sometimes receives random scam bills via email from [insert well-known company name here] and I tell him to instantly delete them.

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…

You're probably right, but I think a bigger factor is that if someone pays by mail, a scammer will find it difficult to cash a check that's made out to the utility company.

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

#85

Post by athriren »

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 ?

In the United States, even paying for the highest level of TurboTax does not get me the ability to have my mortgage information prefilled. Still have to enter the information that Chase sent to the IRS on an IRS form in manually on my form. Tax preparation in the US is truly the wild west.

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

#87

Post by ben_w »

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…

I had a similar thing a few years ago only with the police and a speeding ticket.

Before me, the car was owned by my then-partner, who had just moved from the UK to California. I was to sell the car on her behalf, and the registered owner being in a different country is a really suspicious warning sign so we changed the ownership to me so I could sell it more easily.

A week later, I did sell it, and did all the relevant change-of-ownership paperwork again.

Six months later, the police sent me — not my partner, not the new owner — a speeding ticket. It took more than one go for me to prove I didn’t own the car.

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

#88

Post by Femtio »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #71
AniseAbyss wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

As if the cost for those few bills make a dent in a bank's operating costs. The government invents money by the billions die these guys. The least they can do is provide some service.

This is very unlogical:

Gov creates money not the banks. They do have operational costs.

And it is not one person who needs to accept checks, every branch has to support this.

I have not been to a bank for the last 10 years. They are obsolete. And those buildings are expensive and they have to be able to compete with online banks. It's not even an option for them to just keep those buildings.

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

#89

Post by reaperducer »

jacquesm wrote: post #9
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 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.

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.

I've never understood the value of "paperless" to the consumer. The benefit to the company is the savings of 3½¢ of postage and mailing expenses. But to the consumer...?

I pay my bills online, but I make sure I still get my statements by mail. I also balance my accounts from those statements each month, and every year I catch one or two errors, and they're almost always in favor of the banks.

Logically, I should be able to do the same thing by looking at my accounts online. But paper statements present the information in a different way than online, often to comply with laws about clear billing and communication. What's on paper sometimes very different from what's on the screen.

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

#90

Post by belval »

pif wrote: post #57
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 painfu…

People don't like that explanation, it's hard to look in the mirror and accept that you are part of the problem.

It's like printed high-quality investigation journalism. We all decry that it's on its way out but the vast majority of us won't consider paying a 300$/year subscription even if most of the HN reader base could absolutely afford it. We just don't want to pay for stuff.

It's the same thing (to a lesser extent) with stocks and investment. I own a bunch of REIT (real-estate trust fund) because they give a great stable return that loosely follow inflation. A few months ago, my landlord increased my rent by 5% I was angry, felt like it was too much etc... but my landlord is very much the result of my investments pushing for inflation-matching dividends. If they don't meet the market expectation they'll just drop in value.

Anyway long story short we are part of the problem.

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