Walmart's effort to get customers to build up their savings accounts

Indeed. And I'm still paying for it after many years. I got fucked over with payment reordering for bank-profit maximization, even with "overdraft" disabled. Didn't matter. Because whatever the bank says, is the ordained truth. And when your name gets on ChexSystems and other lists, you're done for.

My wife was did in similarly. The local credit union said she owed $120 for previous account issues that pertained to her then ex-husband. Didn't matter. The bank said it was hers, and too bad. There is no recourse. The bank/CU is god, no if's ands or buts. And suffice it to say, if you're in this position, there's no money for a libel suit (which is what it is, without a court determination).

> "Check-cashing outfits, payday lenders, and similar businesses are often thought of as merely preying on poor people, who, the conventional wisdom goes, tend to make bad financial decisions. Lisa Servon, a University of Pennsylvania professor of city and regional planning, offers a different angle in her recent book, The Unbanking of America: How the New Middle Class Survives. During Servon’s research working as a teller at a check casher and payday lender, consumers told her that the fee structures of nonbank alternatives were more transparent and predictable than those at conventional banks—crucial to anyone living on a budget."

I would agree with the transparency discussion. But it's also much more predatory. They get their pound of flesh. And this flesh is taken every time you use it. Banks do cover up and obfuscate their fee structure, but if you have the usual minimum balance, you'll never see this. Banks also rely on lack of CSR's for rich people. Because money's nothing, not a big deal. Bills are minuscule compared to income.

> I understand where you're coming from, I was in the payday loan trap at one point.. robbing peter to pay paul as it were, I made much less than 40k a year, its only in the last 5 years I've started to get north of 50k, and gotten comfortable.. now I save save save..

Yeah, it's not common to see people here who know what this all means. Fortunately, I was able to avoid the payday trap.. But not student loan trap, credit card trap, medical trap.. Right now, I have a garnishment for an injury sustained in 2008. Had insurance, but the physical therapy "wasn't approved". For a while, I was job hopping a bit and stayed ahead of the garnishments. And unemployment is ungarnishable in Indiana.

Credit cards.. Well. I had them when I had a job. Paying them down is hard without one. But it's easy money to get food and basics when you're waiting for unemployment. Fortunately, a few of them have been written off.. but that just burns another bank. At least Google Voice allows me to shitcan creditors, especially when I dont have the capability to pay.

School debt is a whole 'nther area. I got into my accident which caused my medical debt, but also caused all those classes to fail. But the school gets their cut, regardless if you do well or not. The school can do horrendously, apathetically, and cutthroat.. and they're guaranteed their money no matter what.

I did schooling at a "proper 4 year university" with frankly nothing to show for it. And I believe this burden should also be shared in part with the organization that also failed me in my educational goals. But, even this "Public University" is run much more as a Business than a public trust or institution. But likely, I'll be paying this off with garnishments in my Social Security.

In reality, this whole area is a sore point. Many people here, given the focus of HN, will never have to suffer like this. They'll also never know the pain of hurting, and not being able to fix (no medical care). They'll not know what it means to go hungry because you're waiting for the unemployment to start along with food stamps. They won't know the shame of walking into the food pantry, or using the foodstamp card. Nor will they see the looks you get, when you borrow your mother's vehicle to get the groceries... How dare you not be dressed in tatters and driving a rust-eaten beater truck.

It comes down to understanding "Us" vs "Them". I was an "Us", and remember that well. I'm on my way to being a "Them". Faking it, living the culture, understanding the nuance. But I understand, and seeing many posters here in this thread brings back all that anger of being taken advantage of, and having no power to do anything about it.

I explained it to Korean coworker that our debtors prison is implemented as a house arrest or like an economic parole release.

So if you owe child support because you're unemployed you can't use a bank because the money would disappear. You can't get money from a job in the system it would disappear so cash pay please. Or you can't go to the courthouse and get it fixed because lawyers cost money and see above you're unemployed. Once you're in debtors prison there's a whole bunch of things you can no longer do, just like being under house arrest or parole. For example, for a couple decades 90s-10s we had universal default as a stated written policy. We still have it, just unstated, which confuses foreigners. On paper we don't have universal default since 2010 or so. In practice we still have it today, more or less.

Adding to the complexity we do have actual debtors prisons most famously in the rural south but to some extent or another there are some everywhere.

I guess another way to explain it is part of our culture is explicit and written and people read it, like generally speaking the bible or the -ez single page income tax form. Then there's a layer thats written and people make a great show of not reading like mortgage or car loans or insurance contracts. Next down there's unwritten stuff that people understand like the debtors prison thing is I think fairly uncontroversial and reasonably well informed. Below that there's stuff we kinda unconsciously by osmosis know, like the "unbanked"="house arrest debtors prison" or "underbanked"="financial equivalent of parole complete with abused arbitrary rules". At the bottom there's weird esoteric stuff like non-propaganda related economic theory and history. And the level of awareness is extremely uneven across the entire nation (fairly uniform across subcultures, mostly).

I was under the impression that most people using these cards were using them because:

a) They distrusted banks because of a prior history of being screwed by them, or

b) They were unbankable because of a ChexSystems report preventing them from being able to open a traditional bank account.

Is this not the case?