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I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

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Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#71

Post by philliphaydon »

skeptikal wrote: post #56
beaconstudios wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the US government really that bad? I hear Americans complain about it all the time but from my experience in the UK the government is mostly competent most of the time.

As a Canadian who’s (very) thankfully becoming American I can guarantee you that American government is very incompetent. At least in comparison to a Commonwealth one. The wait times, the level of uncaring, the general attitude was jarring when I first moved here. I even worked as for a few years for the gov, and the bureaucracy is even worse inside!

Serious curious question. Why would you want to become American if you’re Canadian?

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#72

Post by pmontra »

JusticeJuice wrote: post #70
vasco wrote: post #32

The venn diagram of internet users that read about super specific financial products, decide to buy them, while not even understanding the need to keep an emergency fund such that a move like this leaves them with under $200 in their account seems to be growing. It seems to be a weird mix of wall street cosplay and financial ineptitude.

I work in the financial advice industry, and I honestly personally believe current legislation in most countries have truly failed to protect normal people from bad financial advice, despite that being their entire point. The problem is, giving financial advice en-masse is very expensive and risky for a company. You need to ask a lot of questions about the users situation (assets, debt, income, dependants, etc) to ma…

> And often the advice comes out as rather un-opinionated and general, which for most people means it's hard to actually action and put in place

I agree with this. It seems that I have to make all the choices myself to shield the company from any responsibility so why should I pay some fee for the advice? No wonders that people get advice from random videos on YouTube or any equivalent source.

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#73

Post by Ekaros »

OJFord wrote: post #27
eterm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an odd interpretation of the refund. The email clearly states, > "A refund of the excess purchase..." So they'd be refunded the excess, i.e. $25. Putting another $9,975 through just feels like being "too smart".

I found that ambiguous, could either read it as the excess amount or the entirety of the purchase that resulted in excess balance. But anyway it just shows more UX issues - if it's the former then why didn't the balance update to show $10k; in either case why does it accept the payment before checking? It should just say no you've hit your limit this year, or you've already subscribed $25 this year you're limit is $9…

It is probably backed by some old mainframe system and done in batches. Earlier the post told it took couple days for 25$ to show up.

So it is not real time system, but likely processed weekly, monthly or like. And all of the messes are bunched up and processed for single out come for period of time.

User was just stupid not to wait a week before next attempt...

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#74

Post by Ekaros »

otherme123 wrote: post #54
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #16

Alternative title: "I purposefully tried to make a transaction that breaks the rules, it didn't end well."

So if someone makes an honest mistake and types and extra number, it's OK to both 1) don't process any amount and 2) hold the money for two months. That doesn't feel right to me. E.g. I buy shares and mistype the ticker or buy extra. It processes but then I notice my mistake and I can either fix it by selling, or decide ir doesn't matter and keep the shares. What doesn't make any sense is the broker keeping the money…

I take there is some extra step for actually transferring the money which one should verify as well. Or that would be reasonable due diligence.

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#75

Post by [deleted] »

roenxi wrote: post #30
SpaceL10n wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The I-bond guarantees a return rate at inflation or higher. You're saying you expect negative inflation this year?

I'm saying that he's lending money to the people who write & interpret the rules, and those people do not intend to pay their creditors back in real terms. Indeed, they have probably crossed a practical threshold where they cannot pay back the real amount. It doesn't matter what the rules say right now, his wealth is at risk. They can and do change the rules sometimes. They can change what the word "inflation" means.…

[deleted]

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#76

Post by Jenk »

xkbarkar wrote: post #69

I thought this was funny. Weird comments in the thread about how he/she should have known better. Author is not making a complaint to demand internet outrage. There is no inflammatory justice warrior content here. Sheesh! Author admits they screwed up, decided to share the screwup, and who hasnt been trough that exact dunder blunder? Fun short read 8/10.

There is a strange human phenomenon, particularly visible online. Some folk see a title like that and it triggers a "How can I blame the author?" urge within before they even open the link.

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#77

Post by neogodless »

zulln wrote: post #60

> This pseudo-security measure actually only slows down humans, not bots, because you can still edit the value of the text field using Javascript (and in fact it's easier to do it that way if you know how). Surely this is to prevent keyloggers, no slowing down bots. With that said it is questionable if it is worth it. People would probably pick less secure password as a result.

It's also case-insenstive and limited to 8-16 characters, further decreasing the complexity.

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#78

Post by raverbashing »

randallsquared wrote: post #48
xiphias2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't understand the email, and thought that buying the bonds wasn't successful.

At the end, it's clear that he still thinks that, rather than that he has 10K in I bonds and 10K to be refunded, which seems more consistent with the language and events.

Yeah, I noticed that too

His 10k bonds should be there, they will refund the excess, not the whole thing

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#79

Post by Ekaros »

ianai wrote: post #57
IshKebab wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...because their system was so awful.

But why immediately do it again?!

Especially when there is two weeks left in the month... Like, maybe wait the same time it took your last transfer to show up just to be sure... Maybe some people just have more money than sense...

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#80

Post by supernova87a »

jefftk wrote: post #62

> They require you to enter your password by clicking on a virtual keyboard. This pseudo-security measure actually only slows down humans, not bots, because you can still edit the value of the text field using Javascript. I don't think this is generally worth it as a security measure, but the goal is not to protect against automation. Instead, custom on-screen keyboards are attempts to thwart keyloggers.

In fact, if you notice when you log in the next time, (for many people) your browser may offer to autocomplete your password and bypass the mouse-driven keyboard, so it's definitely not even hard to thwart.
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