Upcoming Feeding Frenzy

The squaliformes and their minions are getting ready for a long-anticipated feast.

The implementation of the "Check 21" process at the end of this month will create vast floods of overdraft and return-check fees to be taken from consumers who don't have overdraft protection.

Millions of mortgage payments are sent into the mail every month, many with the full expectation that a deposit is going to be made in time to cover the check.

Given the somewhat variable postal delivery efficiency and the even more variable processing of these checks, most consumers who live paycheck to paycheck have come to count on at least a few days from the day they drop it in the mail to when the money actually has to be in their checking account.

That's precisely what everyone in the squaliformes food chain is counting on, and there are billions of dollars to be taken from victims in November.

Interesting to note that the feeding frenzy will not really start until just after the elections as monthly payments start arriving (and bouncing). No telling what a few million enraged bounced-check writers might have done if the law had taken effect in early October and they'd taken it out on the legislators and Bush in the voting booths.

Behind the guise of improving the processes, it's a convenient ploy to pressure checking account holders into usurious interest rate "loans" for overdraft protection. The banking squaliformes see this as an opportunity to bring millions and millions of consumers further into the debt nets.

The other thing they've accomplished is making it easier for the predatory servicers to effectively work the delayed-payment scheme (it's called "drawering" among the squaliformes). Now, without having the cancelled checks with their statements, it will become a significant burden for a consumer to prove when a payment was actually processed. In fact, chances are the bank will charge yet another fee to produce a copy of the digital image of the check.

And of course, the data gathering mafia will record each and every one of these bounced checks and resulting late payments so that even more victims will be smeared with lowered credit scores.

There is no end to their creativity.

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean.

[(Note from the Clerk of the Court: His Honor only accepts cash, gold, silver, working firearms or decent horses in payment of fines.)]