Banks Preparing for Bank Run?

Greetings all Im a long time reader and I have newly registered to ATS because I finally have something worth contributing. Or so I think. I work as a Supervisor for a chain of banks mainly situated in the Mid West and tonight at 8:30pm we had a meeting about making sure we tell customers we are FDIC approved and explaining to them what this means and to make this a main selling point for opening new accounts. I could just be jumping the gun but this seems odd. My bank caters to mostly low income people with no credit checks and no real questions upon opening accounts as well as illegal aliens. Ive never really thought of telling people about this point in my sales pitch because most people have less than 100,000 in their accounts anyway.

Well we went over some senarios today in a role playing session to calm customers down and let them know their money and Federally backed. Perhaps other banks do this as regular practice, I dont know anyone in the banking industry outside of those I work with and people at other local branches. Perhaps Im crazy but its starting to worry me that we had to do these role play sessions, as did the fact that our branch manager said "things could get ugly real soon..." I hope this doesnt mean my bank is going under, perhaps it does and I should look for another job. Or we're preparing for people to go berserk. Some opinions would be nice. Thanks and Good Night all.

reply to post by Kahis



Welcome Kahis!

Here's an article with relative info on your subject........


www.rense.com...

From what I've read, the FDIC does not have the funds to cover if the S#^T hit the fan.
Currently, the FDIC has only $53 billion in reserves to guarantee $4 trillion in total bank deposits
I agree with you that it doesn't make sense to "reassure" someone
who has no clue what the FDIC is about unless it is a CYA situation.

[edit on 14-8-2008 by Pinktip]

perhaps your banks are changing from the
credit expansion & consumerism model
into a fiscal thrifty and savings oriented type of bank.

like you say, it's all a promotion emphasis,

reply to post by Pinktip


Thanks for the article link, oddly enough it all makes sense. Also today we dropped our teller limits from 1000 to 500, meaning all withdrawls over 500 must have my or someone highers overide and over 10k is out of the question and requires a regional manager. The people I work with seem pretty ignorant to the situation and dont see any major issues although considering most of our clients are illegals with massive amounts of money in their accounts Im kinda worried. In the past couple of weeks Ive seen countless people from south of texas closing their accounts and heading home. Although our stock is slowly recovering from almost disasterous prices. Hopefully things continue to climb although it seems like the storm is coming and is going to hit hard.

considering your personal experience ... the role playing episodes (could you elaborate on them actually) .. and your manager talking about it getting real ugly soon..
would you care to share what you, personally, are doing with your finances / investments now?

-

Buckle your seat belts kids, kansas is going bye bye.

When are people going to wake up and stop arguing over petty differences. We have to realize that this whole system is going to collapse. Nothing can grow forever. As the old saying goes what goes up, must come down.

Move to a sustainable way of living now so your survival chances are better.

Nature has all the time in the world. We dont.

Blurry

reply to post by St Udio



Nope, this is being reported in pockets across the country. People are getting wind of rumors and/or just losing faith in the system. the FDIC does not have enough funds to cover all the insured deposits. The Banks are getting worried. From what I can see the ones that fail first are the best ones to be in before the money runs out. It's all ajoke now.

Originally posted by Kahis
Perhaps Im crazy but its starting to worry me that we had to do these role play sessions, as did the fact that our branch manager said "things could get ugly real soon..."

Hi Kahis. Welcome, and thanks for the boots-on-the-ground reporting. You don't sound crazy at all...you sound alert.

Now this...this sounds crazy:

Following the Arizona bank failures,
and radiating calm and assurance that the problems
had been fixed and there would be no need for
further repairs, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
spokesman David Barr said, “I feel like the Maytag repairman
— there’s just not much to do on the customer
side of things.”

That's an excerpt from trend analyst Gerald Celente' latest missive; The History of The Future – Top Trends 2012 (out today).

Originally posted by Kahis
In the past couple of weeks Ive seen countless people from south of texas closing their accounts and heading home.

Here in Northern NM, we're experiencing a bit of an exodus also. Some Mexican labor repatriating due to stagnant wages and a rising cost of living...all against the backdrop of general economic weakness...most specifically, a slow-down in construction.

Originally posted by Kahis
...it seems like the storm is coming and is going to hit hard.

For some insight, I hope you can find time to read the Gerald Celente piece. His outfit; Trends Research Institute, has an impressive 'hit' history. His commentary on the 08 presidential race, alone,...is worth the click & scroll imo. Some ATS'ers may know Celente from his occasional guest appearances on C2C Radio.

GLTY

Originally posted by prevenge

considering your personal experience ... the role playing episodes (could you elaborate on them actually) .. and your manager talking about it getting real ugly soon..
would you care to share what you, personally, are doing with your finances / investments now?

-

I shouldve taken the script home rather than tossing it out in favor of a box of free pizza but from what I recall it was how to deal with a customer worried about economic failure. We talked about Indy Mac alot and the possibility that other banks who seem stable just arent. We however reported the highest earnings of any bank through Over Draft Fees although I believe this is due to borderline illegal business practices. My manager just said it seemed like things were gonna get ugly because of the economy and his own general state of affairs. I generally dont take what he says worth a grain of salt more so Im looking at these little exercises. We also went over today how to show people how to maximize the security of their money, such as loop holes in how the FDIC secures money and how to get 100,000 thousand secured one way and stack this insurance up to 1.5 million for an individual or 1.7 million for a family.

Personally what Im doing with my finances is absolutely nothing, I have a BFA in Game Design and Im paying off a 48,000$ student loan at bone crushing interests and not getting a damn thing out of it. My school took a shotgun approach at teaching where I know how to do alot of things fairly but nothing very good or amazing, thus Im pretty useless to the field. I personally fell into the world of banking and found I liked it, its very cut and clear.

Back to the meat of things though, here's something I found very interesting today, a woman deposited 4800$ in cash over a 6 month period and now her assets are frozen because she wanted to withdraw 4000 today. I couldnt give her a straight answer on why as our Corp office was closed and my RM was rather useless. This seems to be happening more and more, also the bank shifted from a name based account search to one using SSNs and alot of the illegals who dont have their account number and relied on a name search are having their accounts lay dormant and eventually purged. What does this mean? I honestly dont know the money just disapears into the abyss and finding all info that it was ever there is difficult. I kinda wonder if they're doing this and reporting it earnings to fluff the stocks before a huge fall. I could be looking to deep into it but I pride myself on reading between the lines and being prepared.

The FDIC is very much like the Dooms Day Device in Dr Strangelove.

This may sound a little odd at first, but bare with me for a moment.


The Russians had not told the US about the doomsday device, and the argument was made that the doomsday device made no sense unless you told people about it. A device which destroys everyone, if anyone attacks you makes no sense if you do not tell people about it first! It is supposed to be a deterrent, and how can it deter people if they do not know about it?

Well the FDIC is also a deterrent, if people do not know about it, how can it deter them?

No it cannot cover everyone's deposits, It was never intended to. That is not the purpose. It is a to deter runs on the banking system, not to insure deposits, the insurance is just a required artifact of the deterrant.

You are mistaking who it is there to protect. It is there to protect banks.
Not to guarantee their survival, but as a low cost hedge against risk.

reply to post by Cyberbian


Thanks for that Cyber, i hadn't heard that one before. Very humorous and useful at the same time.

I can see what you mean though. And i suppose that principle applies to many more things than just the FDIC and the 'doomsday device'

Man it is so hard to see through all this doom and gloom sometimes.

Blurry.

Originally posted by Kahis

I We also went over today how to show people how to maximize the security of their money, such as loop holes in how the FDIC secures money and how to get 100,000 thousand secured one way and stack this insurance up to 1.5 million for an individual or 1.7 million for a family.

I know that there are ways to expand the $100,000 FDIC coverage through joint accounts, keeping it in an IRA, and trust -type stuff. The only thing I know of that can get that 1.7 million figure or more,are these-CDARS.

FDIC.gov

CDARS allows participating banks and thrifts to offer their customers insurance on deposits greater than $100,000—currently, on deposits of up to $25 million.26 To illustrate how the service does this, let us assume a customer goes into a CDARS-participating bank to make a deposit of $200,000. The bank holds $100,000 in an account and places the other $100,000 with another institution belonging to the CDARS network and offering terms acceptable to the first bank’s customer. At the same time, another CDARS bank taking a deposit from one of its own customers arranges to deposit $100,000 with the first bank. By using the CDARS network, the first bank continues to hold $200,000 in its deposit base—an amount that increases its lending capacity; the bank-customer relationship is saved since the customer deals only with the first bank; and the $200,000 deposit is completely covered by deposit insurance.

What you are saying about large amounts of illegals as customers and what is happening to them is very interesting. My personal views on immigration aside, this is at least unethical, and probably unlawfull. I've always wondered how after the Patriot Act illegals were doing business with banks while those of us born with or properly achieved citizenship were forced to jump through additional hoops. I don't know if someone currently here illegally would attempt to get thier money through the legal system. I could easilly see Julio, an illegal, attempt to get his money, be refused and immediately tell his brother Hildago, a citizen about his plight. What do ya think Hildago's next move is gonna be?

$4000 isn't alot of money, and I'm pretty sure that it's below alarm levels for laundering/drug laws.If someone refused letting me get my cash out of an account that I SHOULD BE ABLE TO GET WITH LITTLE PROBLEM, I'm probably going to get a lawyer involved and I'm most definately tell everyone I know about what's going on, if that company is publicly traded I'm gonna post on every board that discusses it, I'm going to file a BBB complaint, and anything else that I can think of that will get the word out and maybe cost someone a little time responding to. I WILL GET MY MONEY.

reply to post by jefwane


Turns out the woman would not be recieving her funds due to bank fraud, she deposited this 4 thousand dollars via ATM and scammed the ATM by putting in an empty envalope and tried to withdraw the money before the paper work corrections went through. Luckily the teller whom cleared the ATM called the LP department and had her account frozen instantly. She came back into today hollering and hooting and left with a wimper when we told her why her account was frozen. This honestly happens alot at my bank, what happens to these people? I have no clue. I would assume this kinda thing is highly illegal and these customers will have to face more than just a frozen account for doing so. Thanks for the replies and supplamental reading info, my first venture on ATS has yielded alot of knowledge and no flaming.