January 13,2018
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, since the first of the year Bank of America has instituted a series of new policies . One that is particularly disruptive is that you are no longer able to deposit cash in someone else’s account . Those of you with older relatives understand the issue .The old folks sometimes need a little extra cash for issues that arise .
According to a bank representative the bank has been inundated with money laundering and fraud . Many even point to the cryptocurrency movement and Bitcoin as the culprit .
Its funny because several years ago the “coin boy” in Ridgewood toted out of Village Hall over 50 lbs a day worth of quarters and cashed them in at local banks and no one knows anything . So the “coin boy ” could effectively steal close to $1million dollars , yet the writer of this article can not put $500 bucks into his elderly mothers account . The irony was not lost on the bank representative .
So yesterday , I had a day off and “mom” hit me up for $600 , I had to take her with me in the car , there was a line at the ATM machine ,that took 25 minutes and then with only one car in front of us on the drive thru line it took another 45 minutes . By the time I got her home it was a little after 1pm and we had left at 10am . Yuup you herd me 3 hours to make a deposit .
While many curse the creep of Economic totalitarianism , for others its is inching forward at a slow enough rate that people aren’t noticing it.
In the 1960s, you could carry whatever money you wanted in cash on planes, buy houses and cars with cash, or deposit it with no worries.
In the 1970s, $10,000 (then worth $62,000+ in today’s dollars) became the number. Inflation made that number worth less and less without the government needing to change the law.
The US government now requires banks to report transactions as small as $1000 to $2000 if they are “suspicious.”
Then you look at cash seizures. It used to be that cash was only seized from big time criminals. Now half of seizures in Washington D.C. are less than $150. People are getting pulled over and the police will seize $20.
Now Bank of America and Chase need to see ID to process $50 cash deposits.
Imagine 10 years from now. I wouldn’t be surprised if cash is banned entirely in at least one country.
