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or,

A little detail that Prof. Hayek neglected to consider by Carl Stoll1

Nobody whom I told about my being swindled by ScamBank2 mentioned any means of redress. For them, mine was just another hard-luck story. I spoke to an executive at the collections agency that was trying to collect ScamBanks claim from me (and probably still is). I explained that I acknowledged only about 10 per cent of the amount charged but repudiated the rest because those charges had been made without my approval. When I told him the story of how I had been swindled, he congratulated me. He told me it was the most persuasive story he had heard in a long time. On the strength of that he stated he was willing to settle the $5000 debt for only $2000. But when I asked him to whom I should write to request records of my credit card account, he informed me that that was a confidential matter and I would have to refer to the collection letters I had presumably received. I wanted to call the credit bureau that had registered the negative report on me and ask them how to substantiate my claim that the charges to my card had been made against my express wishes. So after talking to the executive, I asked his secretary at the collections agency for the telephone number of the credit bureau. She willingly gave me a number, but it wasnt the number of a credit bureau I got the answering machine of some shady operator promising to fix my credit. When I phoned Bank of America credit cards and asked for my credit to be restored despite the adverse credit rating, I gave as grounds my belief that the reason my credit rating had deteriorated was that I had been the victim of a crime. She told me that I couldn't even apply for any improvement in status of my credit card until I had paid the $48 I owed. I replied that I had made the same request long before any interest payments were pending, and it had been refused. At that point she seemed to lose interest in the conversation, and I heard no more sounds from her, although I made several efforts to rouse her attention. [Incidentally, when I wrote to my sister Pamela Stoll in Spain about the problem, she replied much as the banks had and with about the same degree of warmth, but considerably more hypocrisy.] At every free-enterprising step of the way I was automatically presumed to be liable for the fraudulent debt charged to me. I was obviously a charlatan, a swindler; when the actual culprit had been a bank (namely ScamBank). The banks were punishing me because I had been swindled (by a bank). And there was no appeal.

1 2

Economics graduate [Diplom-Volkswirt], Free University of Berlin. The true name of this seedy financial institution was changed to protect the guilty and confound the innocent.

CONCLUSION:
On the basis of my experience with the US banking system, 1. I recommend that ALL CONSUMER BANKING SHOULD BE TURNED OVER either TO A GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT or TO AN AUTONOMOUS PUBLIC ENTITY (IN WHICH THE FINANCIAL INDUSTRY WILL HAVE NO
REPRESENTATIVES AND NO RIGHT TO BE HEARD).

2. Although certain efficiency losses would undoubtedly ensue, I believe that is THE ONLY WAY FOR peoples HUMAN, CONSTITUTIONAL & CIVIL RIGHTS TO BE RESPECTED in the credit sector. 3. And that way they might be better protected from swindlers.

[Next page: Criminal complaint submitted to the FBI]

To the Federal Bureau of Investigation Washington, DC REPORT OF A FEDERAL CRIMINAL OFFENSE,3 Made by the victim, CR Stoll Charges: Bank fraud, wire fraud and the like Against: ScamBank Inc. and persons unknown Towards the end of the Bush II rgime, in July 2008, I received a phone call from ScamBank (issuer of my credit card) asking for authorization to pay for two airplane tickets from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, to the USA. I immediately & flatly refused. Nonetheless I discovered later that the charge had been made to my card anyway! That was the last time they phoned. I sent many complaints to ScamBank through the ScamBank web site and got no reply during July 2008. Suddenly it became very difficult for me to access my online account. I was forced to change my username and password several times within the space of a few days. Then my password was changed without informing me and I no longer had any access to my account at all. I complained by telephone, and I was told they were "working on it", whatever that means. The upshot was that about $4300 were charged to my card by persons unknown and without my knowledge, with the obvious connivance and complicity of ScamBank and its personnel. Of the current balance owed I myself only charged about 10% ($400), all in Washington DC and Montgomery County, MD. The fraudulent charges were from New York and other places. Saks 5th Avenue ATM was one! One remarkable aspect was the exceedingly erratic nature of the monitoring to which my ScamBank credit card was subjected. One day, after I had made three small purchases, ScamBank refused to approve any more charges, and I had to phone ScamBank and reassure them that the charges were genuine. Nonetheless some time later, as I reported above, two airplane tickets were charged to my card although I had expressly and insistently refused to accept them when ScamBank asked over the phone. That was the last time they phoned. But they went on charging like crazy. I didnt find out until it was too late because ScamBank had blocked my online account (without giving any grounds) so I was unable to monitor charges. And they ignored the protests I made through their web site and over the phone, as I explained above. STATEMENT
MADE UNDER OATH

Carl Stoll

This criminal complaint was actually submitted to the FBI in April 2009, using however in place of ScamBank the true name of the criminal financial outfit that had defrauded me.

Bank of America P.O. Box 22021 Greensboro, NC 27420-2021 Re: account 4888936161790757 My dear banksters: In the matter of the non-payment of interest due Bank of America on my credit card account, Bank of America is now politely asking me to cough up, making noises about "servicing and generally making a fuss. This is my reply. I. Relations between Bank of America and me remained unruffled until February 2009, when, without a word of warning, you closed my account. Until then I had funneled all my paychecks through my credit card account, and was always up to date with interest payments because all Bank of America had to do was skim its fees off the top of my income flow. When you abruptly shut down my account I was at first baffled by the task of procuring a new financial channel through which to draw my income. Eventually I found one, and it is the one I use presently. It is quite satisfactory. Having been cured of the banking habit by you, I no longer feel any need to rely heavily on banks. Your aspiration is to motivate me to pay my debts to you, which I fully acknowledge as legitimate. You rashly brushed aside the mechanism that assured you your income. Now you wish to charge me, but without offering to restore my account to active status. I acknowledge the law is on your side. Paying you is the only right thing to do. But while the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. Moreover I have the deplorable habit of putting off until later tasks which I foresee will not be remunerated, even symbolically. Not to mention a general shortage of funds. Ladies and gentlemen: There is a great moral to be drawn from this vexing episode. The moral is enshrined in the form of a proverb, and the proverb goes like this: People who make stupid mistakes in business wind up losing money. And you made a stupid mistake. II. Later I discover that my credit rating had declined. My credit rating declined because a clutch of banksters called WaMu was trying to collect the payoff for when they swindled me last year by hindering my access to my bank account online, and ignoring me angry e-mails of protest and the subsequent criminal charges I brought against them. I am attaching for your edification a brief but poignant essay I penned not long hence, called On Being Exploited by a Crooked Free-Enterprise System. In it you will see your bank is just one more cog in a machinery of oppression. My point in this essay is that the free market was not invented for the benefit of the likes of such prominent Americans as Frank Nitti, Al Capone, Johnny Stompanato, George Bush, and their ilk. Market place rules assume that no crime is being

committed when collecting money. When felonies intrude, all bets are off! WaMus successors in interest demand that I pay up 5 thousand dollars that WaMu defrauded from me. I sent a criminal complaint to the FBI. It is reproduced in full on the last page of On Being Exploited by a Crooked Free-Enterprise System. That was March 2009. It is now September 2009 and I have heard no news from the FBI since then, despite my frequent telephone calls and e-mails. The Bank of America employee with whom I spoke on the telephone was dismissive. This is an account of our telephone conversation:
When I phoned Bank of America credit cards and asked for my credit to be restored despite the adverse credit rating, I gave as grounds my belief that the reason my credit rating had deteriorated was that I had been the victim of a crime. She told me that I couldn't even apply for any improvement in status of my credit card until I had paid the $48 I owed. I replied that I had made the same request long before any interest payments were pending, and it had been refused. At that point she seemed to lose interest in the conversation, and I heard no more sounds from her, although I made several efforts to rouse her attention.

On the whole I see a peculiar solidarity of legitimate banks like Bank of America with WaMu, an outfit called a "boiler-room by the most prominent business reporter on The New York Times, in December 2008. A boiler-room is a financial enterprise that does business principally by committing the felonies of fraud and embezzlement. Nonetheless, no sooner do I refuse to pay the boiler-room crew the proceeds of their crime, when hey presto! The entire credit system takes up as one man the cause of people designated as crooks by the business section of the New York Times![ Find quote] To my knowledge WaMu has not sued the NY Times for libel. With this in mind, I believe WaMu staff fills all the conditions required to be fairly called notorious gangsters. The FBI has been stonewalling me on my criminal complaint. I have phoned them about a dozen times. They're always very polite. They ask my name, date of birth, and say they will get in touch. But they don't. When I mentioned to an FBI agent that the outfit I was pressing charges against had been called a bunch of financial crooks (that is the meaning of boiler-room), the FBI agent replied that the FBI doesn't draw its information from the NY Times. That was a terminological run-up to the moral of this chapter: "When apparently honest people make common cause with notorious gangsters, there is cause for alarm.