Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Germany Bails Their Banks Out

Greece, Ireland and now Germany have now guaranteed all privately held bank accounts in their country. This means those accounts are safe, but also that these governments were worried that the banks that held these accounts might actually fail, and they are concerned enough that they feel they must assure their population that their funds are safe.

What does this mean? As usual, I have no idea at all, but it does add more spice to the bubbling cauldron that is the world’s financial markets. Does this mean Canada is heading in this direction? I don’t think so, or maybe I simply, hope not.

Is Jobs Apple?

So a rumor on a CNN web site claiming that Steve Jobs had a heart attack caused Apple shares to plummet, which seems to imply that people view Apple and Steve Jobs as being 1 thing (i.e. Jobs goes, and Apple goes).  I think that is an interesting theory, but I don’t buy it, Steve Jobs is smart, but he has smart people working for him too.

More Jobs in Canada

No not another Steve Jobs story, evidently 12,500 more jobs in Canada for September. This now worries me more, given I don’t have one, but it is encouraging to hear there are still jobs in Canada. All I need now is to get one of those jobs, and hope that the credit tightening does not stop a lot of growth that might cause more jobs to be created.

Election: 1.5 Weeks to go

Should be an interesting home stretch in the Canadian Elections, given the Tories seem to be taking a page out of the Liberal tactics book and are looking for ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of Victory as well. Tory support is slipping, but where are these folks going? I see an NDP/Liberal split of the left but who knows, what may happen, should be fun to watch, maybe Mr. Harper will pull a rabbit out of his sweater vest?

Carnivals

• Girls Just Wanna Have Funds is hosting the 173rd Carnival of Personal Finance where they link to my Stupidest Monthly Bill Ever post

What else should I be writing about right now? Every news outlet is telling of the end of the U.S. Financial system and the collapse of the economy. Speaking as someone who is unemployed, and looking for a job, this worries me. As the wise International Analyst said of Canada, “When the U.S. sneezes, Canada gets a cold”, so any kind of economic turbulence in the U.S. does not bode well for Canada, in the services area at least. I believe Canada’s economy may weather this storm better, simply due to our heavily resource laden economy, but again, only a guess on my part.

Bush’s Own Words

The scary thing is, President Bush seems to inadvertently hit the nail on the head with the following statement:

“… It will help American consumers and businesses get credit to meet their daily needs and create jobs. And it will help send a signal to markets around the world that America’s financial system is back on track…”

American consumers need credit to meet their daily needs? If that is the case, the U.S. economy is in dire trouble. Americans are living on credit and now the whole system is collapsing under the weight of this credit load? Not sure that is completely accurate, but given the President mentioned this, it’s an interesting point to consider.

Fraudulent Securities?

President Bush also mentioned:

“… Many investors assumed these securities were trustworthy and asked few questions about their actual value. Two of the leading purchasers of mortgage-backed securities were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Because these companies were chartered by Congress, many believed they were guaranteed by the federal government. This allowed them to borrow enormous sums of money, fuel the market for questionable investments, and put our financial system at risk…”

So you are implying that there was a fraud on investors, or you are saying there are some very stupid investors out there. I think both of those statements have a ring of truth to them as well.

Blame Canada?

No, but it’s a funny headline. Will this affect (effect?) Canada? Yes, but how much remains to be seen. There is now panic statements about how the Canadian housing industry “bubble may burst”.  Given I am living in a house, that I bought a while ago, I am not that worried about this, but for new home buyers this could be a big issue. Being saddled with an enormous mortgage, with possibly much higher interest rates (to deal with that 3.5% Inflation I mentioned yesterday), could slow spending from these folks, causing yet another interesting economic ripple in the pool.

Now is the Time To Panic?

I would suggest going out and buying some Eagles or maybe some Jackson Browne, slam it into your Impala’s 8-track tape player and drive ’til the music stops. Sorry, I waxed poetic, no it is not time to panic, but it is time to watch and see what might actually be going on here. I suspect we are living in very interesting times, to quote a Chinese proverb.

Past little while I have been ranting about the poor service I get from the Toronto Dominion bank and their various parts, but if I feel it is my right to write that kind of article, I must also point out when they do an excellent job as well.

Victim of Debit Card Fraud

Yup, Mrs. Big Cajun Man’s debit card was compromised some time in the past 3 months, and on Tuesday my bank account was almost cleaned out before the TD security tap turned off the fraudulent withdrawals.

How did this happen? I have no idea, because my wife has her debit card (which is now void and unusable) still in her wallet, so my guess is she was a victim of one of the many “bogus debit machine” frauds that have been happening lately. My limited understanding is that the machine or the connection to the machine is compromised in some way, so that the ID number from the debit card and the PIN number can be taken, and then this information is used to create a fraudulent version of the card complete with PIN, which the criminals then use at debit machines to remove money from the unsuspecting folks bank accounts.

The TD security bureau called my wife to ask if she was in fact in Montreal, taking money out at an alarming rate? Since my wife answered the phone, the answer was “No”, and thus the TD security group leaped into action and has shut off the access point and has referred this to the authorities for their action.

This does leave me with a massive whole in my finances, as the culprits got the money out before they could be stopped, and TD will only reimburse me (once it is proven to be a fraud) in 7-10 business days, so I am now living on my credit until I get my money back.

This disturbs me, because I kept thinking this only happened when you weren’t diligent with your card security, but I know my wife is diligent and this still happened, so now I am going to have to rethink security for my finances, because if this can happen once, it can easily happen again.

Financial Security Measures

A few ideas have come to mind, however, any other ideas from my intelligent and diligent readers would be appreciated as well:

1. Make sure that only necessary accounts are available from my bank card.
2. Set up daily limits on withdrawals which is much lower so when this happens again (and it will) the damage will not be as bad.
3. Be more diligent watching my bank balances on line
4. Be more diligent with my on line banking passwords as well.
5. Use CASH more often! That was a suggestion from Michael James on Money as well.

Thanks Toronto Dominion, good job catching this and hopefully good job refunding me the defrauded funds.

I would ask, “What else could go wrong?”, but I have asked that question once too often and, far too often, I found out the answer is, “Much more and worse things!”.