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Foreign Funds and Changing Times
Dec. 6th, 2007 08:11 amI'm just amazed that I didn't throw it out. It came in the mail from the Philadelphia District Court. A folded up multipart form with perforated side for opening. Why on earth didn't I just toss it? Don't know, but I bet the majority of people who received it DID toss it.
Apparently there has been a class action suit against US banks, and, all unbeknown to me, I - as a person with a bank account and a credit card - was part of the class bringing that action. And the banks have settled. What did they settle on? They agreed to pay back some portion of the undeclared fees that they were collecting on all foreign (non-US)transactions that passed through their banks between 1996 and 2006, either ATM or credit card. And they put a pool of funds in escrow to make the payments.
And how do you get at that money? First, you go get your notice out of the trash where you threw it without opening it. The first page - which they expect the vast majority of people to use - will send you a check for $25 if you sign and return it. That page assumes that over the ten year period you had no more than $2500 in non-US transactions. But then there are people like me. I'm going for page three. Where I list, year by year and bank (card) by bank (card) my estimate of non-US credit card and ATM transactions. No receipts are required, but they tell you that you could be audited and if you are will need to present bank statements, receipts, or other documentary evidence of your travel such as travel journals.
Well, leaving the travel journals aside, this is an opportunity for me to go through those YEARS of folders of paid credit card bills that are sitting in my file cabinet. I have everything since 2000 on the computer and easily acessible. So just pulling the ATM transactions since 2000 put me almost triple the basic allocation.
Why? 'cause travelin' is what we do. we don't have expensive cars and we keep them a long time. we don't have spiffy furniture (although i think it's pretty comfortable). our carpets are the ones that came with the house sixteen years ago. we buy computers more often that cars, but not as often as many of our friends. but we do travel. two or three times a year. not to mention the business travel that i do. and several times in the past ten years i've put together group trips to Europe for friends. for instance, I paid a travel company in $13000 in Turkish lira for several weeks travel for a dozen people. And apparently the US bank that owns the credit card on which i made that charge took various undisclosed fees off the top of that transaction and now are going to pay it back to me.
And all that brings me to the "changing times" part of this post. What do you find out about yourself when you start looking at ten year old financial records? I find that ten years ago I still had children in college and I was paying for that. That I was writing checks for EVERYTHING. Then around 2001 or 2002 I started using electronic bill pay through my bank, and now I do almost everything that way. I find I'm astounded and somewhat embarrassed by the sheer AMOUNT of money that I've spent over the years. With even greater embarrassment I find that I am donating the same amount to my church now as I was in the 1990s. I suppose that's got to change. And where are the "things" that money went for? For the most part, who knows? But my children are well educated and living their own fairly comfortable lives. That was money well spent. And I travelled. A LOT. And that was certainly money well spent. The memories of that travel are always there for me. Not to mention the travel journals. Which I do NOT intend to bring into evidence of my expenses. But which might provide interesting reading for my grandchildren some day.
Apparently there has been a class action suit against US banks, and, all unbeknown to me, I - as a person with a bank account and a credit card - was part of the class bringing that action. And the banks have settled. What did they settle on? They agreed to pay back some portion of the undeclared fees that they were collecting on all foreign (non-US)transactions that passed through their banks between 1996 and 2006, either ATM or credit card. And they put a pool of funds in escrow to make the payments.
And how do you get at that money? First, you go get your notice out of the trash where you threw it without opening it. The first page - which they expect the vast majority of people to use - will send you a check for $25 if you sign and return it. That page assumes that over the ten year period you had no more than $2500 in non-US transactions. But then there are people like me. I'm going for page three. Where I list, year by year and bank (card) by bank (card) my estimate of non-US credit card and ATM transactions. No receipts are required, but they tell you that you could be audited and if you are will need to present bank statements, receipts, or other documentary evidence of your travel such as travel journals.
Well, leaving the travel journals aside, this is an opportunity for me to go through those YEARS of folders of paid credit card bills that are sitting in my file cabinet. I have everything since 2000 on the computer and easily acessible. So just pulling the ATM transactions since 2000 put me almost triple the basic allocation.
Why? 'cause travelin' is what we do. we don't have expensive cars and we keep them a long time. we don't have spiffy furniture (although i think it's pretty comfortable). our carpets are the ones that came with the house sixteen years ago. we buy computers more often that cars, but not as often as many of our friends. but we do travel. two or three times a year. not to mention the business travel that i do. and several times in the past ten years i've put together group trips to Europe for friends. for instance, I paid a travel company in $13000 in Turkish lira for several weeks travel for a dozen people. And apparently the US bank that owns the credit card on which i made that charge took various undisclosed fees off the top of that transaction and now are going to pay it back to me.
And all that brings me to the "changing times" part of this post. What do you find out about yourself when you start looking at ten year old financial records? I find that ten years ago I still had children in college and I was paying for that. That I was writing checks for EVERYTHING. Then around 2001 or 2002 I started using electronic bill pay through my bank, and now I do almost everything that way. I find I'm astounded and somewhat embarrassed by the sheer AMOUNT of money that I've spent over the years. With even greater embarrassment I find that I am donating the same amount to my church now as I was in the 1990s. I suppose that's got to change. And where are the "things" that money went for? For the most part, who knows? But my children are well educated and living their own fairly comfortable lives. That was money well spent. And I travelled. A LOT. And that was certainly money well spent. The memories of that travel are always there for me. Not to mention the travel journals. Which I do NOT intend to bring into evidence of my expenses. But which might provide interesting reading for my grandchildren some day.
