Did Wells Fargo "Cyprus" Its Clients?

[Editor’s Note: The following post is by TDV Editor-in-Chief, Jeff Berwick]

Were Wells Fargo customers “Cyprused” on Friday? It is tough to know. Perhaps, it was merely a “glitch.”  It certainly wasn’t April 1.

But, what some WF customers did get was a little taste of dinner on its way back up as their debit cards and credit cards were declined for a nice meal after a long week.

Across the United States on Friday, Wells Fargo customers complained via various social media outlets like Twitter that they were unable to move, deposit or withdraw their funds.

Wells Fargo confirmed by email that there was a “situation” going on and they were working hard on it: “We are aware of the situation and we are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. We apologize to our customers for any inconvenience.”

The issue did not appear to affect all Wells Fargo customers, but reports of malfunctioning credit and debit cards resulted in nervous customers worried about their life savings.

On Friday, as many Wells Fargo customers tried to pay for their meals, cards were declined. At gas pumps across the country, people called Wells Fargo’s customer service, distressed that they wouldn’t be able to fill up their tanks and make it home.

Although by Friday night Wells Fargo said the issue had been resolved and that customers could access their accounts, issues such as this remind me why the modern banking system is “2nd World” at best. (Not that I believe there is a such thing as a “Second World,” as I’ve seen the “Third World” in many so-called “First World” countries. Sometimes academia is too tidy for its own good.)

This is not the first time Wells Fargo has had issues with their websites.

Wells Fargo websites went down in Autumn 2012 as part of a string of attacks also targeting JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America.

Then in the spring of 2013 the Wells Fargo website was once more hit, this time by two cyber attacks in one week.

“We’ve seen an unusually high volume of website traffic which we believe is a denial of service attack,” a Wells Fargo spokesman told FOX Business at the time.

While Wells Fargo’s most headlined issues involve accounting gimmicks and trillions of dollars in hidden risky bets, the bank is sure to suffer from familiar symptoms: an archaic banking framework head-on into rising interest rates and a decrease in corporate welfare.

That’s right. Just as millions of Americans languish away on unemployment insurance, the top five banks must also be worried about empty state coffers.

The top five banks – JPMorgan, Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. – receive around $64 billion in total annual subsidies. This is roughly equal to their typical annual profits.

The banks have nearly $9 trillion in assets. That’s more than half the size of the US economy.

And they can’t seem to keep their websites online…

I’m just saying: once the welfare ceases flowing, then who will pay for the massive site maintenance accrued on a day like Friday?

More pointedly, Who will man the customer service lines when the top five banks  finally are forced to “Cyprus” Americans? If even just a little…

And what sort of “overdraft” fee does Wells Fargo pay when it, eventually, overspends all of its customer accounts?

These are the hard questions few are willing to ask. But not me.

This is merely the beginning. Wells Fargo was suspiciously secretive about Friday’s outage, which only makes me wonder. Was this a symptom of illiquidity? Was this a beta-test to see how their customers would react when they finally did pull the plug on accounts? What sort of fee does Wells Fargo pay when it, eventually, overdrafts all of its customer accounts? These are the hard questions few are willing to ask.

But not The Dollar Vigilante.

What Can You Do?

Whatever the reason was for the outage, I would not want to wait around to find out. Even if for some reason I was unable to get my ass out of the US, I’d have a long time ago internationalized my assets to ensure I remained a free person long after accounts were shut down across the US. Trust me, internationalizing your assets can be fun.

There are a lot of different assets in which to invest: silver, gold, bitcoin and the miners. But, even more important is where those assets are located. In whose jurisdiction?

Knowing where to own your precious metals is just as important as owning the precious metals themselves (as we detail in “Getting Your Gold Out Of Dodge” – free to TDV subscribers) and foreign real estate (our favorite is Galt’s Gulch Chile).

TDV Wealth Management (note: this is only applicable to clients with a net worth of over half a million dollars or higher) is not the sort of financial advice that will lead you to leave your assets with insolvent institutions. That’s why you won’t find us on the mainstream media.

_{Anarcho-Capitalist.  Libertarian.  Freedom fighter against mankind’s two biggest enemies, the State and the Central Banks.  Jeff Berwick is the founder of The Dollar Vigilante, CEO of TDV Media & Services and host of the popular video podcast, Anarchast.  Jeff is a prominent speaker at many of the world’s freedom, investment and gold conferences as well as regularly in the media including CNBC, CNN and Fox Business.}

I did get my ass out of the US…but I still have my cash assets for expenses in a Wells Fargo checking account! 

TDV tech guru and contributor, Michael Bach, told me just a couple days ago that I really should open up a Chilean bank account. It’s a bit of a process, but luckily I work for a company that specializes in making such processes a snap. Tune in to upcoming Parting Shots adn the Sunday “Week in Review” for my adventures in opening my first non-US account…

Regards,

Gary Gibson
Editor, The Dollar Vigilante

 

The Dollar Vigilante is a free-market financial newsletter focused on covering all aspects of the ongoing financial collapse. The newsletter has news, information and analysis on investments for safety and for profit during the collapse including investments in gold, silver, energy and agriculture commodities and publicly traded stocks. As well, the newsletter covers other aspects including expatriation, both financially and physically and news and info on health, safety and other ways to survive the coming collapse of the US Dollar safely and comfortably. You can sign up to receive our FREE monthly newsletter, our Basic Newsletter ($15/month) or our Full Newsletter ($25/month) with specific stock recommendations and updates at our Subscriptions page on our website at DollarVigilante.com.