The Banking Fiasco of 2007: The Netbank-Ing Direct Debacle

Let's pretend that because of the high cost of living in America, you had to make the monumental decision to move to a country where you could afford to live, like Mexico. Let's pretend that not only can you find cheap living here but the costs of treating your very expensive and incurable illness is really very affordable. You can buy the medicines you need out of pocket and see the doctor for about $3.00 per office call. Paradise? You betcha!

Then one day when trying to get some cash from the ATM with the only tie you've kept to America, an American bank account, you find your card doesn't work any longer. You have money but have absolutely no access to your funds. You amble from ATM to ATM in the little colonial Mexican town in which you live only to find the same thing: NO CASH.

Most Americans I know, and suspect more, have kept an American bank account open. This is probably a very safe thing to do since currently there is no such thing as insured savings or checking in Mexico as American banks with FDIC insurance. If a bank in Mexico folds, you are out of luck. So, smartly, you keep the bulk of your dough in an American bank and only withdraw what you need for your monthly living expenses.

Sensing a disaster of unknown proportions, you quickly make an international call to your American bank to find out why your ATM card won't cough up some cash. What you find, much to your surprise, is that your bank was shut down by the American Federal Government. Your bank was full of sneaky and conniving officials that got themselves into no end of trouble. Your bank is no more.

No worries, you reason! After all, there is the FDIC insurance and another bank, you learn, is taking over the accounts at your old bank.

Something nags the back of your brain, however. You got caught with your financial pants down in all of this, so to speak. You received no snail-mail or e-mail warning you of an impending disaster. You would later find online scores and scores of others in the same boat as yourself. But, more on that later.