http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com
http://albertpeia.com/bankaccountswipedout.htm
’What
would you do if you logged in to your bank account someday and it showed that
you had a zero balance and your bank had no record that you ever had any money
in your account? What would you do if all of the money in your bank
account suddenly disappeared in a single moment? If you had not kept any
paper records, which most Americans do not, it would be exceedingly difficult
to prove to the bank that you actually had any money in the bank. If you
don't think that something like this could ever happen in the United States,
you might want to think again. Cyber attacks against major banks in the
United States are becoming more powerful and more sophisticated with each
passing month. In fact, major U.S. bank websites have been offline for a
total of 249 hours over the past six weeks. And just
last month, thousands upon thousands of Chase customers logged into their bank
accounts only to discover that their balances had all been reset to zero. Anyone that
would want to cause complete and total economic chaos in the United States
could accomplish it very easily by wiping out all of our bank account
records. So please do not keep all of your money in a single bank, and
from now on please keep a paper copy of all of your bank account
statements. At some point it is likely that one of these cyber attacks
will cause permanent damage to our banking system, and you want to be
protected.
The mainstream media has
generally been very quiet about the massive cyber attacks against our major
banks, but behind the scenes authorities are truly alarmed. They don't
know how to stop these attacks, and they just keep getting more intense and
more sophisticated.
Could you imagine how you would
feel if you logged in to your bank account and all of your money was
gone? That is exactly what happened to some Chase customers last
month. The following is from a recent CNET article...
JP
Morgan Chase denied this evening that it had suffered a hack that many
customers claimed had suddenly reduced their checking account balances to zero.
After
discovering the apparently empty accounts via the Internet or mobile devices,
many Chase banking customers turned to Twitter to express their frustration and
show screen shots of zero balances. Other users were greeted with messages that
their bank account balances were unavailable.
But
this was most definitely not an isolated incident. That same article
noted that Chase and many of our other large banks have had their websites
taken down for extended periods of time lately...
Customers'
suspicions about a possible security breach are natural, with the zero balances
appearing less than a week after a massive distributed-denial-of-service attack
rendered
Chase's Web sites useless for many hours. Customers trying to use the
site's tools were instead greeted with a note that the site was
"temporarily down."
Hackers
have ratcheted up their assaults on financial institutions in recent months,
using DDoS attacks to take down Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Chase, Citigroup,
HSBC, and others.
In
fact, as I mentioned above, major U.S. bank websites have been offline for an
astounding 249 hours over the last six weeks alone. The
attacks just keep getting larger and bank officials are becoming very alarmed
about the power of these cyber attacks. The following is from an article
that was posted on CNBC this week...
Major
U.S. bank websites have been offline a total of 249 hours in the past six
weeks, perhaps the clearest indication yet that American companies are prime
targets in an unrelenting, global cyber conflict.
The
heavier-than-usual outages are the result of a remarkable, sustained attack
that began seven months ago and repeatedly knocks banks offline for hours at a
time, frustrating consumers and bank security professionals alike.
"Literally,
these banks are just in war rooms, sitting at controls trying to stop (the
attacks)," said Avivah Litan, a bank security analyst with Gartner Group,
a consulting firm. "The frightening thing is (the attackers) are not using
as much resources as they have on call. The attacks could be bigger."
So
who is behind these attacks?
Some
are blaming Chinese hackers, others believe that Iran is behind the attacks,
and yet others are convinced that it is the work of Islamic terrorists.
It
is kind of frightening that they cannot positively identify who is behind these
attacks. Whoever it is, they sure do seem to have a tremendous amount of
resources and they are very sophisticated.
And
in the future, it may not be hackers on the other side of the globe that are
attacking our banks. In fact, if someone wanted to "recapitalize the
banks", all they would have to do is wipe out all of our bank account
records (including all backup records). Suddenly trillions of dollars of
"unsecured liabilities" (that is what our bank accounts are) would be
wiped out and the banks would suddenly be solvent again. Anyone that
could not produce evidence that they actually had money in the banks would be
in a lot of trouble. It would be the largest single wealth transfer in
the history of the world, and it would throw the U.S. economy into utter
chaos. This is a scenario that I am exploring in my new novel which will
be coming out later this month.
In
addition, there is the constant threat that a massive EMP burst could fry all
of our electronics (including the banking records), but that is a topic that I
have covered in a previous article.
And
of course another way that your bank account could be wiped out in a single
moment is if the government decides to "legally" steal it. We
just witnessed this happen in
Cyprus. In February, the Central Bank of Cyprus swore that such a
thing could never possibly happen, but then one month later it did
happen. The politicians will lie to your face until the very day comes
when they steal your money.
Sadly,
a very similar thing could easily happen in the United States someday. As
I wrote about yesterday, the big banks are making incredibly reckless
bets with our money. When those bets go bad, our money could
very well be used to cover those bets.
One
way this could be accomplished is by using a practice known as
"rehypothecation". It sounds complicated, but it really
isn't. Basically, the banks use money that clients have entrusted to them
to cover their own gambling debts. This is how rehypothecaton is defined by Investopedia...
"The
practice by banks and brokers of using, for their own purposes, assets that
have been posted as collateral by their clients."
An
excellent article by Jeff Nielson detailed how this
could result in the big banks grabbing our money when their trillions of
dollars of reckless bets go bad...
1) Our
banking regulators knowingly allow financial institutions to engage in
recklessly misleading (if not outright fraudulent) contracts with their
clients, through the use of complex “small print” in their account contracts
with clients.
2) The
three largest U.S. “banks” by deposit (JP Morgan, Bank of America, Citigroup)
have made bets in their own rigged casino, which total well in excess
of $100 trillion, an amount which completely dwarfs their total, combined
deposits (and assets).
3) A
large portion of those bets occur in the $60+ trillion credit default
swap market. Pay-outs in these markets can (and do) exceed 300 times the amount of
the original bet. It is bets in this market which “blew up” AIG, requiring
more than $150 billion in immediate government aid.
4) Following
the Crash of ’08; these same banks mooched a package of hand-outs, tax-breaks
and “guarantees” (i.e. future hand-outs) from the Bush regime in excess
of $15 trillion, the last time their gambling debts went bad on them – and
all of these banks have been allowed to dramatically increase the
total amount of their gambling since then.
5) It
would take only a minor change in the gambling contracts in which these bankers
engage to allow their creditors to seize funds out of ordinary bank
accounts.
6) The
existing language for the bank accounts of these U.S. banks is possibly already
so vague (and prejudicial to clients) that it would allow these banks
to reinterpret the terms of these bank accounts – and allow
rehypothecation to be used to rob the holders of ordinary bank accounts, people
who themselves make no “bets” in markets whatsoever. Alternately, customers
could be blitzed with an offer for “new and improved” bank accounts, where
terms allowing rehypothecation are slipped into the contract, with the
banks knowing that the “regulators” will do nothing to warn account-holders of
the gigantic risk they are taking.
But
we are all covered by deposit insurance, right?
That
is what the people of Cyprus thought too.
As
we just saw in Cyprus, when there is a "banking crisis" sometimes
government steps in and suddenly changes all of the rules overnight even though
the vast majority of the population is against it.
Hopefully
you can see that no bank account will ever truly be "safe" ever
again.
Your
money may be safe today, and your money may be there next week, but someday it
could disappear in a single moment.
And
the general public is definitely starting to lose faith in the banking
system. Google searches for the term "bank
run" have been absolutely spiking recently. Just check out this chart
which shows that searches for "bank run" are now the highest that
they have ever been.
So
what should we all do to protect ourselves?
As
I mentioned earlier, it is important to not have all of your money in one bank,
and from now on you will want to permanently keep paper copies of all of your
bank account statements.
Someday
you may need those statements in order to prove that you actually had money in
the bank.
Our
world is becoming increasingly unstable, and at some point financial disaster
is going to strike.
By
taking prudent precautions now, hopefully you will be able to minimize the
damage to your family.’