Last updated on 2013.06.03
Douglas Wiken notes with due dismay Wells Fargo's new policy of charging customers fees for depositing money. Wells Fargo will charge you 30 cents for every $100 you deposit beyond $5,000 each month. Granted, if I ever have the pleasure of depositing more than $5,000 cash in a month, I will ache more in principle than practically over a 0.3% charge. But as Mr. Wiken says, "It seems more than passing strange that a bank wants to charge for depositing money that it can lend out and charge interest on."
Indeed, if any of you want to hand me money that you're going to let me play with, I wouldn't think of charging you anything.
But if you're shopping for another banker, Doug, don't shift your cash to the Free Lakota Bank. This mysterious operation is trying to live out some Ron Paul–John Galt fantasy by issuing its own silver coins. They'll charge you an ounce of silver (about $29 this morning) to secure your property. For that fee, you get 30 free transfers of cash to anybody who doesn't do business regularly in pieces of silver; after that, you'll pay another ounce of silver for each 30 interactions with most of the modern commercial world.
Launched four years ago, the Free Lakota Bank has claimed to be based in Hill City and now a P.O. box in Pine Ridge. But the South Dakota Department of Labor and Regulation can't find hide nor hair—nor license!—of the Free Lakota Bank on the ground here:
State Division of Banking Director Bret Afdahl says the bank lists its address as a post office box in Pine Ridge, but the bank has no physical presence in Pine Ridge.
"We don't have any reason to believe that there's anything illegal or unethical going on here. It just raises some red flags that there's a chance of that and there's no way to verify that -- whether it's operating in a safe and sound matter or not," Afdahl said.
There is no publicly available information about the bank other than its website, so Afdahl says there is no other way to investigate the bank ["Labor and Regulation Department Warns Free Lakota Bank Not Licensed," press release, SD Dept. Labor and Regulation, 2013.03.07].
Free Lakota Bank claims to be investing in a new store that will begin construction on the reservation next month.
Other red flags:
- Free Lakota Bank is not registered in the South Dakota corporate database.
- Free Lakota Bank offers no names of directors, corporate board, or anyone else handling your money.
- Free Lakota Bank quotes Atlas Shrugged on their About page.
- Free Lakota Bank engages in full-reserve banking, calling fractional reserve banking "looting". Anyone who advocates full-reserve banking advocates economic disaster.
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"Two" copper coins from Free Lakota Bank and RonPaul2012.tv Free Lakota Bank plays word games, stamping "Lakota" on the obverse of its coins and "Currency of the Free and Independent Nation" on the reverse. They also print numerical values on the coins but don't say "dollars" or any other denomination to make clear their "currency's" value.
- Free Lakota Bank coppers have used the same design as some Ron Paul coins, suggesting more connection with political fringies who think hauling around sacks of shiny metal is somehow superior to using paper and electrons to transfer wealth.
- The web registration is hidden now, but previous WHOIS searches showed the freelakotabank.com domain belonged to Rob Gray, exec of the "American Open Currency Standard" who has also stamped his own John Galt coins with "Barter Is Better."
Wells Fargo deserves a little resistance to its deposit fees. But at least at Wells Fargo you know who your bankers are.
Update 2013.06.03 06:45 MDT: The only personal South Dakota connection to this bank that I've been able to find is this May 15, 2012, statement from Canupa Glahu Mani (a.k.a. Duan Martin, Sr.), a Lakota activist who claims to be the Ithanchan (director) of the Free Lakota Bank.
The connections remain sketchy, but Rob Gray and his brother David come under heavy fire from silver coin designer Chris Duane, who claims to have been cheated by the Grays' Randian-monikered Mulligan Mint, and Gus Demos, former sales director of the Mulligan Mint, who says Free Lakota Bank is part of a Ponzi scheme.
Metal coinage? Didn't the Lakota lose the sacred Paha Sapa because of the white man's obsession with finding shiny yellow metal?
Irony abounds.
I think the Lakota are at least insulated from that irony by the fact that they aren't running this sham bank. The Republic of Lakotah movement disavowed FLB when it opened; I'm betting FLB is all fly-by-night Ron-Paul conspiratists, mostly white, mostly scared, and mostly colonializing the Lakota people's name and imagery.
Nick: your comment is inappropriate. This story came across my twitter feed yesterday and until the operation shows proof to deserving the name Lakota suspicion makes sense.
Sorry Larry. I should have been more explicit in my comment. The irony and shame is that some idiots, who aren't Lakota, are using the name inappropriately and without permission. There is no shame for those people who can rightly and proudly claim Lakota heritage. I view the idiots at this so called "Free Lakota Bank" in the same league as those who try to pass off "Made in China" trinkets as native artwork. They should be sued and issued a cease and desist order just like the descendents of Crazy Horse sued the beer maker on the East Coast who misappropriated that name.
No worries, Nick: how's your soil moisture?
Is it too late to shut down the capitalist system in America and stop sending the wealth created to Europe via the World Bank system and instead spend all day hunting deer and buffalo for food and clothing and dig holes in the side of the hills for our homes? Shutting down the capitalist system means the internet will also be shut down too...no more blogging. We all would probably be happier. Right?
The James River could be mined for cadmium, mercury and lead, Sib: go file a claim.
Btw, Sib: i'm coming through Mitchell after your latest climate disturbance passes. Need me to do your prostate exam?
Larry, we won't need lead no more, we will be hunting with bow and arrow. Do you think the so-called "progressive" liberals will go for this idea? Afterall, without capitalism, we have no need for public schools.
Santa Claus
Sani-flush
Drano.
Remember the days when a poor bloke could earn interest on money in the bank, and rest relatively assured that the money was safe there?
Gone and gone and gone those days shall forever be.
It's called "redistrubition of wealth."
Or "Robin Hood in Reverse."
Sibby says,
Is it too late to ... spend all day hunting deer and buffalo for food and clothing and dig holes in the side of the hills for our homes? ... The internet will also be shut down ... We all would probably be happier. Right?
Freakin-a right.
Go off, Yellowstone caldera; go, go, go off now, and let the Ghost Dance dream come true.
I will review my latest statements. If they charged me deposit fees, my accounts will immediately be moved to a credit union. They already chased away my personal accounts, and my business accounts will follow.
Just did some research on this issue and got the dope straight from Wells Fargo documentation (downloadable PDFs, I forget the URLs).
The change in question is from 20 cents per $100 over $5000 cash deposited in a month, to 30 cents per $100 over $5000 cash deposited in a month.
These fees apply to business accounts, and have been stated for some time on the disclosures. They do not apply to consumer accounts, however.
Wells Fargo did indeed come close to chasing me away with recent changes to their consumer account fees. However, I was able to avoid those fees with a little bit of account manipulation.
These banks better watch out. Sooner or later, the public is going to wise up. Right now, however, it seems that the public is way way way dumbed down.
On second thought, if we're hard-wired to be stupid, I guess we'll always be stupid.
Stan, thanks for tracking those policy details. Full disclosure: I run a couple accounts through Wells Fargo, and I bought my VW interest-free by paying for it a new Wells Fargo credit card and paying it off within 12 months. No fees, no tricks.
That said, it becomes frustrating to have to spend more and morw money just to use our money.
All Stan had to do was look at Dakota Today. I copied the terms from my bank statement which is from an old business account I set up years ago. I am certainly glad I did not decide to deposit returns from a land sale into that account. I have never put in anything close to $5,000 per month into the account, so was not aware of the charges.
In any case, the charges still seem to make no sense. They appear to be the result of banks too big too fail being so arrogant that customer relations don't mean diddly-squat to them.
Check out Bank West Accounts. Some of their checking accounts pay a pittance of interest.
Three stories have intersected in the last couple of days: Wells Fargo is Warren Buffett's biggest single holding, the bank is building in South Dakota, and the state is 12th in personal income.
Recall that the bank stores many of its assets in the chemical toilet, BNSF just traded some land with Sioux Falls and the state is home to the poorest counties in the US.
How is this ethical or honorable?
All I care about is if I am getting the full ounce I paid for. I have no reason to think that they are scamming me. I have called them about my orders, and they keep me up-to-date on every step of the ordering process, even send me email verifications. This article's author is apparently a fan of centralized banking, and probably has posters of Ben Bernake on their wall. I trust the Mulligan Mint more than the Federal Reserve. I would rather have silver or copper rounds than worthless zinc coins backed by debt.
Posters of Bernanke—there's one of the sillier things I've heard this week. How can I have any trust in a business (or a commenter who claims to be a customer) who won't back its products with any real names or addresses?
Why do you need to know where I live? Stalker! I am a customer, and I have had no problems with any of my orders. You are against this company because you believe that a centralized banking system supports a healthy economy, when it the "elastic currency" issue that's to blame for massive inflation. Our government's new way to tax us to death is to promote the inflationary tax through their compulsive spending habits.
Just to put things straight I am a customer of the rounds, not an account owner of the Lakota Bank. I have had no interest, or need to work with this bank, but I see no reason to not use them for banking transactions in the future if fractional reserve banking account fees get out of hand.
[Chill out, paranoiac, and check the comment policy. Without a name, you might just be the Free Lakota Bank fakers pumping your own propaganda.]
Who being paranoid? Your the one passing out the conspiracy that someone from Lakota Bank would waste their time on a meaningless thread like this. I am a customer of the Mulligan Mint who makes the Free Lakota rounds. Not an account holder for the Free Lakota Bank.
So this pseudonymous poster is wasting our time with no verifiable information that refutes anything said here about Free Lakota Bank. Sigh. Have fun stockpiling your metal keepsakes.