No Crime and Punishment
Yesterday, as I was driving down to Rancho Mirage, I got a call from my bank telling me I was overdrawn. The bank is called First Credit Bank. It is a small entity, and I have been a depositor since it was founded about 45 years ago. I fact, I have been a depositor since Day One.
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The woman executive at the other end of the line told me that not only was I overdrawn (by a very small amount) but that the federal government told her that they could not accept a transfer from Merrill Lynch, where I have had an account since I was 12 years old.
The feds told her that my bank was on a “Russian sanctions” list because of the massive business it does with Russia, currently sanctioned in many ways.
I was furious. I have never even set one toe on Russian soil. I do no business with any Russian entity. My bank does no business with Russia. What the heck was going on?
What if I never can get any money out of my account there? Where did this Mishigas, as we Jews call it, come from? After a blizzard of telephone calls and texts and some very smart, hard work by my friends at Merrill Lynch, I learned what had happened.
There is a bank in South Korea also called “First Credit Bank.” It does business with some Russian companies. It is indeed on “The List” of sanctioned companies. My people at ML got it straightened out in a short time.
There is no company I have ever dealt with as capable and wonderful to work with as Merrill Lynch. They are miracle workers.
But in the meantime, I had been thoroughly shaken up. What if I were not able to get it taken care of so quickly? What if the massive, elephantine weight and power of the federal government were set on destroying my life and just would not bulge? Ask Donald Trump.
About 10 years ago, the IRS sent me an endless series of paperwork saying I owed about $200 million. I have never seen money anywhere near that. It was addressed to a man who apparently lived about one block north of me and my wife. It took over a month to get it straightened out. Incredibly, I still get letters from the IRS insisting I owe sums like those that appear in nightmares. Merrill Lynch is endlessly helpful.
“Count no man with a happy life until it’s over.” So says an ancient saying, and it’s true.
If you had asked me two years ago who had enjoyed the happiest life of anyone I knew, I would have said, “Me.”
That was before I was awakened at 6 a.m. on July 4, 2023, in my bed by a call saying our son, Tommy, had suddenly died of a very lethal reaction to a legal drug and a horrible emotional crisis.
That was before a super spike in interest rates made it impossible, or almost so, to refinance my wife’s and my real estate. That was before a reaction to what should have been minor surgery left me largely disabled, required to use a cane even to walk short distances.
That was before I bought by far the most expensive car I had ever bought. It turned out to be a full-scale lemon and able to be driven for about five minutes before it stopped functioning. I am now in California’s “Lemon Law” hell, which squeezes the customer like a lemon and still lands him without a penny of recompense.
There is much more to be said. I would not have survived without my glorious wife and a few very close friends. I would not have survived had I not in palmier days saved enough to buy dinner.
Life is tricky beyond words. It’s a minefield. Even in America you have to make major preparation for bad days. Believe me: They are coming.
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