A Question For METABANK and Banks Operating Like It:
Do you say “creative” when you mean dishonest?
Are you proud of getting away with things?
creative accounting…creative test-taking…creative legal solutions…
creative communication…creative financing…creative relationships…
When you are dishonest, do you admit it to yourself?
What Dr. Breuning stated above struck a chord with us. These are our observations of how METABANK treats their customer base:
How METABANK Operates:
Because in the beginning, METABANK got away with scamming the most financially vulnerable in our society, METABANK (and it has to be at the top ranking CEO level) began to try to push the scam off on others.
Because METABANK operates using a partner corporate entity to sell their product, you may be using a METABANK product and not even know it.
METABANK seems to alter their name rather frequently or to create various divisions with varying names…. Trust us, there is a scam in this practice.
METABANK says that no credit check is necessary for a customer to be able to open up an account. However, former customers have reported to me that given the kind of questions that METABANK asks that METABANK is actually doing a credit check. This brings to mind the case, a very sad case of BOESEN. Boesen was given loans by METABANK for which he had no way to repay them. I believe that the Collections Agency side of METABANK was putting serious pressure on BOESEN to pay them back and he was in debt really deep. I believe that basically, BOESEN was encouraged to get more loans to pay off the first loan. Collections Agencies have a very bad reputation in the U.S.A. They are known to harass people, and they are known to lie to people.
METABANK lied to me and to many others who have also complained about METABANK’s abusive treatment of them as their customer. Why lie?????
METABANK said that BOESEN had presented them with falsified documents to get loans. BOESEN’s wife hadn’t also signed for the loans. It appears that BOESEN was basically so harassed by the operational practices of METABANK that he committed suicide. Then I read that METABANK was going after his widow, years later… METABANK CEOs have made huge annual incomes but at the pain of others.
METABANK and Payoneer said they sold prepaid bank cards to 26 people. Those 26 people used the METABANK/PAYONEER PREPAID BANK CARDS to commit an assassination. One man in the world was denied the right to a fair trial. Although PAYONEER (METABANK in Israel) advertises that they have the best equipment in the world to be able to detect falsified documents, they sold 26 prepaid bank cards to 26 assassins….. My prepaid bank card simply wouldn’t allow me to access my own money once METABANK had my CASH MONEY in their possession, but 26 impostors using false identification were able to make the METABANK PREPAID CARDS work so that they could fly to DUBAI where they assassinated someone they didn’t like…. That guy got no trial in a court of law…. METABANK sent a very newly hired employee to talk to the media; she was given a statement to say and then honestly she could say that she had no further information….We have wondered if LISA BINDER was being set up to become the next PICKHINKLE.
Dr. Breuning explains, “Dishonesty has consequences. The animal brain learns from consequences, but it only learns from the immediate moment. When an animal encounters an aversive stimulus, it develops an aversion to whatever is present at the moment, not to underlying causes. If you get sick after eating a certain dish, that dish will always disgust you whether or not it was the cause. Your primitive limbic brain does not look for root causes. It does not project long-term consequences. Your human cortex makes those complex links. Respect for the law requires a big cortex. Respect for abstract principles makes us human.
We found METABANK’s lies to us were extremely bold and blatant. They were obviously lying and talking in circles. WHY????? It was only because they had control of the customer’s money and therefore able to keep their customers from being able to access their own cash money while METABANK was getting what amounts to an interest free loan for themselves. Most customers report that phone calls to try to correct the problem they encountered with METABANK has consistently found that METABANK was pushing all blame off onto the customer.
METABANK began with the most financially vulnerable people in society. These people were not able to fight back because they live from pay check to paycheck and they are in a survival mode. These people had been taken advantage of by how METABANK operates. Once METABANK had practiced and to them, it appeared they had succeeded in scamming the public as they do, METABANK felt that what they are doing is appropriate, and the METABANK CEOs have made huge profits
Because Everyone Else is Doing It
METABANK has taught other banks the tricks of their trade. What METABANK does to their customers is unacceptable!!
Here is the mentality we appear to be dealing with at METABANK:
When Everyone Jumps Off the Brooklyn Bridge
I worked in Africa when I was young, and often got stopped by the police as I zipped around on a United-Nations motorbike. They wouldn’t say why they’d stopped me, and my gaze would settle on their machine gun in the awkward silence. What was up?
“Give them money,” people told me. “Everybody does it.”
I got the same answer no matter who I asked. But I couldn’t do it. Something in me resisted digging into my pocket for Central African francs to grease the palms of gun-toting traffic cops, regardless of what everyone did.
When my mother warned me not to follow everyone off the Brooklyn Bridge, I thought she was ridiculous. Everyone doesn’t jump off bridges, so why did she fuss? But suddenly I felt surrounded by people destined to end up at the bottom of the river.
Bribes were just the tip of the iceberg. I was in Africa to work on a UN economic planning project. The project was at a standstill because the country’s dictator withheld financial data. He ran the national treasury out of his pocket and asking nosy questions could land you in jail or worse. I went to work every day in a building full of economists with no work to do.
What frustrated me most as an eager young grad student was that no one acknowledged the reality of it. To fill my time I visited other aid projects, and learned that many were also at a standstill due to corruption. That’s when I questioned the prevailing view that bribery is a harmless tradition. I could not “respect the culture” as expected, and decided this racket was not for me. I packed up and went home in search of a new career.
But I couldn’t pack up and escape from social pressure to accept corrupt practices. As a college professor, I often stumbled on evidence that my students were cheating. Many professors looked the other way. “Everyone does it” was the unspoken consensus.
Something in me refused to go along. I was being paid to enforce academic standards the way a police officer is paid to enforce traffic rules. Tolerating cheating would be collecting my salary without doing the job. I wasn’t going to be a shirker regardless of what others did. I cracked down on cheating in my own classes instead of waiting for everybody to change.
I did not like being around people who think there’s a “right to cheat” when you’re annoyed with “the system.” Higher principles couldn’t help me because they’re often bent to rationalize cheating. I began exploring lower principles instead- the mammalian neurochemistry that drives our survival behavior.
Mammals evolved from reptiles by learning to live in groups. They didn’t consciously choose that, of course. Individuals who stuck near others simply had higher survival rates, so natural selection created a brain that sought social alliances.
Mammals pay a high price for the security of the group. They submit to dominators to avoid injury. Wild chimpanzees are often missing a finger or an ear lobe due to conflict with a troop-mate. Yet mammals stick with their herd or pack or troop. People tend to cheat when they see others are doing it. Your mammal brain feels safe when it’s with a herd. If the herd starts endangering itself, your human cortex can inhibit your mammalian urge to merge. In fact, that’s why you have all those extra neurons. to end up in the jaws of a predator if they leave. They evolved brains adept at avoiding conflict.
We have inherited the limbic system that all mammals have in common. It releases happy neurochemicals when survival prospects improve, and icky neurochemicals when survival prospects are threatened. Contemplate isolation or conflict and those icky chemicals flow. Remain in secure social alliances and happy chemicals flow.
Your mammal brain is not on speaking terms with your cortex because it doesn’t process language. Your limbic system doesn’t tell you in words why it triggers neurochemical ups and downs. But it is always busy scanning the world for threats and opportunities to help you survive.
Every mammal has a cortex hooked up to its limbic system. The cortex is tiny in sheep and rodents, so their capacity to adjust old impulses to new information is tiny. They follow the herd and submit to avoid conflict because it feels good. Primates, by contrast, have a large cortex. They can inhibit impulses when experience proves it’s in their survival interest. The primate brain is always analyzing new information and deciding whether to dominate or submit, whether to follow or take initiative.
Your cortex is three times as large as a chimpanzee’s. You can bring a lot of information to bear on your social choices. Sometimes you see that honoring the mammalian impulse to avoid conflict and follow the group is your best option. Other times you see reason to go it alone and resist submitting.
Analyzing social dynamics at every moment is stressful. It would be nice have one principle to guide every situation.
But your ancestors evolved extra neurons because social analyzing promotes survival.
You inherited all those neurons to make survival judgements for yourself instead of just doing what everybody does.
When you need to escape a herd that seems bound for harm, it’s good to know your brain evolved for just that challenge!
When You Face An Open Palm
In my last blog, I was standing in front of an African police officer and refusing to bribe him. Readers wondered how it worked out, so here’s the full story.
I naively waited for an explanation of the charges the first few times I was stopped. Nothing was ever said.
Long awkward silences. Then they’d wave me off with a hand. [ METABANK does this but in reverse. METABANK distances themselves from their customer base who must rely on phoning them and then METABANK puts the customer on hold… so METABANK refuses to address customers’ expressed and very real needs…. This is by design.]
That’s how I discovered they’ll just give up if you’re not too quick to brandish cash.
You can help fight corruption by investing a little bit of time.
If you’re not easy prey they eventually move on.
Your time is valuable, but the opportunity to help build system integrity is even more valuable. [The lesson is right there.]
Dr. Breuning writes, “Truth be told, I bribed once. I was driving a friend’s car rather than my motorbike, so the stakes were higher. Friends had just given me the “everybody does it” speech, so I was primed with the thought of contributing to the police officer’s personal charity. When I was stopped, I did the most uncool thing imaginable- I rolled the window down half an inch and fed a small bill through it. I was shaking while I did it. This is ridiculous, I thought, and never did it again.”
An even higher-stakes encounter confirmed my naive strategy. Mexicana Airlines once refused to check in myself and my daughter because I did not have notarized permission from her Dad to take her out of the country. It was six AM and we had flown through the night from California to Miami to board an 8 AM flight to the Yucatan. My husband had chosen not to join this pyramid-climbing expedition.
I am not blaming the airline- this rule protects children.
No one informed me of the rule when I bought my ticket, but if every rule could be evaded by saying “nobody told me” chaos would rein. Where did that leave me?
[METABANK creates all of the rules for all of their products and retains the right to change those rules without notice… Trust us, the rules will change and not for your benefit.]
“There’s only one thing you can do,” said the ticket agent. “Write a letter saying you’re divorced and have full custody, and get it notarized.”
“Where would I find a notary at this hour?”
“I think there’s one in the basement…Jose, please escort these ladies down there.”
I wandered around the basement of the Miami airport with a little girl who hadn’t slept all night and a Mexicana employee with sweaty palms.
We walked and walked, but no hint of a notary was to be found. Are you surprised?
At 7:50, Jose said something into his walkie-talkie. Then he looked at me and said “Run to the gate.”
“What?”
“They’re holding the gate for you. The flight’s about to leave. Run.”
Why the sudden change? Obviously, they were expecting a bribe, and when they saw I would let that flight leave before I would grease them there was no point in keeping me.
They may have taken pity on my daughter for having such a clueless mother.
Would I have had the courage to keep my wallet shut if I had known what was going on?
All I can say is that ignoring corruption works for me.
Instead of focusing on who to pay to break the rules, I expect others to be as law-abiding as I am, and trust in the law to resolve problems if they arise.
It’s not perfect, but it’s far better than feeding corrupt expectations.
Many people reach the opposite conclusion. They even pride themselves on their ability to manipulate the system. But they live with the burden of knowing they are part of the problem.
…I have a confession to make here…
I burst out crying in front of an African policeman once. I was alone on a dark road and my motorbike’s headlamp just burned out. I was 23 years old and scared.
He may have been more scared than me when I started crying, for he quickly waved me off.
This incident popped into my mind when I was planning the lecture for my MBA International Business class.
I had to prepare my students to refuse payoff requests because kickbacks trigger serious penalties under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. I couldn’t tell my students to cry.
I needed to offer a systematic response, and that’s how I came to write Greaseless: How to Thrive without Bribes in Developing Countries.
Perhaps you feel like crying for the African police and the Mexicana ticket agents?
I hear that response a lot.
Perhaps you’ve imagined they needed my bribe to buy medicine to keep their child alive one more night.
I ask you to imagine instead what life would be like if every employee of every organization could use their position to benefit the highest bidder, with no accountability.
My next post will paint a more detailed picture of such law-of-the-jungle thinking.
Perhaps you tell yourself we little guys are entitled to cheat because the Fat Cats are already cheating. My last post, When Everyone Jumps Off the Brooklyn Bridge, explores this imagined “right to cheat.”
***********************************************************************************************************
These two posts by Dr. Bruening shed light on human nature
We have choices, more choices than we may even realize.
What we do must serve all of humanity and help to prevent others from being scammed the way we were by using a product put out by METABANK
All that we can do is to warn other consumers that METABANK’s practices are not good for customers, nor for our nation, nor for international relations….
You must do what is reasonable and appropriate.
SAY “NO” TO METABANK AND TO ANY OTHER INSTITUTION THAT USES THE SAME PRACTICES THAT META BANK USES.
- There is nothing honorable in the way that METABANK does business.
- We need the existing laws to be enforced properly.
- The existing laws may need to be reviewed and corrected.
- Most of all consumers must speak out against the practices that METABANK is sharing with other banks as if what they do is honorable and worthy of being copied and repeated.
Mrnd5's Blog 