Danger! Credit-Card Payment!

by Paul Jacob

It's easy to get INTO credit-card debt. Getting out of it can hurt, but is simple enough: pay it off. Problem solved.

But wait. It's not so simple. Not any more.

Retired schoolteacher Walter Soehnge and his wife, formerly of Texas, recently decided to clear their Platinum MasterCard account. The balance had risen to more than $6,500. So they paid it off.

Good, but -- wait. Isn't this just the sort of thing that, er, a terrorist would do, you may be asking?

Oh, that wasn't your first thought?

Apparently the couple's payment did cross some magic line drawn by their bank at the behest of the Department of Homeland Security. Slide past that line, and your transaction gets marked "suspicious," and until the red flag is removed, the payment will not be credited.

Walter says he's "madder than a panther with kerosene on his tail," and he's been raising a fuss. He says the government should stay out of his private financial business. Says Walter, "It's scary how easily someone in Homeland Security can get permission to spy."

It all has to do with the latest version of the Bank Secrecy Act, which, as you probably now know, is all about depriving you of your financial privacy, not ensuring it. Allegedly "suspicious" credit-card payments are just the latest tightening of the screw.

Things have gotten really bad, though, if the government thinks that only terrorists pay off their debts.

ACCESS would like to thank Paul Jacob and Americans for Limited Government for permission to reprint this article. Paul Jacob is the senior fellow of Americans for Limited Government. The blog Common Sense is also published by Americans for Limited Government. Their website can be visited at www.limitedgov.org.

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