Its very sad how Finance never really transitioned from the FattWallet

You say error, I say intentional.

I did have the police called on me in a walmart, doing exactly this. State trooper walks up behind me while I’m buying MOs @ the machine and says he needs to talk to me. I ask if I can finish the transaction I’m in them middle of and he says ok.

Normally I’m a ā€˜Don’t talk to the police, ever’ type, but the best-case logical conclusion of that would be getting a no trespass order from the walmart, and worst-case conclusion was getting arrested and having to defend the >50k in MOs I had on me at the time. I opted to have a chat with the troopers in the walmart.

I explained how I could buy gift cards with my Hilton card and get 6 pts/$ and buy MOs with the gift cards then get rooms for <$20/night. Showed some receipts to back it up. Let them run my license to verify my clean record. They said someone called saying I had bought $50k in MOs there in the last few days. I told them it was well over $100k.

They told me to be careful leaving because it wasn’t a very safe neighborhood and were on their way. I owned that walmart from that point forward. They let me do anything.

16 Likes

I’ve found the same. Nothing gives you (in this case, it was me) more credibility than a half-hour in the Walmart security office with Treasury Agents, then walking out and going right back to what you (I) had been doing.

My attitude has always been, if I’m not willing to explain what I’m doing, I probably shouldnt be doing it in the first place. If the conversation progresses beyond an explanation, it becomes a different story.

5 Likes

Hah, thanks, but I am a small fish. There are whales out there…

I miss FWF, I would go there everyday. This site is nice but honestly I hate the forum design. I like the old FWF design. I kinda forgot this place existed for a year or so and now I’m starting to read a little bit of posts but can’t stand the format.

2 Likes

Thank you all for speaking to this.

I was not thinking from a deal centric aspect, but more of the collective conscience that was brought to posts and the random gems I had gleaned from all of you over time

6 Likes

I got used to the format. To me, reddit is much worse but tons of people lives in Reddit. Discourse is actually a quite popular format.

4 Likes

I hate Reddit’s format. It is so difficult to ever pick up where you left off on a thread. I would take this any day over Reddit!!

6 Likes

FWF taught me about CC rewards. It’s where I learned to live below my means, which 15 years later has really paid off. It helped me get through my divorce.

A year ago I was helping a friend who received a collection letter from a hospital. I sent one ā€œI dispute. Please validate.ā€ certified letter and they dropped it.

At the time I was thinking to myself: ā€œPaging Codename47ā€¦ā€

13 Likes

Seeing this thread made my day. Good memories, and love the idea that there’s still some sentiment for somehow turbocharging what we have here.

Between pandemic-induced business struggles and a previously amicable divorce which has gone south, I’ve not been nearly as present as I would like. But am ready to change that in a flash as circumstances warrant.

LOL on boomers of internet finance…something to that. And I confess I don’t even know what ā€œDiscordsā€ are, and am barely Instagram literate too…gotta get my daughter’s help to figure that out. :slight_smile:

6 Likes

Love it l33tsauce,

I fondly recall those days. I would do a $9,xxx billpay (max was $10K) and use the four maximum swipes to drain 3x$500 prepaid debit cards and then do one $8k+ Suntrust debit payment. Didn’t even have to mess with MOs that way. :slight_smile:

A few years later I applied for a Suntrust credit card to get a $200 bonus and I got rejected stating that I had a ā€œpreviously unfavorable relationship with the bankā€. I had to laugh and took that to mean they figured out what had happened and how much it costs them :rofl:

That’s a bummer! I know several others in your boat.

Even though I earned 1 million + skymiles, I never had them AA me; I have a bank account with them to this day.

I guess the big challenge is finding the private groups that share such info.

I remember when DoC used to spam their links in FWF…now it’s like the only place I really check consistently.

3 Likes

I apologize if this has been discussed or is obvious to others, but how is this site monetized?

I don’t see any ads (although this may be my ad-blocking software).

1 Like

The owner operator loses a little bit on each post we make. But they make up for it on volume.

12 Likes

Anyone remember that FWF guy with the never ending inheritance / estate problem involving distant overseas relatives and foreign jurisdictions? Do you remember if he ever got it resolved, or did the problems outlive the FW site?

I was reminded of this from this Bogleheads thread where people chimed in with lots of inheritance woes. 10 pages and counting…

https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=270449

2 Likes

I do not recall that one

1 Like

I’m pretty sure it was unresolved as of the last update. And if I remember correctly, at that point the poster was pretty resigned to it remaining unresolved until there was nothing left to fight over.

2 Likes

I recall that as well.

It was a hilarious thread by cga about kinship proceedings. Upon Fatwallet’s imminent demise, he registered a domain (kinship-proceedings.com) to provide updates. He never published the domain, so I presume nothing has changed … or he received a trumpillion dollars and started buying models. :slight_smile:

3 Likes