A decent VPN provider, of which there are few, will not have the records necessary to tie you to an IP, nor the potential crooks … at least not without a warrant/order.
Finding a decent VPN provider is an order of magnitude higher than it should be. Most are just above Nigerian Princes.
I mean instances that can be common, where logging into your bank account from a VPN IP address gets your bank account flagged, because some banking hack also originated from or was associated with that same IP address.
And a really decent one will not have any records even with a warrant/order, and chances are it will not even be subject to any warrant/order in the first place 
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You’re right, logging into your bank account means your activity is directly tied to your identity, so not only is there no point in using a VPN, it could make things worse. A public VPN (as opposed to a DIY one between your own devices) should be used when privacy is desired.
I didn’t realize that this was common, or that is how anyone used a VPN. I rarely use my VPN to do anything other than log into my home network, from which I connect to my financial accounts. Occasionally, I will use it to masquerade as being local to a country, but that’s generally more out of convenience than anything else.
Do you have one in mind? I had one, but they just got bought out. Although the buyer doesn’t have a bad reputation, their aspirations of growth through acquisition give me serious pause.
I’ve been told that frigging ABC only allows Australian IPs watch Bluey for free. How dare they.
I like the one that rhymes with fjord. You just have to ignore/turn off all the other services they advertise. It’s not free btw, but it’s pretty cheap, especially with a multi-year sub.
I guess I’m confused about what else anyone is doing online that would warrant a VPN? Are you really paranoid that someone might find a record of your browsing cute cat videos on youtube and tie it to you? As Goose noted, a private VPN can allow you to be remote yet have all your activity flow through your home IP address for consistency, but that isnt what most common folk think of when mentioning a VPN. They think of it as preventing the websites you access not knowing your home IP address.
A couple months ago my dad was complaining about how his Lowes online account kept requiring verification codes to validate his account login, sometimes a half-dozen times just in the process of placing one order. I looked and found he had his anti-virus software’s included VPN service active and all his traffic was going through some public server I forget where. I turned it off, and all the issues magically went away. Of course, rebooting the laptop restarted the VPN, and we definitely need it running because they said it was essential for his privacy. And back to the constant verification/validation issues… 
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A long time back (I think I posted about it on FatWallet at the time) I lived along the US/Canadian border and for about a month my IP address had been erroneously geo-located to be in Canada. A VPN service would’ve been nice at that time, since being “foreign” did cause a lot of account and access issues.
Besides routing through their home (such as when using a public network, especially wifi), I can think of a few reasons, arguably in order of legality / morality:
I.e. you don’t need a VPN if you don’t care about your ISP and your government knowing what you look at and you agree to follow their restrictions.
I’m detecting sarcasm and I agree, it’s just BS from the antivirus software. I would expect any decent antivirus software to provide a way to disable the VPN permanently.
My work requires using one to log into my employer’s system. That’s obviously not for privacy reasons but for security reasons. If a business needs VPN to protect themselves, why would I not use a VPN relatively routinely to protect my own security as well?
Whenever I’m using a hotel or restaurant wifi, I feel that using a VPN is required for security. I could use mobile data but that could be slower and/or expensive.The fact that the VPN also obscures my IP address/location from websites I visit is an added bonus obviously. Add the few times where it allows me to make it look like I’m in another country for conducting business or watch online streams. And the fact that there is little downside to using one and that I can share my account with my kids. Combined, certainly worth for me to pay $10/yr for unlimited access to many servers in dozens of countries to ensure security and privacy.
Good news from the Biden censorship department
Censorship department closes before the bad guys come: The State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) closed last week and the department’s 120 staffers are no doubt busy wiping all the computers before anyone can see more of what they were up to. The GEC was one of the primary censorship offices within the federal government, funneling taxpayer money to stamp out dissident journalism and bad takes . For example, the GEC marked down as suspect anyone who questioned Covid’s origins in the wet market, and the GEC funded a network of censors who did important work like labeling the New York Post as “disinformation.” As Matt Taibbi put it in some of his great reporting on the disinfo industry: “. . . it funded a secret list of subcontractors and helped pioneer an insidious—and idiotic—new form of blacklisting.”
Unfortunately the regime is just moving them around
Add McDonald’s to the unwoke list
Zuckerberg / Facebook continues to play ball with whoever’s in power. Under Biden it was censorship for the regime and “fact checks” for anyone they didn’t like. Now that Trump won, he’s back to free speech and “community notes” ala Twitter rather than censors. Cheaper too.
https://www.wsj.com/tech/meta-ends-fact-checking-on-facebook-instagram-in-free-speech-pitch-8e46ad52
when in Rome, Kiss Ceasers’/ Pope/ Godfathers’ ring
Pretty much. Great parody here
If Zuckerberg pretends to speak his mind and noone is still around using facebook, is it still relevant?
There are real issues here. A non-profit Foundation can not sell their books via credit card, because the major processors would not process the trades. See American Renaissance.
Chase has apparently declined to continue to do business with certain “conservative groups.”
Serious damage was almost done to a foundation I am affiliated with when they closed out their bank account and sent over $50,000 to the last known address (which was for a deceased individual). The account had been active. Fortunately, the check was located and could be cashed.