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I have to pay for my linodes on the gf's credit card because HSBC randomly lock my card for suspicious payments.

That payment has gone on the same day of the month to the same place since 2009 and they still randomly do it. Last time was three days before Christmas.

HSBC are terrible.

Linode credit card info has been hacked so many times that I'm not surprised that HSBC is doing this.

For any other service, I'd be upset if my bank did this, but Linode is quite literally the least secure paid service I've ever used. I've had multiple credit cards compromised as a direct result of multiple Linode hacks.

Seriously???

Yes.

The last time Linode got hacked while I was still a customer, I learned about it on HN from a third party before Linode even publicly acknowledged the incident. I decided enough was enough, and switched to a less cost-effective provider with a better security track record.

Can you substantiate this claim at all (its an unfair question but still)? In todays day and age I wouldn't put it past a close competitor to make posts like yours on tech forums.

Just Google "Linode hacked" and scroll to your heart's content.

The worst incident in my opinion was in 2013. Credit card numbers and password hashes were compromised, and Linode actively denied it until the hackers literally showed proof (which was linked to on HN at the time iirc). I remember reading chat logs that painted Linode as extremely negligent towards security.

This is one reason I love Final: https://getfinal.com

Set up a separate card number for each site, and that way I don't have to worry if one site is compromised.

Disclaimer: Not affiliated at all, just a very happy customer! :D

Is there an international version of this? (I'm in Australia.)

I maintain multiple cards with my bank to get a poor facsimile of this.

Discover had a service like this more than a decade ago, which I used quite a bit. But they shut it down after a few years.

> HSBC are terrible.

In so many ways. As a matter of principle I refuse to make business with that bank (living in Mexico). I cannot think of giving even one peso for a corporation that is actively helping something that hurts my country so much:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/02/11/hsbc-knowingly-helpe...

At the end, they 'settled' and thus continued with life as usual. Even if my single "grain of sand" is worthless for HSBC, at least I keep my conscience clear.

I am afraid all major banks have departments involved in shameful business practices such as this very sad example.

Let's pick a supposedly "ethical" very small french bank, the "credit cooperatif"'. As their name implies, they offer ethical financial tools, which forbids child labour or any other shameful practices. So apparently if you select that bank you do not support drug cartels money laundering and your money is invested in environment friendly companies.

So far, so good. Except they are a subsidiary of banque populaire, a larger but still "somewhat ethical bank"'. Banque Populaire has merged with Caisse d'Epargne. The BPCE group is the main shareholder of investment bank Natixis which has a not so ethical track record and a huge building on the kirchberg plateau in Luxemburg. Let's just say they did not choose that building for the view on the european court of justice which is across the street.

And by the way, bpce also own a much smaller "banque des mascaraignes" which is headquartered in Mauritius. I am not exactly convinced they are in the business of supporting Mauritius economic growth.

So which is "better", hsbc which was apparently started to deal with opioids between China and the UK and is regularly accused of shameful business practices or a clean small bank which is in fact a front for a large bank with a track record on par with hsbc? I don't have a definitive answer on that ethical question.

No sources because I'm on mobile atm but everything can be fact checked through a few google queries.

Disclaimer: I have accounts in BPCE and HSBC...

> The only way to solve in the short term is to spread the risk across many banks, and never keep your money in one place.

This is always good advice, and when you reach the maximum amount for which an account is insured (100K or thereabouts) it is an absolute must. I have my funds spread over five accounts just in case and make sure you note the legal differences between savings accounts and current accounts, the latter may not be insured in case the bank folds depending on where you are.

I think the limit was upped to $250K in the wake of the financial crisis.

Joint accounts are also insured at 250k per person per bank and count separately from individual accounts. So a couple can have 3 accounts 2x 250k + 500k in a joint account at the same bank.

and that couple would be rich enough to afford a financial advisor anyhow.

500k is nowhere near rich enough to afford a financial advisor; many people save that much easily for retirement. Maybe 2 million.

If you have 500k in cash in a normal bank account, you are either so financially illiterate that you absolutely need a financial advisor or you are rich enough that you can easily afford a financial advisor.

Or you are saving for a down payment for a house in the Bay Area? There are plenty of other good reasons why someone who wasn't rich would have 500k in the bank without significant other investments.

500k as a down payment? Yeah... that would come under rich.

In that situation you either are rich enough to save that much AND/OR are rich enough to afford payments on a house where that is a sensible down payment rather than a transfer of equity from a sale.

Ya, to buy a small simple house. Rich is always relative.

I live in the Bay Area and just bought a house: 500k is not required. 500k in savings here is still rich - it ain’t THAT relative

I'm very very curious what your idea of an expensive house would be. I only ask because I (and probably most) view $500k as a downpayment as impressive.

The best way to describe my perception of this type of mindset is that reading your comments reminded me (in a non-negative way) of reading https://redd.it/67zv7a, a serendipitous thread (which I found via https://redd.it/682xc3) that veered off into an interesting discussion about the relative views of being rich.

Myself, I've never experienced this personally, which is why I perk up and take notice wherever I see it.

Someone who can afford a $2.5 million house can easily afford a financial advisor.

Nah, that's not really true. If you have 500K (especially excluding retirement accounts) then you should really have it under management (robo, yourself, a fiduciary, whatever). The S&P is up 10% on the year so far, so that's $50,000 you could have made 1/1 through present. Obviously not a guarantee of future performance, and caveats apply, but that kind of money definitely has the potential to make more money, but not when in your 1% APR savings account.

There are people of there who don't think the market is in a good state, or who are saving for a house, or for whatever reason want to stay liquid. The banks will treat you a bit better with that much in an account (they will assign you a relationship manager at Hsbc if you are at premiere level), but not very much.

I personally accumulated savings in RMB and had no decent investment options until recently. I know I can't afford anyone more than the guy at the bank who wants to take you for a ride. Everyone's situation is different.

A tenth of that in savings is more than enough for an advisor.

Or at least a consultation about how to manage it better than just sitting in a savings account.

Even if it's insured, you may not have access to the funds until the government sorts it out. Meanwhile, you've still got bills to pay.

Banks fail regularly the FDIC has a lot of practic dealing with this. Generally the assets are sold off and most of the same branches are open the next day under a new name. Checks are processed using the old account etc.

It's possible for things to take significantly longer than that, but your quickly talking about lightning strike odds.

However, I would definitely use a separate institution for investment accounts which would worse case let you sell off some stock.

I may be mistaken but I thought FDIC deposit insurance didn't apply to business accounts anyway.

This is strongly dependent on the legal entity the OP has chosen to do business with the bank. For some of those there is no coverage, for others the coverage is the same as if the account is a private account. Typically as soon as you incorporate things change but it is very well possible that a small company that is not incorporated (basically an individual trading as a company or freelancer) does have deposit insurance.

Regardless it is good practice to know exactly what the state of affairs of your bank accounts are and to really spend some time to read the fine print regarding balances and what will happen to them if the bank should go under or cease operations for whatever reason.

In NL by the way DNB will guarantee business accounts as well.

Example from Triodos Bank:

https://www.triodos.nl/nl/zakelijk/service/veelgestelde-vrag...

(in Dutch)

Photon Storm Ltd is a corporation.

I think part of the problem is banks don't make much money from the average account outside of fees. I would rather banks just charged say 20$ a month and had actual customer service instead of the mess big banks evolve into.

Banks already do that for business accounts. Actually depending on the type of account it could be much, much more than that.

For reference I used to pay close to $10 / 30 days to have a business account open in Australia. Note that I said every 30 days, not every calendar month. This makes it slightly more expensive than you think.

>This makes it slightly more expensive than you think.

365.25 / 30 * $10 == $121.75

vs. $120.00 if it was per month. Slightly indeed.

It ends up as an extra payment every 5 years or so.

Given that most paid services are invoiced by calendar month, this is somewhat unusual.

The mess the banks are in has very little to do with current accounts being a loss leader.

> I think part of the problem is banks don't make much money from the average account outside of fees

Umm.. how about 'using your money to fund interest earning loans'?

And then fund more loans on those loans. Like fractional reserve banking.

Then package them up and sell them as a triple-A bond. Hey we are getting somewhere now.

What could possibly go wrong ^_^

A large number of accounts go close to zero every month limiting banks ability to use them for loans.

Loaning out money at 1-2% isn't great either, once you've accounted for administration and defaults.

They've got the money in the account. They can do whatever they want with it, included lending it many times. They don't need fees.

Retail customers are the cheapest source of capital for BB. I remember directors would laugh about it when it was brought up. Banks are not doing retail (any) customers any favors.

> How is it the banks were the ones at fault, but the customers are paying for it.

Market power. There are economies of scale in banks, so there are few banks which are huge and can generally afford to act shittily to their customers (unlike in competitive industries).

For the record, I don't think breaking up the banks or capping bank size will fundamentally solve the problem either.

Rather regulation. Banks have been hit with multi-billion dollar fines because they conducted business with the wrong people. Closing "good" accounts is less risky than paying exorbitant amounts because you failed to do so.

> spread the risk across many banks

That saved me in the 2007 crash, as one account of mine got frozen for a year. Just like it's a bad idea to put all of your investments into one stock.

Thank God such issues are not rampant in India. I guess the Indian central bank the RBI is to thank for it.