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Comment by xiphias2 | Hacker News Reader

Just call credit card center for a refund and get a burner number…not a big deal.

Regarding banks: get some Bitcoin just in case, as it can be much worse when banks ban you.

If you have to worry about banks banning you, you maybe shouldn't be in a position where you need to take financial advice from HN comments and you're likely better off with cash than an unstable asset that you can't easily eliminate without involving a bank.

> If you have to worry about banks banning you

Banks ban you for joke comments in bank transfers or anything that alludes to drugs, sex work or gambling. Or for transferring remittances to your parents in a way some algorithm deemed to be "structuring" or "money laundering for terrorists".

PayPal bans you for whatever the fuck their AI decided on a whim.

I've been on HN for over eight and a half years now and help requests or complaint blog posts are routine here. One thing that's common is support staff that is either unreachable (Google) or doesn't have any freedom to reverse AI-caused bans / only is allowed to post canned responses (everyone else). The only way to get issues with big tech resolved these days is to raise a stink here on HN, even Twitter shitstorms seem to fly under the radar more and more.

> Banks ban you for joke comments in bank transfers or anything that alludes to drugs, sex work or gambling

Surely it must be possible to exercise a wee bit of self control and not be an edgelord in every aspect of one's life?

Banks should not be allowed to automatically ban people without a human in the loop ffs.

That wasn't the point I was making.

All you need is an anonymous call to the police in the US to SWAT your house and get all money from your bank account taken away temporarily. There are multiple people who said that the only reason they didn't need to ask money from friends for lawyers is that they had some Bitcoin. It's all about preparing for worst case scenarios in your life, just like wearing a seatbelt.

Sure, I would love to buy grocery with bitcoin.... What a joke.

Not grocery, but lawyer in the cas you want to get access to your money. Have you read about the process that happens when your house is SWAT-ted using an anonymous phone call?

Ya, that makes sense... But then how much should I save. It's so volatile that I would give multiple thoughts before saving anything close to a lawyers fee in bitcoin.

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