Fraud and Honesty

I thought I would take a quick moment to ventilate a little frustration.  Amanda and I have once again been the victims of fraud.  Luckily it is on the same credit card (different number) with a bank that is easy to work with.  I have to admit, I really like Zions Bank and how well they have treated me for some 15 years now.  On that same note, I feel somewhat justified to see Wachovia suffer an ignominious death.  The way they treated us with a little account makes me glad they are out of business.  While I don’t hold much more esteem for CitiGroup, I am happy to see the bird of a similar feather buy the same type of business.

Anyhow, back to the fraud.  Amanda went to do a little food shopping for us this night and found our card rejected her.  We pulled up our account on the internet and found we had purchased several hundreds of dollars of goods in the Philippines.  Well, that is where we assume Las Pinas, PL is.  (Upon wondering, in searching that location on GoogleMaps, it brings up Venezuela.)  I find myself a bit more surprised at Venezuela than the Philippines.  Hmmm, why would I think that?  Venezuela, the country telling us to get a new Constitution over the past few days.  The guy organizing nuclear business with Russia as a neighbor to the United States.  What ever happened to the Monroe Doctrine?  Nobody messes with our hemisphere.  Oh wait, that probably went out the window when we started messing with their hemisphere (the other side of the Monroe Doctrine).  Ironic I joined the J. Reuben Clark law society, one of the men credited with undoing the Monroe Doctrine.

What is coming of the world?  What happened to people living their religion?  What happened to honesty?  It seems strange that a person would take the private information of another for gain.  It almost seems as if there is no cheque for greed anymore in the world.  What is best, we claim it is good to gain on the behalf of another.  Look at Wall Street, years of greed and not playing for the long run have given them one last hurrah trying to continue to make a buck on behalf of the tax payer.  I very much hope they don’t get it.  What if we fall into recession again, or even depression?  Perhaps we will learn to be frugal and industrious once again.  Perhaps we will learn debt is not a solution or viable long term option.  Perhaps we can hope we would see beyond the moment into this continual cycle.  But then, human nature continues.

Now, asking all those questions.  Haven’t we great reason to rejoice?  There are great reasons to rejoice.  Those who are prepared need not fear.  Those who have heeded the counsel of the scriptures and the prophets of ages past and present find themselves once again vindicated.  At least for the moment.  There is always a silver lining.  The world will go on despite poverty, sadness, and loss.  We have eternity and that makes anything now worth it.

Wow, talk about abstract tonight.  Darn fraud.  For some reason Mo Udall comes to mind, “The people have spoken; The bastards.”  We see the cumulative effect of millions of people living in debt, conglomerated into businesses and government, finally receiving some of the due.  Sadly, those who will hurt the worst are probably the poorest.  While we are not poor by any means, in fact, I consider ourselves quite rich, we are finding our finances attacked by some dishonest person in the world.  My only thought comes from the scriptures, “God judge between me and thee, and reward thee according to thy deeds.”  (D&C 64:11).  (Look at that citation!  Finally I am feeling some more confidence in my grammar and punctuation.  What a great benefit to law school!)