Have you ever read your bank's or credit union's terms of service (TOS)? I fear TOSes, so I always make a stab at reading through them and always appalled at how evil they are.
My credit union just switched providers for their online bill-pay service, so I have to agree to the new company's TOS before I can pay my bills. It's over 9000 words long. I'm only 15% of the way through it, but look what I've found.
The following types of payments are prohibited through the Service, and we have the right but not the obligation to monitor for, block, cancel and/or reverse such payments:
...
Payments related to: (1) tobacco products, (2) prescription drugs and devices;
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(5) ammunition, firearms, or firearm parts or related accessories; (6) weapons or knives regulated under applicable law;
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(9) goods or services that promote hate, violence, racial intolerance, or the financial exploitation of a crime; (10) goods or services that defame, abuse, harass or threaten others; (11) goods or services that include any language or images that are bigoted, hateful, racially offensive, vulgar, obscene, indecent or discourteous; (12) goods or services that advertise, sell to, or solicit others; or
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Payments relating to transactions that ... (4) constitute money-laundering or terrorist financing, (5) are associated with the following "money service business" activities: the sale of traveler’s checks or money orders, currency dealers or exchanges, or check cashing, or
...
Wow! They get to decide whether I pay for my prescription drugs with bill-pay or not.
Many of these things sound reasonable at first glance, but who decides what "discourteous" means? If I buy a T-shirt with any political slogan on it, surely someone will find it at least "discourteous" if not "hateful".
And "money-laundering"? Bitcoin is already accused of that. So they have a say in how I buy bitcoin.
If the FED and the government have their way and get rid of cash, they'll be able to dictate what we buy just by threatening banks.
And check this out:
In addition to the above-referenced prohibited payments, we may also block and/or reverse payments that involve donations or payments to an unauthorized charity or non-profit organization, unless we have performed appropriate due diligence on and investigation of such charity or non-profit organization and have determined its legitimacy, in our sole discretion.
"Unauthorized charity"? They get to decide which charities I donate to.
