JWZ’s law states that “Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail.” A corollary is that every complex system expands until it becomes a bank. Yesterday, I wrote about how a chatbot for organizing coffee orders became a full-fledged bank.
Now, here’s a 4chan post explaining a dumb/clever way of using Gamestop stores as fee-free banking institutions by pre-ordering (and pre-paying) for games, then cancelling your orders and getting a refund (to make a withdrawal), and ordering new games (to make a deposit). It’s fee-free, and as a pre-orderer, you get all the bonus stuff (your bank pays you!).
This is probably more of a reflection of the total dysfunction of banking, where low interest rates and hidden inflation, as well as high fees, conspire to bleed out savers to pay for reckless speculation, but it’s still a pretty clever way of getting fee-free banking from an institution with more branches, and better hours, than many banks.
I got really pissed off with US Bank because I kept overdrafting my account even though I opted out, and the same thing happened with my credit union when I got a debit card.
Now whenever I get paid I go preorder a whole shitload of games. Whenever I need money, I go to the nearest gamestop and ask for my money back on a game I don’t want and make a withdrawal. The lines are shorter at gamestop than at the bank and I can trade in old games and have money go straight to my savings account. Gamestops are just as prevalent as banks in my town and I work at a mall so it’s even more convenient than running an errand to the bank or using an ATM and getting charged.
The gamestop people are starting to catch on that I’m just moving money around and only buying one preordered game a year, if that, but there isn’t shit they can do about it. The best part is, since I always preorder every game coming out I’m still guaranteed to get all the exclusive content whether or not I’m sure I want a certain game. It’s like they’re rewarding me for banking with them.
The First National Bank of GameStop