Are you receiving a large tax refund from last year? You might want to think twice about paying off any large credit card debts, as retired schoolteacher Walter Soehnge and his wife Deana found out it can flag you as a suspicious person (thanks Torfinn!):
He was referring to the recent decision by him and his wife to be responsible, to do the kind of thing that just about anyone would say makes good, solid financial sense.
They paid down some debt. The balance on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had gotten to an unhealthy level. So they sent in a large payment, a check for $6,522.
And an alarm went off. A red flag went up. The Soehnges’ behavior was found questionable.
[...] They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified. And the money doesn’t move until the threat alert is lifted.
Because damned if Al Qaida’s suicide bombers aren’t the most financially responsible people in the world according to this wacky DHS profiling.
Update: HoT pal and sometimes editor Michael Hampton is all over this with more information and snark than the terrorists can shake a stick at, saying “The irony to this blatant loss of financial privacy is that terrorists frequently run up large credit card debts and fail to pay them off.”
sucker, ʟʟᴄ