President's Choice Bank

[Garett]

Anyone heard about the DND President's Choice Bank accounts?  I've heard from two sources that these are coming online but I haven't seen anything official.  Apparently the bank cards are in CADPAT.

I'm not sure if this is going to be "forced" on everyone.

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

I have dealt with PC for a couple of years now and I can say I am more then happy with their service.

 

[GerryCan]

I've been dealing with PC Bank for about 7 years now and am very happy with their service. I just recently moved my stuff over to TD because of my mortgage, but I'll always keep my PC account around. You can't go wrong with free banking and free groceries.

Now a Cadpat card, that would be different, but I'm sure I'd get one too.

 

[qor556]

hmm CADPAT? its hard enough to find my debit card sometimes as it is. Drop it in the grass and your fu*cked  ;D

So will this only be available to DND employees then?

 

[a_majoor]

This is a clever marketing ploy, but remember, by identifying yourself in this fashion ("Special cards", "Loyalty rewards") you are allowing the marketing department to build a big and valuable database on you and your activities, habits and preferences. They "pay" you in peanuts (Airmiles $20 spent= 1 reward point), and sell the profiles for huge sums to telemarketers, advertising agencies and other corporations anywhere on earth who express an interest and pay the price. It is like having a radio tracking collar around your neck.

As a guerrilla consumer, I delight in f*****g these data bases by borrowing and using other people's Airmiles cards and telling outrageous lies to market surveys. (The Albanian-Chinese family with six kids and a combined annual salary of $32,375 in my postal code area exists only in my imagination and about 5 marketing/polling companies... and if you work in marketing, you can guess if I am telling you the truth or not. ;D)

However, what started out as an amusing diversion has taken on more serious overtones when I realized that these profiles really do go anywhere in the world. When companies in China buy these databases, they are not just used in figuring out who wants to buy bycycles, but also feed their Intelligence organs. What exactly they can extract from this information is unclear to me, but why, after all, give them anything?

Use cash!

 

[GO!!!]

Use cash often, but lets be serious here - how much information can the evil, evil commies glean from my spending habits at source video and the Canex? Enough to compile some decent demographic behaviour and overall ideas, but that can be gotten from Stats Can or Ipsos Reid for free!

 

[Infanteer]

Ahh...the pursuit of being a zero....

 

[winchable]

A_majoor, I had no idea you were such a lone gunman!


Seriously though, It's a chinese conspiracy to "sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids." (For 100 airmiles, name the source) ;D

Good advice on the marketing survery, I answered one of the phone ones the other day and I scared the life outta the girl on the other end with some of my answers.

I was a cash user for a very long time, I haaaated using debit for those exact reasons (Listened to alot of rage against the machine..still do actually)
Then I had a huge sum of cash stolen when I was about 17 and realised that unlike my debit card, cash isn't pin protected and I can't go to the bank and tell them to halt access to my lost/stolen cash.

 

[a_majoor]

The basic data from Stats Can can be accessed in libraries, but a lot of the more detailed stuff is "for sale" (I once tried doing some more in depth reserch for brigade recruiting patterns when LFRR was a hot issue). I can't see pollsters like Ipsos Reid giving away the detailed stuff they generate, just the "x% of Canadians would vote for the "I AM CANADIAN" guy if an election was called next week".

As to what intelligence agencies could generate from demographic and behavioral information, knowing how the Canadian economy works could provide leads on areas of leverage should they decide to use economic "warfare" to destabilize or neutralize Canada in some future conflict. This is similar in principle to why we strip out so much personal information on DND websites, careful web surfing and googling can be used to build up strings of association, and a very good "personal portrait" of you can be generated.

The basic information is out there for "free" as you say, but much finer and more "granular" information allows for more options. Why try to neutralize all of Canada when it might be possible to get a knock out blow by targeting a particular area/demographic or industry node?

Che, I'll take "Dr Strangelove" for 200 please.

I realize that these ideas can lead into foil hat territory, and ATM machines and loyalty cards do have uses (actually a bunch of friends trade cards so we can collect the discounts while driving the marketing people mad attempting to decipher any individuals purchasing patterns.) I find not enough people have any idea how thes things work, and without the knowledge and understanding of these systems, have no way of using the system for their, as opposed to the marketers or unknown end-users, benifit.

 

[GO!!!]

It's good that you realise that this is entering into foil hat territory.

In regards to the capacity of an enemy to deliver a "knockout blow" in economic or demographically based areas, unwittingly or not, you have identified the main US technique of destabilising unfriendly regimes. Unfortunately, this is only effective against nations/economies with narrow bases - like only exporting one commodity. Canada is not a candidate for this. Our 13.4% of foreign born Canadians and diverse demography in almost all areas preclude the effectiveness of destabilising groups on the national scale as well.

In regards to the economic damage that could be done to a "node" I think you read adbusters with a little too much nodding of the head.
There is no economic "node" which could harm Canada in a sustained way on a national level. 91% of our international trade is performed with the US, they are the only ones who could harm Canada in a meaningful way.

The fact of the matter is, the loyalty programs that you use are used almost exclusively by advertising firms to sell you stuff more effectively. For a demonstration of this, look at the advertising that scrolls accross this site in the header.....

 

[Scratch_043]

how the hell did we go from CADPAT debit cards, to Chinese companies buying personal transaction habits???

if you read the confidentiality agreement that you sign when you get a debit, credit, or membership card, you will see that it includes a non-disclosure clause, where the company can not sell or give your info to a third party.

Take off the tinfoil hat, and just enjoy your cool new card.

(PS it would be very hard for someone to use information gained from a debit card for marketing, as you have NO FRIGGING CLUE what the person bought, only that they spent X dollars and Y cents at store A)

 

[Garett]

What I think this is going to be, is that all CF mbrs will be paid into these accounts. 

 

[winchable]

only that they spent X dollars and Y cents at store A

That's all they need, marketers only task in life is to figure out how to get inside your head and make you buy more and spend more, based on those two simple facts.

 

[Gunnar]

(The Albanian-Chinese family with six kids and a combined annual salary of $32,375 in my postal code area exists only in my imagination and about 5 marketing/polling companies... and if you work in marketing, you can guess if I am telling you the truth or not. )

I usually reserve that kind of information for on-line registrations, like when there is a NY Times article I need to see.  Apparently, I'm a 120 year old woman of Icelandic origin, who lives in ZIP code 90210.  If it wasn't for the show, I dunno what I'd use as a ZIP code... ;D

I like the idea of a marketing company trying to spin things for a linguistic minority of people who are likely to die tomorrow.  Sounds really cost-effective and worthwhile.  ;D

 

[Zartan]

I have a PC bank account at work (the Real Canadian Superstore).
You can access information at CIBCs or at the PC bank.
They don't have service charges, and they charge an interest rate of
.10%-$0-$999
.15%-$1000-i forget...
...
2% on accounts greater than $25 000

 

[Scratch_043]

Zartan, I think you have it backwards, that is the interest rate you recieve for those balances

 

[Sheerin]

yeah, they're great for students! 

I was with TD during my first year of university and it was by far the worse experience of my life.  I think i was paying something like 10 dollars a month in service fees as well as 50 cents for every interac purchase I made, so literally there were months where I was paying close to 30 dollars in service fees. 

The stupid thing was it took me several months to notice this, so I called them up and they said they offered a student account, so I took... the only thing it saved me was about 5 bucks a month.  However the last straw was when they put a hold on anything I deposited, without telling me.  There were several times when I deposited a cheque (or money) only to be told later when I tired to buy something that I had insufficient funds.  I called to complain and was told that because I was student they had to put a hold on everything.  It was at this point I said 'fuck it' and transfered over to PC.  That was 3 years ago and I haven't had any troubles since!

   

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

TD by far IMO is the worse bank around for service charges. I swear you walk in that place or think about money you get charged with a fee from them. I got rid of them and went to PC without ever looking back.

 

[Scratch_043]

TD by far IMO is the worse bank around for service charges. I swear you walk in that place or think about money you get charged with a fee from them. I got rid of them and went to PC without ever looking back.

did the same, I just got sick of all the crap, now it turns out that I have investments with TD waterhouse (set up by my grandmother many years ago) and I need to have a TD bank account in order to transfer funds into/out of the waterhouse account.