How my friend got burned by a moron working for the tax authority

This story really stuck with me and made me realize just how dangerous it is to trust banks with your money.

Back in 2019 my friend was about to purchase an apartment from a real estate developer. Now the way it works in my country is that you see a home that you are sure you want, you then make something that is called a precontract, with which you bind yourself to purchase the home at a later date (after you get the loan). Now if for any reason the buyer backs off or is unable to make the payment before a certain date, he has to pay some damages to the developer as agreed in the precontract (in my friend's case this was €10.000).

So my friend, being confident that he will buy the apartment signs this pre-contract and goes loan shopping. Literally 3 days before the deadline to pay the developer he wakes up to find his bank account frozen. The reason? Years before he was working as self employed and some moron from the tax authority who didn't know how to add figured out my friend "owed" around €70 to the tax authority. Now the idiotic law in my country allows the tax authority to freeze one's bank accounts no matter how small the the amounts owed. Supposedly, they freeze all your bank accounts just in case the amounts owed are larger than they originally thought. Usually, this can last at least a couple of weeks if not more in which you basically can't withdraw anything or make any transaction. The worst part of all is that even if this is done by mistake (as it was in my friend's case), the tax authority has absolutely zero liability. To add insult to injury, the bank will also slap you with some pretty hefty fees for both freezing and unfreezing your account.

Of course my friend lost both the apartment as well as had to pay €10K to the developer. Of course he tried to reason with the guy, but he didn't accept it because he knew he could quickly sell the apartment and make an easy €10K on top of it. He even tried to sue the government, but his case was quickly dismissed because the law was made intentionally so that the givernment has zero liability in case it's done by mistake or the freezing of your accounts result in damages.

This is why whenever I see people having blind trust in both their government and the banking system I am utterly disgusted. My friend's case is just one of many such cases in my country and it's not even by far the worst. There have been cases where bank accounts of entire companies were wrongfully frozen for months and they eventually went bankrupt with no recourse. This didn't hurt just the company owners, but also the employees and suppliers who didn't get paid.

Now imagine if bitcoin was the default currency. This shit just wouldn't be possible. Not your keys, not your coin, bitch!

Submitted August 04, 2022 at 01:04AM by Taranpula https://ift.tt/AvkZDWI