Invisible Privacy | Online Privacy

As I say in my book How To Be Invisible, "Hundreds of thousands of American citizens, as well as a similar number of illegal aliens, manage to live without any bank account at all, and not all are financially disadvantaged."

This is one way to ensure that you do not accidentally reveal your home address by writing a check for the rent, taxes, home repair, or whatever.

Any normal purchases can be made in cash, including gas, car repairs, appliances, and even expensive electronics. If a few bills must be paid by mail, money orders can be used.

For convenience, of course, a bank account is important. Some use an account in Canada and withdrawn funds at ATMs. Others keep an account in a small faraway bank, as described in Invisible Money. And a few intrepid souls use the ultimate in privacy, a nominee account.

Labels: Canadian bank accounts, invisible money, money orders, no bank account

Japan has a registration system for all citizens and foreigners at the local city office. Citizens are registered pen-to-paper on family trees called "koseki". This is the foundation for employment, bank accounts, national health insurance, voting. All of the afore-mentioned activities are cross-checked through the city office.

Separately, foreigners are registered by a photo ID card called "gaikouko-jin-cardo", or in the vernacular, "gaijin card" issued for the duration of their passport stamp. Any changes to a foreigner’s life, for example address, marriage/divorce, job changes are written in ink on the back of the card and pen-to-paper in the city office.

“For Japanese people,” says an American expat living in Japan, “it is impossible to dodge this system. If there is any doubt raised as to your registration, you will find your bank account temporarily inactive, health insurance card not working at the clinic, etc. This happened to me several years ago. I moved and thought I would tell everybody later, as in 30 days or so. I went to the doctor for a check-up and the receptionist asked if I moved recently. I said yes. She wrote down my new address.

"How did she know? My company’s HR staff called me to say that my bank called to confirm my address before my salary could be deposited. My name didn’t match the address on my salary deposit. How did they know? Landlords are expected to inform on tenants who come or go!”

Wait, there’s more!

“Japanese don't use checks,” he says. “Instead, they go to any ATM and type in the recipients name or company name, bank name, account number, and insert cash. A record is then sent to all parties. One’s entire financial life is recorded -- how much the telephone bill is, medical clinics visited, religious contributions, debts paid to loan shark consumer finance companies, etc.”

Compare that to the U.S., where—if you move—by following the instructions in How to Be Invisible you can hide your true home address for the rest of your life. Further, if you follow the instructions in Invisible Money, you can hide your cash payments as well

Labels: hiding home address, how to be invisible, invisible money, Japan, Lack of privacy, secret home address

When a PI is hired (usually by a law firm) to locate your bank account, he will start by running a database search to get a history of your addresses. He will also check civil records filings in the county court houses where those addresses are located because they may reveal the name of your bank.

If he fails to find your bank account near your current residence, he will then search banks and court records near your former addresses and expand from there in concentric circles. Because it is a time consuming and expensive effort, he will probably stop searching after the first bank account is found. (Most PI's charge a separate fee for each bank account located.)

Another possibility is that the PI will hire a confederate to pick up your garbage. (Yes, some people still just tear up bank statements rather than shred them!) He may also pull up your credit report, which can be a trove of banking information.There are many more ways that an unusually smart (or crooked) PI can track down your bank account.

To reduce the chances that your account will be found, close your present account. Then open a new one in a state far from where you live, and bank by mail. Do not use a credit card tied in to that account. Then, if you wish to keep extra savings in a secure location, open a second secret bank account in Canada. Bulletproof security!

More information, along with step-by-step instructions about how to open hidden bank accounts in both the U.S. and Canada, is contained in Invisible Money.

Labels: hidden bank account, invisible money, keep your assets, secret bank account, shred bank statements. tracking a bank account

One of the essentials in maintaining your privacy is to pay cash at the gas station, the supermarket, and when you go shopping at the mall. To do this, you must keep a fair amount of cash on hand. But where should you keep it?

There is no such thing as a burglar-proof home that cannot be entered, nor is there a security system that cannot be bypassed. However, the average burglar will be inside your home for less than ten minutes. Your goal, therefore, is to keep your cash hidden for more than that length of time.

The burglar will head straight for your master bedroom. He’ll check your underwear drawer, then your other drawers, and he’ll look under your mattress. If he can find some cash in any of these places, he may just grab that and run. If you can afford it, therefore, leave a few hundred dollars under the mattress.

Otherwise, the burglar will next check your refrigerator and your freezer so don’t keep any “cold” cash in either place.

Instead, if you have a file cabinet, use one or more of the file folders for holding the cash. Title them with dull names such as “old tax receipts” or “travel brochures.” Or, if you have a library, use a box cutter to cut the center out of some book you no longer want. (Outdated computer books or AAA travel books are ideal for this.) Put your money inside and then mix the book with others in your bookcase. My favorite method, however, is to use one or more “can safes” that are available on the Internet. One of our Canary Islands friends keeps half a dozen such cans. She scatters them under her sink, in her pantry, and among a box of bug-spray cans in her garage.

Many additional ideas for hiding money are included in the e-book Invisible Money, Low-Profile Banking, Private Investing.

Labels: burglar protection, can safes, hiding cash, hiding money, invisible money