Greendot casinos

I am in a lawsuit and getting a settlement and will be wanting to buy a mobile home with cash...literally in $100 bills. I have to cash my settlement check at a casino cause I have horrible credit and a 10 mile long criminal history of fraud, bank fraud, bad checks, check kiting, ATM fraud, etc. I am on every blacklist in the country including Chexsystems, Telecheck, etc. No bank in the country will open a checking or savings account for me. I am also banned from prepaid cards like Netspend and Greendot due to fraud. Me and my mom live together and my mom has a bigger record than me. Including a 10 mile long court record with a housing authority...we are banned from renting at any government housing authority in the United States due to her behavior and not paying rent. My mother is also a HUGE troublemaker and will start trouble with anyone and everyone for any reason. Neither one of us has ever worked and I am 38 and my mom is 71. I am wanting to buy a mobile home so that we own it. And our Social Security would cover. We are currently living in a hookeroach motel and sharing a bed for the past year. So I need a mobile home park that will sell me a mobile home in cash money and also a mobile home park that would let us in without checking criminal or past rental history or past credit history...we have enough money to pay the lot rent and are even willing to pay a years worth of lot rent. Also how is it with utilities? Are utilities included in the lot rent? As no utility companies will give us an account..me nor my mom can't even get a phone plan.
Also, I am wanting to buy a brand new SUV and wanting to know what car dealerships will accept $50,000 in $100 bills.

It’s all a stupid waiting game at this point and I hope that everyone receives the help they need in relatively reasonable amounts of time. I got lucky in a way, because my parents (retirees on SSI with decent retirement incomes) split their $2400 with me and my sister. I can wait for whatever else might come from the IRS. Sure, I’m very disappointed the system sucks and there are no answers, but I’m ok for now. Not everyone is in the same boat.
I’m a teacher, and I spent the first two weeks of the quarantine calling to see if parents and kids had questions about distance learning. I spent the last three days making the same calls to parents, but instead of reminding them to do work, I ended up providing emotional support to at least four families that had their income completely disappear. Yesterday was the worst. So I donned a mask and took $800 of that money my parents gave me and bought groceries for several families. THAT’S what makes me so sad and upset. I live in an area where casinos are the main source of income. They’ve been shut down for weeks. This affects tons of folks, from the US citizen working as a cook at the buffet to the undocumented person from Guatemala emptying the slot machine ash trays. I don’t usually get involved in immigration issues and such, but watching and hearing parents cry about wondering about their next meal is heartbreaking. We also have a homeless camp behind my neighborhood (a consequence of Katrina, over ten years ago) and the flow of people through my neighborhood, lugging their few personal possessions with kids in tow, makes all of my concern about my lack of payment seem so selfish and inconsiderate. But for a country of such power, intelligence, and innovation, it’s terribly disappointing to see a system like the IRS fail miserably at providing help to those in dire need.
You see, a lot of our families don’t have bank accounts. Life literally revolves around tax time. When those refund checks hit, pop-up car lots selling a ten year old car with 150,000 miles spring up like mushrooms after the rain. Lots families don’t use free tax filing services because they could use a refund advance. So, they do their taxes at Walmart or wherever H&R Block or Jackson Hewitt is set up. Heck, I even had a neighbor let people come use her computer and internet (for $20) so folks could use Turbo Tax and get the refund advance. A great many are also considered “Pathers” and have to wait until mid February for their refund due to certain tax credits. And now, these are some of the same people that are screwed. I don’t have direct evidence, but from piecing together from Turbo Tax forums, Igotmyrefund.com, and reddit, it seems that a lot of folks taking refund advances are the same people now in “stimulus purgatory.” Santa Barbara Tax Group (SBTG) is an intermediary between the IRS, Turbo Tax, and GreenDot. When you take the advance, these folks establish a temporary account number (doesn’t appear on your tax return, read the fine print of the refund advance TOA). They “loan” you your advance, and when the IRS issues your refund, it goes to the intermediary bank. In my case, that’s SBTG. Ironically, neither Turbo Tax nor SBTG could provide any answers to clients when asked “does the IRS. Have my DD info?” Turbo Tax forums were flooded with messages and the generic response was “we are waiting for guidance from the IRS.” Supposedly, SBTG could not come to an agreement with Green Dot regarding fees. In fact, SBTGs website explicitly said that in the event payments were deposited to temporary accounts, they’d withhold fees (according to my SBTG account for this year’s tax return, $122, part of which went to Turbo Tax) then forward to the Turbo Card, as refund advance clients must receive their final refund on the card. They also mentioned returning deposits to the IRS “as quick as possible.” My personal opinion is this: 1) IRS, in an attempt to make funds available to people as quickly as possible, jumped the gun on direct deposits, assuming the DD information on file for most taxpayers was correct. 2) After doing so, realized that some deposits would go to temporary accounts, so they provided the portal to allow people to feel they’d taken the correct measures to ensure prompt deposits. Didn’t matter, see #4. 3) Meanwhile, SBTG and GreenDot couldn’t come to an agreement on fees. 4) Deposits went out, and now an unknown amount of money is sitting somewhere, possibly at SBTG, earning interest instead of fees, this benefiting SBTG. 5) Meanwhile, out here in the real world, some of the lowest earners and most in need are putting faith in the IRS that if their money went to SBTG, it’ll come back and be reissued to their updated DD account per the portal. 6) Those same folks, myself included, are not receiving any information, much less stimulus checks, because there is no way they will pay us twice. In their procedures, we’ve been paid. The fact the IRS has no way for an individual to ACTUALLY see if a payment has been made makes me believe this more. Sure, you can check the portal (but don’t do it more than once a day or whatever so you don’t lock yourself out anywhere from 24-49? hours), but it’s not going to tell you a DDD if the funds they’ve already sent are hanging around out there, like at SBTG. 7) Final verdict: I honestly believe some of us will not get this payment. At least until some government investigation or threat of litigation makes intermediaries like SBTG disclose the truth about the actual number of deposits made to temporary accounts, how long they held the money, and IF they ever returned said deposits to the IRS.
I’m tired. I’m sad. I’m confused. And I freaking pay my taxes every year. I think we all deserve an honest answer and clear information about this situation. I hope that EVERYONE gets the assistance they need and deserve. But I’m very hesitant to trust ANYONE or ANYBODY when it comes to this situation. What I can say is I will never use Turbo Tax or H&R Block, nor take a refund advance ever again. I did last year for convenience (pay off credit cards from Christmas and get a little ahead on bills), but I won’t fall into that trap again. Because it feels like some of the banks, like SBTG, wanted a little piece of the stimulus pie at the expense of some taxpayers currently unemployed, underpaid, and worrying about dying from a threatening disease.

Someone at /personafinance recommended that my post would be better here than over there so I am posting it here, hopefully this is the correct place for it.
Hello, This is my first time posting here and I am not sure if I am following the proper protocol but I do know that I need some outside help to try getting my life in order. First, my backstory, I am 35 years old and have battled a crippling gambling addiction for about 20 years now. I have been in and out of treatment programs, I have gone long periods of times without gambling but I always have managed to relapse. I have been diagnosed with bipolar and anxiety issues in the past but never stayed in extended treatments long enough to make a difference. I hate that I have this addiction but I am truly powerless to it at times and it has completely destroyed my finances to the point where I am not even completely sure if it is at all fixable or where to begin. I have been completely overwhelmed by my financial state for the last decade or more and I have no clue what to do or where to begin. My Income is as follows: I have never been able to hold on to a job for a long period of time without blowing it completely eventually. Either not showing up because of a multiday bender or my work performance suffering due to boredom and becoming obsessed with being in a casino instead of at work. I have been fortunate enough to find seasonal work that keeps me busy enough for 5 months a year to not let myself blow it at work. Once I start to feel like I am getting to that point the season ends and I have 7 months where I can decompress. I make $1000.00 a week during those 5 months, $750 after taxes and for 13 weeks after I collect unemployment for $383 a week, there is about a 2 month period in the year where I have zero income. I also have proven to be unable to hold on to money for more than a few days, I have no bank account and have 19 dollars to my name right now. I cannot get a checking account because I have burned so many banks. I use greendot to pay most online things. Every time I have any amount of money in my pocket I begin to have an inner struggle with my addiction, regardless of what I need to pay, how low on gas I am etc. sometimes I win out over it and pay bills or take care of expenses and sometimes I lose out over my addiction and remain broke for a period of time. My addiction prevails probably 70% of the time, while that seems bad, about 3 years ago it was always 100%. I drive a car that will be breaking down any day now and I rent a room in a less than optimal situation for 200.00 a month. My bills are as follows. $200.00 rent, $96.00 car insurance, $60.00 cell phone bill, $162 per week child support and care (which I am in the rears on about $7,000) about $200.00 a month on gas, food and other general expenses. I still cannot manage to have money and I am routinely late on everything. I pulled my credit score a couple of weeks ago and it is 515. I have everything you can imagine against me, repossessions, medical bills, court rulings, I get collection notices daily and don’t even open them anymore, it is in the tens of thousands for old credit cards, phone bills, utility bills, you name it. I also owe about $10,000 to friends and family who have lent me money over the years and I have not been able to pay back. Almost all of my relationships with people have been destroyed because of my addiction and I have hit a point where I know I can either ride out a miserable life or try to change for the better. This is my first attempt at turning to reddit to try to put together some sort of plan. I know some of you will think I am a scumbag or a degenerate and I cannot really argue with that based on my track record, but I don't feel that way in my heart and really just feel overwhelmed and ready to try turning things around. Maybe to late, but I don't know for sure. Any help on what steps I should take to regain control of my finances would be very much appreciated. I am currently in the no income phase of my year, but mid April I start up the seasonal gig and between now and then a friend is letting me do some work for him for some cash. I don't know how much it will be but my quick guess is about 600 every other week. So where do I start and how do I do it? Am I a lost cause?

Hello personalfinance, This is my first time posting here and I am not sure if I am following the proper protocol but I do know that I need some outside help to try getting my life in order. First, my backstory, I am 35 years old and have battled a crippling gambling addiction for about 20 years now. I have been in and out of treatment programs, I have gone long periods of times without gambling but I always have managed to relapse. I have been diagnosed with bipolar and anxiety issues in the past but never stayed in extended treatments long enough to make a difference. I hate that I have this addiction but I am truly powerless to it at times and it has completely destroyed my finances to the point where I am not even completely sure if it is at all fixable or where to begin. I have been completely overwhelmed by my financial state for the last decade or more and I have no clue what to do or where to begin.
My Income is as follows: I have never been able to hold on to a job for a long period of time without blowing it completely eventually. Either not showing up because of a multiday bender or my work performance suffering due to boredom and becoming obsessed with being in a casino instead of at work. I have been fortunate enough to find seasonal work that keeps me busy enough for 5 months a year to not let myself blow it at work. Once I start to feel like I am getting to that point the season ends and I have 7 months where I can decompress. I make $1000.00 a week during those 5 months, $750 after taxes and for 13 weeks after I collect unemployment for $383 a week, there is about a 2 month period in the year where I have zero income. I also have proven to be unable to hold on to money for more than a few days, I have no bank account and have 19 dollars to my name right now. I cannot get a checking account because I have burned so many banks. I use greendot to pay most online things. Every time I have any amount of money in my pocket I begin to have an inner struggle with my addiction, regardless of what I need to pay, how low on gas I am etc. sometimes I win out over it and pay bills or take care of expenses and sometimes I lose out over my addiction and remain broke for a period of time. My addiction prevails probably 70% of the time, while that seems bad, about 3 years ago it was always 100%.
I drive a car that will be breaking down any day now and I rent a room in a less than optimal situation for 200.00 a month. My bills are as follows. $200.00 rent, $96.00 car insurance, $60.00 cell phone bill, $162 per week child support and care (which I am in the rears on about $7,000) about $200.00 a month on gas, food and other general expenses.
I still cannot manage to have money and I am routinely late on everything. I pulled my credit score a couple of weeks ago and it is 515. I have everything you can imagine against me, repossessions, medical bills, court rulings, I get collection notices daily and don’t even open them anymore, it is in the tens of thousands for old credit cards, phone bills, utility bills, you name it. I also owe about $10,000 to friends and family who have lent me money over the years and I have not been able to pay back.
Almost all of my relationships with people have been destroyed because of my addiction and I have hit a point where I know I can either ride out a miserable life or try to change for the better. This is my first attempt at turning to reddit to try to put together some sort of plan. I know some of you will think I am a scumbag or a degenerate and I cannot really argue with that based on my track record, but I don't feel that way in my heart and really just feel overwhelmed and ready to try turning things around. Maybe to late, but I don't know for sure.
Any help on what steps I should take to regain control of my finances would be very much appreciated.
I am currently in the no income phase of my year, but mid April I start up the seasonal gig and between now and then a friend is letting me do some work for him for some cash. I don't know how much it will be but my quick guess is about 600 every other week.
So where do I start and how do I do it? Am I a lost cause?