Ask HN: Analysis of credit card receipts to show one does not buy alcohol
12 comments
And if you use cash to buy alcohol? But this is something to talk to a lawyer about if it mean that much to you.
well, this is in Denmark so
1. hardly anyone uses cash, although sure it is possible, but then my bank transactions would show I never take out cash.
2. Sure I will probably also talk to a lawyer, but you don't really get any payment for your time, so probably what I will instead do is to make complaints to various government agencies, and to do that I want as much data as possible.
1. hardly anyone uses cash, although sure it is possible, but then my bank transactions would show I never take out cash.
2. Sure I will probably also talk to a lawyer, but you don't really get any payment for your time, so probably what I will instead do is to make complaints to various government agencies, and to do that I want as much data as possible.
I clearly don't know you or your specific situation, so take this with appropriate caution.
It sounds to me like there is much in your life you cannot control. That sucks. Sorry for that.
But it seems like this specific thing is something you feel you can control, and so you are investing an excess of effort in it.
Perhaps consider if going down this road is ultimately helpful to you, or to your son. Are there other places to spend your energy which would be more beneficial?
I'd also suggest that your endeavor here is fruitless. Ultimately showing you don't buy alcohol does not equate to proving your sobriety. There are too many ways to source, or even make, your own. Plus drunks are notorious liars, so pursuing this matter obsessively hurts rather than helps your case.
Obviously formally note your objection to the report. But then, if you can, move on. And I hope that the new support is helping you avoid some of the conditions that lead up to this event in the first place.
It sounds to me like there is much in your life you cannot control. That sucks. Sorry for that.
But it seems like this specific thing is something you feel you can control, and so you are investing an excess of effort in it.
Perhaps consider if going down this road is ultimately helpful to you, or to your son. Are there other places to spend your energy which would be more beneficial?
I'd also suggest that your endeavor here is fruitless. Ultimately showing you don't buy alcohol does not equate to proving your sobriety. There are too many ways to source, or even make, your own. Plus drunks are notorious liars, so pursuing this matter obsessively hurts rather than helps your case.
Obviously formally note your objection to the report. But then, if you can, move on. And I hope that the new support is helping you avoid some of the conditions that lead up to this event in the first place.
>But it seems like this specific thing is something you feel you can control, and so you are investing an excess of effort in it.
maybe. I think it's more that there is a lot of emotional stuff involved here. In Denmark, many people drink A LOT and that's their right, I don't much care for it but hey they like it they should be allowed to do it. That's on the surface, but down below drunkenness makes me somewhat annoyed.
So on the emotional, knee-jerk level it strikes me as extremely unfair to be accused of drunkenness by a bunch of drunks, even though on the surface I feel well it is ok with their drinking. If you see my point.
Aside from that I have to still meet these people every day I Of course it might just be my Danishness coming through, I remember reading one of those "what nations think of other nations" funny articles on the internet about 2006 and it said the what other people thought of Danes was "really nice wonderful people until they think something is unfair at which point they become raving lunatics" and I thought, well that hits pretty close to home.
The child protective services already said they don't think I drink, but I still feel the school is unfair, insulting, and out of line. Why would they stop their behavior unless they get fought? Sure it's not to my benefit specifically to fight, but it sure is to their benefit that I don't.
>Plus drunks are notorious liars
My experience with my alcoholic parents was not that they would claim not to drink, just that they would claim not to have drank that day, or just to have had one beer when they had a dozen, or claim that they could handle it.
>Ultimately showing you don't buy alcohol does not equate to proving your sobriety.
Sure but in legal situations it is generally given that the preponderance of the evidence and its narrative cohesiveness leads to the conclusion, I have a doctor's report I don't drink, people's affidavits I don't drink, child protective services saw no evidence of drinking at my house, convenience store workers confirm I don't buy alcohol from them, so showing by purchase history across all bank transactions I don't buy alcohol is one more corroborating bit of evidence.
No court would feel "yeah but he could be brewing his own" as a valid argument given all the other evidence contra drinking.
maybe. I think it's more that there is a lot of emotional stuff involved here. In Denmark, many people drink A LOT and that's their right, I don't much care for it but hey they like it they should be allowed to do it. That's on the surface, but down below drunkenness makes me somewhat annoyed.
So on the emotional, knee-jerk level it strikes me as extremely unfair to be accused of drunkenness by a bunch of drunks, even though on the surface I feel well it is ok with their drinking. If you see my point.
Aside from that I have to still meet these people every day I Of course it might just be my Danishness coming through, I remember reading one of those "what nations think of other nations" funny articles on the internet about 2006 and it said the what other people thought of Danes was "really nice wonderful people until they think something is unfair at which point they become raving lunatics" and I thought, well that hits pretty close to home.
The child protective services already said they don't think I drink, but I still feel the school is unfair, insulting, and out of line. Why would they stop their behavior unless they get fought? Sure it's not to my benefit specifically to fight, but it sure is to their benefit that I don't.
>Plus drunks are notorious liars
My experience with my alcoholic parents was not that they would claim not to drink, just that they would claim not to have drank that day, or just to have had one beer when they had a dozen, or claim that they could handle it.
>Ultimately showing you don't buy alcohol does not equate to proving your sobriety.
Sure but in legal situations it is generally given that the preponderance of the evidence and its narrative cohesiveness leads to the conclusion, I have a doctor's report I don't drink, people's affidavits I don't drink, child protective services saw no evidence of drinking at my house, convenience store workers confirm I don't buy alcohol from them, so showing by purchase history across all bank transactions I don't buy alcohol is one more corroborating bit of evidence.
No court would feel "yeah but he could be brewing his own" as a valid argument given all the other evidence contra drinking.
Bryan, I get why this accusation stings so much, especially given everything you're handling. It’s deeply unfair to be lied about and judged, and it’s clear you’re feeling it acutely.
Having shipped multiple systems that process transactional data, I can tell you that trying to prove a negative like "I don't drink alcohol" through credit card receipts is a dead end. Showing you haven't bought alcohol with a card doesn't mean you haven't consumed it. Cash, gifts, or other arrangements make this data irrelevant for proving sobriety.
Legal avenues or official complaints are a more robust use of your energy than trying to use financial data to prove something it can't.
Having shipped multiple systems that process transactional data, I can tell you that trying to prove a negative like "I don't drink alcohol" through credit card receipts is a dead end. Showing you haven't bought alcohol with a card doesn't mean you haven't consumed it. Cash, gifts, or other arrangements make this data irrelevant for proving sobriety.
Legal avenues or official complaints are a more robust use of your energy than trying to use financial data to prove something it can't.
Isn't that amounting to defamation?
yes. Sort of. In a Danish understanding ærekrænkelse - honor violation a more precise definition, is generally something that has to do with the media. So that they send a report Bryan is often drunk but that day he was very drunk and we could tell because he wasn't walking very well, didn't meet our eyes when he picked up his kid and didn't talk and moved his mouth away from us so we couldn't smell his breath (the proofs of my drunkenness given) to child protective services that is just them doing their job.
I mean I don't mind them thinking hey, maybe he's drunk, although they could have asked "Is something wrong" and I would have said "I'm really tired today", but I do mind that they were told no I don't drink you're wrong, and they decided no, that they couldn't possibly be wrong.
I mean I don't mind them thinking hey, maybe he's drunk, although they could have asked "Is something wrong" and I would have said "I'm really tired today", but I do mind that they were told no I don't drink you're wrong, and they decided no, that they couldn't possibly be wrong.
be ready to give bloodwork, the rest are people putting hell in your life - so ignore them.
You protest too much. If I were a betting man, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
[deleted]
A small background as to why people would think I was a drunk: I have a severely autistic and developmentally disabled son who we are pretty sure also has ADHD, and I am the only person who takes care of him (now I getting governmental help to watch him, but I still often have to spend days where I watch him from 7 in the morning to 10 at night and also if he wakes in the night overexcited and wants to run around the room yelling for a few hours), so I am very tired most of the time, also I have a few medical problems brought on from overwork in this issue that makes it sometimes painful when I walk.
So I understand why someone might think I was a drunk.
Background on why this has gotten me in a fighty mood: The people who accused me are his school, who know that I am his sole caregiver out of the government provided help. This was due to an incident that happened a few weeks ago in which, if there had been traffic coming, he would have been in trouble in the streets while under my care (I can describe more of this if you want but this is a pretty long ask)
They decided to make a report saying I picked him up while drunk. The report was full of half truths, and some potential lies, as well as the insult that I was drunk. Not only that but they claimed that I had been observed drinking beer at the local train station where there is a convenience store.
When I said you're mistaken I don't drink they stuck to their guns and would not apologize on that issue. When my ex-wife said "Out of all the things that Bryan has wrong with him, drinking is not one of them" they stuck to their guns.
Things I have done so far: I have gotten a notarized doctor's statement from my doctor since 2018 as to my medical ailments that might cause one to think this guy looks drunk right now, and that he has never seen any indication of a drinking problem in my blood samples and other labwork, in conjunction with that ever statement I have ever given for a medical questionnaire since he has known me says I do not drink.
I have statements from the convenience store workers that I have never bought any alcohol from them and that what I always buy are either hot coffees or triple shot espresso cans of Starbucks. One guy thought maybe the school thought it was beer because the cans are green, but they really aren't shaped like beer cans.
statements from work acquaintances and friends over the years that I have never shown an interest in drinking.
So what I would like to do now is as I asked, do an analysis of my credit card transactions from my bank records that I do not buy alcohol, doing so for the convenience story should be relatively easy, my transactions from them can be shown to match in amount the transactions they are willing to testify I do.
But I was thinking while it cannot be seen if I buy alcohol is there anything I can do to analyze my bank records to show that purchase history is not consistent with the expected purchase history of someone with a drinking problem? Obviously I do not go to bars.
Unfortunately I do not have credit card transactions saved from shopping so I can't show I have never bought alcohol, but I can start saving this month, and that would show I do not buy currently and could be taken to show that there are no anomalies with current months.
Obviously this might seem like an overreaction, but I dislike getting accused of drunkenness, lied about, and being surveilled incompetently enough that the surveillance assumes a can of Starbucks is beer.