My cousin in Bixby had the same thing happen last March, his debit card got shut off for a $9 coffee charge and he sat on hold with the bank for 4 hours. He could not even use the ATM to pull cash because the whole account was locked down. The part that gets me is the timing, all these places went card only within like 6 months of each other and then the "fraud alerts" started hitting everybody I know. Your barber might be a little off on the why but he is not wrong that something is going on. Cash used to be the one thing nobody could turn off and now they barely let you use it anywhere.

That lean thing you noticed is the whole point and most people miss it. Your nephew wasn't just pressing buttons, his body was part of the game, and once your brain makes that link you stop caring about the waggle. Same thing hit me with Metroid Prime 3 on the Wii, the pointer aiming felt closer to using a mouse than any twin stick setup ever did. The control scheme stopped being a gimmick the second it made me better at the game instead of just different.