Remember when Bank of America was NCNB? Remember when your teller and branch manager new your name? Remember when the bank would only give you a loan if you had good credit, good collateral or a cosigner who was good for it - not only because it was the right thing for the bank, but because it was the right thing for you? Remember when the bank paid your checks from the smallest amount to the largest amount so if your math wasn't quite right in your register you might only have one to two checks in overdraft instead of five to six? Remember when your overdraft fee was a reasonable amount instead of a day's pay?
Those days are decades behind us and until recently, we've had to sit back and take it. We have an entire generation that doesn't remember real customer service from the banking industry. Now that taxpayers are keeping the banks afloat we are entering a new age of accountability. A lot of us are sick and tired of predatory lending and usurious fees and we're not going to take it anymore.
The banks might not have single-handedly caused our nation's economic woes, but whether they were taking advantage of us or taking advantage of lax regulations, the banks sure have been a major contributor to the economic mess we're in. It's time to rewrite those account holder agreements and we're working from a position of power because now we're the largest stockholder for most of these banks.
If you could ask your bank to change one thing about how they treat you as an account holder, what would it be?
After you've figured out how you want to be treated as an account holder, let's work those complaints and requests into letters to the editor and send them around.
We have an opportunity to be part of a day of action that is taking place across the country. SEIU has partnered with many different national, local and community organizations to hold big banks accountable and they're starting with Bank of America. Most events are being held on Tuesday, so check the linked web site to find out where you can participate if you want to be there in person, but there's going to be a big event in Charlotte on Wednesday. Let's do our part to bring attention to all of the many things BOA and its fellow big banks need to do to be better stewards of our money....and it is our money.
Leave your suggestions in the comments.
Comments
What would I change?
Gee...where do I begin?
First, after going paperless (which saves BOA loads of money) and never using live tellers (which saves BOA loads of money) you would think that BOA would let me call customer service a few times each month without charging me a fee.
I'd like fee-free customer service and in exchange they get to keep the interest they earn off the money I put in their bank.
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Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
I miss the old NCNB days
That's why I am a credit union member where you are the customer and the owner. At SECU, they do crazy things like charging low fees, giving better interest, being nice, having enough tellers.
We are CU members as well, but there is one branch in Charlotte
over an hour from our home in Monroe, so I have a small checking account to work out of here. My mattress pays higher interest than most banks. Heh.
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Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
BoA = scam
Banks disgust me.
When any bank, including BoA, gives you a loan, the money that constitutes the loan did not even exist prior to your receiving the loan. They simply make a few clicks on a keyboard and - viola - new money is credited to your account which you are expected to pay back to the bank with interest.... you know, in exchange for all of the work they've done in clicking the keyboard to create the money for you. What an insane scam. Is is really any surprise that the banks would try to squeeze as much out of you as possible? Is it really all that surprising that Wall Street owns Washington, or that bank always own the best real estate in town?
Yea, it must be nice to have a license to create money out of thin air. If you or I did that we would be in prison for fraud.
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"The natural wage of labor is its product." -- Benjamin R. Tucker
A liberal is someone who thinks the system is broken and needs to be fixed, whereas a radical understands it’s working the way it’s supposed to.
They didn't used to disgust me
But you and probably a lot of our readers weren't around when banks really did work to help build communities. I was a branch manager in my younger years. Every morning I called the people in overdraft to let them know and to see if they could cover the checks. If they could and had multiple overdrafts we waived all but one fee. If they couldn't cover the checks we worked with them to make sure no other checks went into overdraft. We also called our delinquent loan customers personally. We made the loans, so we worked the loans. We even did credit card decisions in house. We knew what they could and couldn't afford.
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Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
The smaller the better
Local banks are much more keen to providing customer service and do other cool things such as sponsor/help create alternative local currencies (ie: www.theplenty.org). The fact that Glass bill's prohibition on bank expansion was abolished in the 1990s is just another example of "deregulation" in the most short-sighted and moronic sense. "Deregulating" banks, in my opinion, is similar to "deregulating" welfare benefits whereby recipients get the money with no strings attached (no requirement to look for a job, etc). Technically, banks should be able to do whatever they want so long as they do not violate contracts, engage in fraud, etc. But when banks have been granted a monopoly privilege on the creation of our national currency, through the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, of course they should be restricted in their use of such power. Better yet would be to abolish such power altogether.
I'd like to see a return to local economics, local banks, local food, local currencies, etc, but it's not going to happen unless we start chipping away at the deep roots of the problem.
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"The natural wage of labor is its product." -- Benjamin R. Tucker
A liberal is someone who thinks the system is broken and needs to be fixed, whereas a radical understands it’s working the way it’s supposed to.
as a 16 year old student, I like BOA
I sat down yesterday and opened my first checking account and savings account, which comes with a check card. I also deposited my first paycheck. I am a 16 year old high-school student, and I am very new to banking, using atms, etc. BOA offers a "campus edge account", and it is completely free during the years you are a student (which will be at least the next 6 years for me). I sat down with a nice women named Patsy who spent almost an hour with me opening an account, explaining how all the fees worked, making sure I understood how to use all their features, and making sure that I didnt mess anything up. THe ONLY fee I will have to pay is an overdraft fee, and as a student the fee is waived for my first overdraft because they "understand that it is easy to mess up". I don't feel taken advantage of...YET. So far, BOA has given me a great service 100% free. I await the day that they impose some more fees on me, and start little by little to make me angry. Verizon Wireless sucks money from me and my family every month with more and more hidden fees, and their costumer service department is incapable of answering my questions. This is what I expected from the Bank, but so far it is not so. This is just my personal experience as a new costumer, and I really liked this blog post which pointed out lots of things that I need to watch out for.
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It sounds like you have your eyes and ears open
You should be fine, just be careful with your math. :D
Banks aren't all bad, but they have changed so much in my lifetime that it is easy to see many of their activities as bad/wrong/selfish/greedy, etc.
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Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.