By Mark Huffman
ConsumerAffairs.com
January 19, 2010
Banks that took federal bailout dollars to avoid collapse and this month rewarded top executives with handsome bonuses have become national pinatas lately. President Obama has expressed his anger, but its nothing compared to what some consumers are saying when they write to ConsumerAffairs.com.
I have been with Bank of America for over 20 years now, begins Dana, of Portland Ore., whose narrative encompasses multiple errors the bank has made in his business and personal accounts.
One incident took a full year to fix, the other took six months to rectify, he told ConsumerAffairs.com. An example of one is my business Visa bills quit coming to my home. I began to worry so I went to the bank. No one had any idea why this happened and I was receiving late fees for their mistake.
I would go to the branch and go through the procedure with a professional banker and each time told that 'this time they have fixed it!' But still no bills would come.After six months, he said he discovered the answer. The bill had, for some reason, been sent to Afghanistan, then back to his address in the U.S. But that was only the start. While moving his business he was assessed 11 overdraft charges in his checking account in two days.
"I of course transfered money from an in-branch Bank of America account to more than cover this issue and put some into my overdraft protection account. I went to my local branch of 15 years first thing this morning and was denied removal of the bank charges. I was told that Bank of America changed their procedure and no longer allows branch managers to remove charges," he said. "Then the manager said, 'well but I can remove three, even though I am not supposed to.' What? Now how does that work? She can't but now she can, but only three leaving me out 280.00 of my hard earned money."
Recently, he says, he noticed that the bank had begun charging his account $35 a month to "manage his accounts." When he inquired about it, he says, one month of the charges were refunded and the monthly charges ended. Dana is angry. He asks questions that many consumers are asking these days.
What's happened?
"What has happened to the relationship we once had with our own personal bankers? What has happened to the ethical business procedures? And when we put our money into a bank isn't it like loaning it to them? Or should we really have to pay fees for them to 'manage our money?'"
Dana is hardly alone. In mid December we heard from Antone, of San Francisco, who said he was trying to pay off a friend's credit card account at Citibank. The bank, he says, was strangely reluctant to take his money to pay off his friend's debt.
"None of this makes any sense, unless Citibank prefers to hold on to bad debt in order to suck more dollars from the hapless debtor through late fees and high interest rates," Antone told ConsumerAffairs.com. "I spoke to three other banks on behalf of my friend and settled all three accounts over the phone. Citibank is the only one who refuses to settle and offers no way out."
A consumer from Aurora, Colo., posting under the name "Skubbydue," calls himself a "preferred" Wells Fargo customer of 32 years. After moving to Colorado from California, he says, he couldn't get a home loan from the bank.
Even Wealthy Consumers Are Angry
"Although we had funds to pay cash for the home, we wanted a jumbo loan for tax reasons," he said. "We financed elsewhere and took approximately $200,000 from Wells deposits. And the fools come and ask why we chose to close some accounts."
To add insult to injury, he notes that his considerable holding in Wells Fargo stock, valued at $50,000 in 2006, is today worth $10,000.
Whether it's being hit with unexpected fees, having credit accounts closed with no notice, or an arrogant attitude, bank customers, rich and poor, seem to be getting fed up. Perhaps capturing the growing popular view of financial elites, "Skubbydue" ended his post with a joke.
"How many MBAs does it take to screw in a light bulb? One," he wrote. "He holds it in place and expects the world to revolve around him."
