I Hate Bank of America

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I recently started reviewing businesses and services on Yelp. Here is the review I wrote on Bank of America, the dirty #*%%3^<<?XX%^**##</%%##^**^*#/#!%^***s! Anyone care to add to this diatribe or give some advice on how to remedy my situation?

1 star rating
5/26/2010
They made me give a star. I was forced to give a star! But really, Bank of America deserves:

-350, 000,000,000 stars

Bank of America is a cut throat financial institution. What they do to their credit card customers should be against the law. They are criminals, pure and simple. How can they get away with it? Just before Obama's financial reform was passed, they raised the interest rate on my BOA credit card from 12% to 27% explaining their actions with a lot of legal (?) mumbo-jumbo. I always paid my bill on time and most of the time I payed twice the minimum required. Now I am paying them $150.00 per month in finance charges.

This is the equivalent of purse snatching. I don't intend to take this kind of treatment without a fight. How can the executives sleep at night? They are up there in their Ivory Tower which is no more than a Den of Thieves. I would like to see them all thrown into a work camp, or put on a chain gang. We should build a prison just for them and for all the members of financial institutions who practice the same dirty tricks. It should be called "The Institution for the Financially Corrupt" . See how they like living on mayonnaise sandwiches and Ramen Noodles.

Their pictures and details of their dastardly deeds and heartless crimes should be compiled and put into a history book and made mandatory reading for all students of higher learning, and no one should be awarded an MBA who has not made themselves thoroughly familiar with the content . And further, in order to receive their MBA, candidates should be required to take an oath, much like the Hippocratic Oath. Down at the bottom of this oath, in fine print, barely visible to the naked eye, should be a warning:

Breaking this oath will result in immediate dismissal from the financial institution by which the aforementioned and undersigned is employed along with a penalty charge of no less than 27% of the total amount of funds swindled, and, in addition, forfeiture of all benefits accrued.

1) duly followed by on the spot arrest
2) duly followed by the parading of said criminal, in shackles, through the main streets of the town, city or locality where the organization or institution is headquartered
3) duly followed by a shit-pie in the face by any and/or all onlookers
4) duly followed by a ride in a circus wagon, no matter the distance, to the Institution for the Financially Corrupt where the aforementioned and undersigned shall remain for a time no less than 27% of the total amount swindled from the public he or she served calculated and converted into months, days, years.

Let it be known, that additional penalties, such as chain gang, road crew, sewer cleaning, etc., will be added for arrogance and lack of remorse.

Last edited by cosmiccat on 26 May 2010, 3:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm with you. I hate them, too.

At 27%, a $150 monthy finance charge means that you are carrying a credit card balance of over $6,000!!

Why are you carrying a balance like that??

I don't have a lot of sympathy for your position. You took out the credit card, you chose to use it, and you have either chosen to keep a high balance, or have allowed your balance to climb despite your inability to pay it down quickly.

While it is frustrating to have your interest rate hiked so dramatically, you signed on for the deal when you signed the cardholder agreement, and every time you used your card, you knew full well that you were adding to your debt.

My friend has an account there, and he says they're awful too. I prefer local credit unions myself...

Basically the financial reform prevents banks from charging higher rates to people with poor payment records. The banks' solution was to charge higher rates to everyone.

You can do two things:

1. Call up, or better, write a letter, to Bank of America asking them to lower your rate. Tell them that you can get a lower rate elsewhere but you would rather stick with them if they'll lower your rate to something reasonable. If they won't, shop around for other credit cards who may be able to offer you a lower rate. If you always pay your bills on time, this shouldn't be too difficult.

2. Find out whether your representative voted for the financial reform act in question, and vote him out this fall if he did. Banks should be allowed to charge lower rates to people who pay on time, raising rates only on people who don't.

If you own a house, you could also take out a home equity line at a lower interest rate to pay off the credit card. Do this only if you're sure you can keep up the payments on the equity line, though.

Good Frontline show about the credit card industry:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... edit/view/

None of what they do is an accident or oversight, i.e. the complicated rules in a tiny font are intended to be impossible to understand.

"More complaints than any other industry."

Also, I've heard that if they arbitrarily lower your credit limit (IOW, not because you didn't pay on time and such), it can affect your credit score, because the rating agencies are too brain dead to check *why* the limit was changed. I don't know if the same goes for interest rate increases, but it seems possible.

Do you work for Visa?

I don't ask for sympathy. My balance is not over $6,000 and never was, well under in fact. And since you asked "Why are you carrying a balance like that?" I will tell you. Unexpected funeral expenses for a family member along with the cost of a grave stone for a young girl who died many years ago who had been lying in an unmarked grave for 50 years were the primary purchases I put on my card. I didn't know the girl directly, she was a class mate and I knew of her and her short, painful life. They dedicated a page in the year book to her and we would have graduated together. She was sixteen years old and the first person in the Philadelphia area to undergo a rare heart valve surgery. When I visited her grave on a whim and found out there was no stone or marker on it. I felt she deserved better than that and I designed and bought her the grave marker. They are not cheap.

From our local newspaper archives:



Furthermore, BOA never advised me beforehand that they had the right or the power to raise my interest rate just because they could and for not other reason.

I should have known better. I was sucked in by constant mailings offering me a card at 0% for 12 months. Finally, some unexpected expenses came up and I fell for it.

Really? I wasn't aware of that.

Thanks for the advice. I think I will do #1. That sounds reasonable.

Also, I have been getting offers from Chase to sign up for their card and receive 0% introductory APR on purchases and balance transfers until June of 2011. I keep throwing them away but they sound pretty tempting. What do you think? Should I transfer my BOA balance over to Chase and get it payed off as quick as possible?

Thanks for the link. I'm anxious to watch that. Yes, I wonder too about the rate increase affecting my credit score.

Sorry folks, BoA has got me as a lifelong customer. I've overdrawn so many times w/o penalty.

They got me back over $3000 of cash back lost through a type of paypal, which was my fault.

And they also got me back another $300 recently. I was still under contract for my cellphone in japan, and they tried to collect (debited me) and BoA said, no thanks, piss off Japan.

I would certainly consider it. I would read the fine print - there's usually a fee of about 3% to transfer the balance, and you'll want to know what interest rate will be on any leftover balance after June 2011 - but they can be good deal for people who are good about making payments on time and are disciplined enough to pay the balance off in a reasonable amount of time. I've certainly used them in the past when I was paying down my credit card debt.

Contact your legal aid office in your community. They are usually free.

While a card company can unilaterally change the terms of your agreement (including interest rate), they can not force you to accept them.

So, if you have an outstanding balance and they change the APR, you can refuse to accept the new terms and while they can close the account, they must let you pay the balance off on the old interest rate.

Seriously, contact the legal aid office. It's your best bet to get this back under control.

Oh, and don't carry a balance on credit cards....it's just asking for trouble.

psychohist said

I think I'll give it a go then. I'm pretty sure I can pay it off in a year if I don't have all the added finance charges. You see, this is what I like about Wrong Planet. We've got members with all kinds of knowledge and experience who are willing to help out other members with problems. Thanks so much.

I think I'll start another thread about a problem I've been having with my arm ever since Thanksgiving.

I didn't know I could refuse to accept the new terms or that I could pay off the balance on the old rate. This is valuable information. I will keep the legal aid office in mind, that never occurred to me. I'm usually very good with my credit cards. I'm not a big spender. I shop in thrift stores and any big purchases, like appliances or such, we tuck money away for and don't buy it till we find the best price and can buy it with cash.

Thanks for your advice.

Stop doing business with BOA if you find their practices not to your liking. There are plenty of banks who issue credit cards.

ruveyn