US Senator Dick Durbin Tells Americans to Boycott the Bank of America for Ripping Off Customers
Lemme tell ya another unethical thing BofA did just last week.
My computer techs took McAfee virus protection off my computer for some obscure (to me, that's what they're there for) reason and installed another one they liked better that didn't cost anything. Fine with me.
I had agreed to a deal with McAfee that renewed the anti-virus service automatically. That's standard. You have to go out of your way to cancel it and that's the way they want it.
The credit card I used was from (shame) BofA. I don't like sending money to BofA and haven't used it in years and it expired early in the year. When I got the request from McAfee for a new expiration date, I ignored it and thought that would end it. I had received a new card from BofA but never called to activate it. I didn't close the account on the theory that I might need it someday.
I had this credit card I couldn't use because it had expired and I never activated the new one. Ya get that, right?
So imagine my surprise to get a statement from BofA with a $49.99 charge from, guess who, McAfee. I can't charge anything on the card, but McAfee can. Nice. They can call BofA who happily gave up a new expiration date without my permission.
I called McAfee and had them reverse the charge, which the guy was a little reluctant to do until I brought up the fact that I thought it was highly unethical of both them and BofA to do what they had done. I have the feeling that he'd heard this before.
Later that day, McAfee actually called us on the telephone. Mrs. G took the call. They wanted to know why we didn't want the service any more. She told them we had one that was just as good that didn't cost anything and also that we felt it was unethical for them and BofA to do what they had done with my un-activated expired credit card. The McAfee person said they "worked closely with the credit card companies". Yeah, Willie Sutton "worked closely" with banks too. Robbing them at gunpoint was more honest than the way they do business.
Until I get another BofA statement showing that 50 bucks as well and truly reversed, I'm keeping this credit card account, expired and unusable to all but Big Corpora, open. The day I get it, I'm gonna close that account so fast it'll make their heads spin. Like they'll even notice.
Banks and Big Biz are always looking for new ways into your wallet in barely legal and seldom ethical ways. Close one door, they blow a hole in the wall next to it and continue pumping.
Occupy Wall St., anyone?
9 comments:
Don't get me started on BofA. I opened an account with them 30 years ago for a simple little transaction and told them about it. They gouged, I gouged back then ran. It was small victory but highly satisfying.
I change banks when they piss me off which isn't hard to do. I've done it many times and I'm doing it now. You never run out of banks because when millions of us little people do it they notice and one of them will straighten there act up enough to be acceptable.
I'm looking at USAA now. They haven't pissed me off yet.
Try Bank of the West if there's one near you. Run by a French outfit to French banking rules. Good outfit.
Bank of the West's motto is "face to face banking". BofA's is "in your face banking".
Full disclosure: Mrs. G worked for BotW for years and retired from there.
The reason I am an AT&T cell customer today is because Verizon thought that helping themselves to my bank account with SunTrust Bank, several times even after I explained to them that I had switched carriers, to the point that I had to close my account and open a new one to stop it but eventually left the bank for a federal credit union.
Yes, Verizon did things that would get me put under the prison(to be fair, I am Black so there is that). The protests around the nation don't seem so outrageous to me.
About that sticker on your new card. It means nothing. If you don't call and say it was stolen the bank will assume you got it and activate it anyway.
Once I received a card for an account I had called earlier to close. I did not call and thought that was the end of it. 2 years later I received a new card. When I called I found out how much that sticker matters. FARK: I worked for that bank when this happened.
Thanks, Montag. I suspected as much.
I guess the question is: what is the expiration date even for?
I had an opposite experience with McAfee. We'd had McAfee on my daughter's computer for years, automatically renewed on my BoA credit card. We finally bought her a new computer to replace the aging one, installed the free Microsoft Security Essentials, and forgot to cancel the McAfee subscription for the old computer. When it renewed, I called up McAfee, explained the situation, and the lady said no problem and refunded the money to our credit card. I guess it all depends on who you talk to. (Despite how nice the lady was, I wouldn't recommend McAfee; MSE is free and faster.)
Nice they can spend your money without your say so. If this happened to us, the Mrs. would have to handle it too. I'd be on the phone threatening to kill them all and then burn their building into the ground. Heh ...
MSE is what I have now.
Fixer, I see Mrs. F is as essential to your continued freedom, i.e. you're not in jail, as Mrs. G is to mine. Heh.
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