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| San Francisco resident Matthew Shinnick tried to sell a pair of mountain bikes on Craigslist late last year. He attracted a buyer, received a check in the mail -- and ended up handcuffed by police in a downtown Bank of America branch and jailed for almost 12 hours. |
The bank basically called the police and had this guy arrested because he tried to do the right thing. They refuse to pay him for his legal fees, and are hiding behind some lame surpeme court decision. A local radio host is calling for listeners to pull their money from Bank of America, and I can't say I blame them.
ENTIRE STORYthat's a pretty sh*tty situation to be in.. and I ought to know, as I was in a vaguely similar situation once involving mistaken identity, in which I ended up spending 2 days in jail and later released without even an apology
however, the bank itself didn't do anything wrong.. the check was actually false, and the seller who presented it to be cashed easily could have been a thief.. it was the police on duty who handled the situation rather tactlessly, as they often do
I'm not a huge fan of Bank of America, but they rightfully were protecting their interests.. so what can you do
I agree that BoA should protect themselves, but the guy went in and asked if the check was good because he was concerned it was possibly fraudulent.
The bank should have asked him into a back office and invited the police and sorted it out. If he is going to be arrested, fine, then take him out a back door and don't subject your customers to any nonsense.
The bank handled it very badly, and from what I've read, over $11 million has been pulled out already by outraged customers.
I've pulled my funds from bank of america. Not because of this incident, but due to the fact that there overdraft system is scandolous. I had $200 in overdraft fees from one purchase. I had deposited my payroll check on a Friday and used my debit card on the following Sunday. Evidently, even though my check was deposited before my debit transactions, the debit charge was taken out before my deposit was posted. This is somewhat understandable cause they have to verify that the deposit is legit but they took it one step further and charged me an overdraft fee for an overdraft fee. They then continued charging overdraft fees for each preceding overdraft fee until $200 was racked up and my check was finally posted. I told them I wasn't going to pay them and I wanted to cancel my account and they said "Go ahead, we'll just report you to the bank trust association and you will never be able to get another bank account anywhere!". I then asked to talk to a supervisor and she refused to transfer me. Needless to say I am slowly paying them thier $200 but have already opened a new account with a different bank and will closing this one as soon as I give them thier blood money. Credit Unions are the way to go. They treat you like a person and will do just about anything to keep you happy. Burn in Hell BoA, I hope you go bankrupt.
tbqh all banks should rot. they dont do anything but blindly steal your money. the are a walkin contradiction. they all have this program called overdraft protection. where if you dont have enough money in your account they take more out.... how the hell is that protection? its not. its stealing your money 20-35$ at a time. now granted these are only the huge mega-corp banks, and thats the reason why i will now stick to my credit unions. they are so much more of the real definition of a bank.
the united states banking system is, according to my opinion, one of the greatest scams ever.
first of all all banks are corporate entities, and being such subscribe to the number one rule of all corporate businesses: To maximize profits for the share holders. Now banks being in the business of handling your money and loaning monies are in a special quandrum. while trying to seem that the bank is there to help the customer maximize his/her financial position; they are really there to capitalize on thier income source to most benefit the banks shareholders.
enter the notion of prefered interest rates. where one customer based on his perfomance to maximize profits for the shareholders is given a better interest rate than a customer that does not have the monetary source to make the bank a profit.
because of this notion banks tend to treat thier customers differently based on the amount of money that they keep in thier accounts. this has been my general experience with BofA. With such a large corporate standing the bank has no real ties with the everyday customers: The people who work for a living and entrust the bank to secure thier money for them.
So when someone like Matthew Shinnick tries to conduct business with the bank, there is no real customer loyalty or obligation. the only obligation the bank has is to maximize profits for it's shareholders which envolves risk management.
Matthew Shinnick was a risk. so the bank reacted accordingly to maximize profits for the shareholders. They managed Shinnick and immediatly pressed charges and notified the police.
what would have been the result if the bank would have cashed the check? the business would have filed actions denying the charge and in the end the bank would probably have eaten the dollar amount. Since the bank deposits are insured by the FDIC the bank might have been able to recover through insurance. This whole process is lengthy and costly. much easier to report a crime, especially since the supreme court say that no monetary reprucutions can happen to you. sounds like zero risk; brilliant.
So when it comes to my money i want some one that has my interests in mind not the shareholders.
