Talk:Bank of America/Archive 1

message: I am very surprised there is no section on the Bank of Credit and Commerce International scandal, one of the biggest hidden banking scandal of the 70's and 80's. Bank of America was heavily involved in it. --Omnicog 22:49, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  BCCI Scandal 

message: It'd be great if some info was added about the various buildings carrying the BoA name. There is a list at the bottom of the article, but a short summary would be nice, similar to the section in the HSBC article. I'll keep this in mind. newkai 07:06, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Buildings 

message: The statement: Bank of America moved its national lending department to Chicago in an effort to establish a financial beachhead in the region. Even after these later mergers, the Midwest remains a part of the country without other Bank of America branches"  
Please fact check this, I know that folks in Chicago which is in the midwest go to BofA branches.Kyle Andrew Brown 22:29, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expansion outside of California  

message: I know that the original "Bank of America" no longer exists as a corporate entity in the sense it did when it was a California corporation from the days of its founder Giannini.  It was "mergered"/purchased by the North Carolina entity.  
For enclopedic reference however the first intro paragraph however correct it may be - - and I don't know that it is correct - - places all the history of Bank of America as beginning as Commercial Financial Bank.  
I just dont think that is properly presenting the introduction to the lengthly, deeply inbedded discussion which follows of how the many many banking corporations came to be what is called Bank of America today.  
From the 21st century vantage point Bank of America is the merger of Nation's Bank and Bank of America, with the fact that Nation's Bank purchased Bank of America - - you can call it a merger for technical reasons to meet certain purchase objectives associated with financial law and equity if you need to - - but it always comes back to the fact that if the Bank of America is called the Bank of America the tricky history of the Bank of America NT&SA-California is far superior to stating the bank started as the Commercial Financial Bank-North Carolina.  
The East Coast perspective is that the North Carolina entity that came to the table that fused Nation's Bank and Bank of America together - - that the North Carolina entity was a hobbled together congommeration of mergers and I dont think Commercial Financial Bank-North Carolina was much of a historical reality on due diligence day.  Bank of America-California very much was an historical reality on due diligence day.
Frankly, Nation's Bank and its predecessors dont light a candle to Bank of America NT&SA of Giannini heritage when it comes to historicity.  I am advocating here that the historicity of Bank of America NT&SA has been unwittingly been swept under the carpet.  But at due diligence, closing day, the folks at Nation's Bank CLEARLY understood the historicity and cultural supremacy of the Bank of America NT&SA over Nation's Bank.  Nation's Bank decorated the east coast with its logo what was it the late 1980's? and Bank of America predates back to the Bank of Italy at the time of the Great Earthquake of 1909.
I bring to the table this question.  Is the direction of this article going in the best direction with a parade of dates and name of acquisitions rather than to bring primary focus on (1) the current entitys financial operations, (2) the corporate strategy of the North Carolina bank that packaged the new financial empire and (3) the corporate strategy of the California bank that packaged its empire and made it the cultural and financial powerhouse that it was.
Also, I recall that Bank of America NT&SA's greatest achilles heel can be pointed at about ONE bank officer who made a lot of horrific agricultural loans in California.  Anyone got some institutional memory on that?  It's key to what happened to California.
To summarize and thank you for reading this far, I would like the "story" that traces the history of California and the corporate strategy of North Carolina that pulled off the huge "merger/purchase" to shine in this piece.  I think that is what is called for in an encyclopedia article.  Sorta what we have to this point - and I applaud everyone who got this material here - is a rap sheet.  It does not make bedtime story reading.Kyle Andrew Brown 00:27, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  First Paragraph 

message: The article Grameen Bank is currently nominated to be improved on Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive. Support this article  with your vote.--Fenice 17:20, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Improvement Drive

message: I was reading a few articles by John Steinbeck recently, and he mentioned that the Bank of America (I am assuming that would be the incarnation based out of San Fransisco) acquired huge farms in California.  I don't know anything about this myself, and came to this entry looking for more information.  I wonder if anyone knows more about it and would like to add something about this?  It may not be an unusual practice for banks to do this, but it seemed to be at least controversial at the time of Steinbeck's articles:
"Dubious Battle in California" by John Steinbeck, which ran in the national weekly The Nation in 1936 is the only direct reference to Bank of America, although he wrote several articles about the controversies surrounding the working conditions and wages of the harvesters on the farms in question.
--Luna 05:09, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Acquisition of Farmland in the Thirties? 

message: "The California-based BankAmerica was established in 1929 as an outcome of the merger between Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy (USA) and Bank of America, Los Angeles. By merging with BankAmerica of Los Angeles, Giannini, based in San Francisco, gained access to the Los Angeles financial market and rights to the name BankAmerica"
Should that be BankAmerica or Bank of America. I'm so confused.--Gbleem 05:50, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You are most correct. Stude62 15:38, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: BankAmerica vs. Bank of America

message: Why is there a disputed tag on the overdraft fees section? It seems very well done to me, and there doesn't seem to be any talk of it anywhere on the talk page. --AK7 09:40, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What's more, the argument itself contains errors.  Sparr states that ACH items are guaranteed to the debitor at the time of purchase, this is not true.  Checkcard, ATM, and PIN based transactions are all authorized at point of sale and cannot be bounced, but paper checks, electchecks, and ACH items are not preauthorized and may bounce if funds aren't available when it is time for presentment.  For example: You have $1K in your account. Let's say your rent check for $750, a grocery purchase (checkcard) of $150, an insurance payment of $200, and a Starbucks coffee of $5.00 (checkcard) all come in on the same day.  If the bank posts largest to smallest, then your rent clears first, leaving you with $250, your insurance posts next, leaving you with $50, then the grocery purchase and Starbucks post and are paid because they were preauthorized at point of sale, charging you 2 overdraft fees and leaving you overdrawn by $105 + 2 OD fees.  Now, let's try posting smallest to largest instead. You start with $1000, take off 5 for Starbucks leaving you with $995, take off $150 for groceries, leaving $845, take $200 for insurance, leaving you with $645, and finally taking off $750 for your rent check, overdrawing the account by $95. You would be charged 1 OD fee, but your rent check would be returned unpaid because it overdraws your account. Your landlord gets the check back and says "Hmm, Sparr's never bounced a rent check before" so he presents it 3 more times. You still don't have the available funds to pay it, so you get 3 more OD fees, and worse still, when the landlord gets the check back that last time he says "well, if he can't pay the rent, I'll have to evict him."   Now obviously most banks will allow you to overdraw somewhat and still pay items before bouncing checks, but clearly if the overdraft is at all significant, your checks and ACH items will likely bounce.  That's why posting order matters.  Stile4aly 00:37, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  neutrality?  

message: Thanks for your feedback, but it's still possible with CommerceBank, as it is Bank of America. Banks use a formula based on your account tenure with the bank, your FICO credit score and average account balances to come up with a number with how far you can overdraw your account and pay for your items. Commercebank uses a formula just like bank of Americas. So, assume for a moment that the formula says you can overdraw your account $100. At customers discretion, (or your banker, if you have a bit of 'tude with them and your banker just wants you to close your account and leave) can reduce that amount to zero on a whim. But it still won't prevent check card overdrafts. Here's why:
Assuming this customer had an account balance of $100 at the start, let's add in the formula to the account balance:
Balance :$100.00 (add the formula, $200)
Cable - $95  - PENDING - bal 5.00 (able to charge another $105)
Groceries - $95 - PENDING - bal <-90.00> (still able to charge another $10)
Wal Mart - $12 -> Transaction denied, insufficient formula room left.
Groceries - $10 - PENDING bal <-100.00> (no formula room left, all transactions will be denied
Starbucks - $6.00 -> Transaction denied, insufficient formula room left.
And the customer would receive two overdraft fees here. Which we said was $35.00/ea. The bank does not charge a denial fee or an overdraft fee for declined check card purchases.
The account balance would end at <-166.00> But, there is more than meets the eye here. The above transaction assumes the cable bill is a Checkcard purchase. But what happens if the cable bill isn't included - which would be the case of the check. All check card purchases would go through, and four OD's would hit instead of two, all in the same batch. 
Bank of America discloses the fact that you can decline overdraft payment as an option on all of its  accounts. The reason the account has a formula is because sometimes merchants charge a great deal more than what they are entitled to. As a situation I went through, I rented a car in Kentucky and the car rental compny charged me $150 to rent the car, and also authorized an additional $1000 against my check card as a security deposit on the car without telling me. Well, if I have an account balance of $700 and an account formula of $15,000 that would give me enough room to safely manuver and not worry about excessive authorizations.
Commercebank works exactly the same way with their formula, but would allow transactions through based on the same formula, and you can overdraw your account with commercebank just as easily as you can with Bank of America. The formula applies in either posting environment, and sometimes having items post largest to smallest helps a customer out too. If a large check comes in and it bounces (Say the cable bill is $400 in the example above) the other items are just $1 each, the first check would bounce, the remainder would clear and the $400 check would be returned with an NSF fee of $35.
Both methods have there pluses and minuses. I'm still thinking their is an unfair bias here, and it's not like the bank doesn't disclose all of this when you open an account. Do you have Overdraft protection linked to a savings account, Home equity line or credit card?
the beginning of this article should be edited. bank of america is now the second largest bank ranked by assets. total assets of 1,292 billion, exceeding chase by nearly $100 billion
* (using a list item because this conversation is very hard to follow otherwise) I posted an addition to the section on overdraft fees and it was reverted.  Specifically, this sentence is untrue: "By paying these [larger] items first, the bank helps insure that the customer's most important transactions go through.".  The statement is false because it implies that the later transactions would not go through (and would thus "bounce").  For most types of debit, including ACH and debit/credit card purchases, the balance is set aside in advance and guaranteed to the debitor at the time the hold is placed.  There is no chance of the transactions failing at that point, rendering this argument invalid with regards to the order the transactions are posted to the account.  The only time this argument would be valid is when posting paper checks.  Indicating the falsehood of this statement (in effect, calling BoA liars, with good reason) does not, imho, violate NPOV. Sparr 05:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What's more, the argument itself contains errors.  Sparr states that ACH items are guaranteed to the debitor at the time of purchase, this is not true.  Checkcard, ATM, and PIN based transactions are all authorized at point of sale and cannot be bounced, but paper checks, electchecks, and ACH items are not preauthorized and may bounce if funds aren't available when it is time for presentment.  For example: You have $1K in your account. Let's say your rent check for $750, a grocery purchase (checkcard) of $150, an insurance payment of $200, and a Starbucks coffee of $5.00 (checkcard) all come in on the same day.  If the bank posts largest to smallest, then your rent clears first, leaving you with $250, your insurance posts next, leaving you with $50, then the grocery purchase and Starbucks post and are paid because they were preauthorized at point of sale, charging you 2 overdraft fees and leaving you overdrawn by $105 + 2 OD fees.  Now, let's try posting smallest to largest instead. You start with $1000, take off 5 for Starbucks leaving you with $995, take off $150 for groceries, leaving $845, take $200 for insurance, leaving you with $645, and finally taking off $750 for your rent check, overdrawing the account by $95. You would be charged 1 OD fee, but your rent check would be returned unpaid because it overdraws your account. Your landlord gets the check back and says "Hmm, Sparr's never bounced a rent check before" so he presents it 3 more times. You still don't have the available funds to pay it, so you get 3 more OD fees, and worse still, when the landlord gets the check back that last time he says "well, if he can't pay the rent, I'll have to evict him."   Now obviously most banks will allow you to overdraw somewhat and still pay items before bouncing checks, but clearly if the overdraft is at all significant, your checks and ACH items will likely bounce.  That's why posting order matters.  Stile4aly 00:37, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: ==============================================

message: it is now less disability-accessible than it had been, requiring more pages to input the codes; it had already been difficult previously.
Thank You.
hopiakuta 19:28, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Well, 

message: what are Money Center Banks,
Money Center Bank?
Thank You.
hopiakuta 19:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please, 

message: Around this line "The assimilated former MBNA entity will be called Bank of America Card Services, and will also incorporate Bank of America's existing credit card operations." I think it would be a good idea to mention that the name MBNA is being retained on a large portion of the credit cards. I believe all domestic cards will now be called "Bank of America" and all international cards will retain MBNA to avoid brand confusion.
70.119.117.189 13:14, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  MBNA 

message: The section presents the case as is commonly believed, but this belief is not supported by the facts.  The individual was not trying to "determine if the check was valid"; he was trying to cash the check. If he took the cash BofA would have had no way of tracing him and recovering the ill-gotten gains. The person who put the section in did not produce any supporting details and makes several false statements like "he had to use lawyers". -Jaysbro 22:52, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably a good decision. It's unfortunate that this part cannot stay here, because the purpose of Wikipedia is to inform people, and BOA's policy with regard to fraud is something potential customers should be made aware of. Really the problem with this section so far is that BOTH sides are presenting a false choice: It is not a question of whether the responsibility lies entirely with the Bank or the scammer. The scammer did something illeagal, but the reaction of BOA upon encountering possbible fraud is also not laudable. No one here is blaming the bank for the actions of the scammer, only to their very poor reaction to these actions. They could have done it differently, but they did not (softed things out in the bank for example, before pressing charges). Indeed, they have not even apoligized. BOA didn't do anything illeagal, what they did was fine legally, but other banks handle possible check fraud differently, with much better results - this is not an "either/or" situation! Hvatum 06:34, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I trimmed the Matthew Shinnick section down to two sentences, although I'm not sure whether this should be mentioned at all in the article. I hope this is not a controversial edit. This article appears to have become a hit page against B of A. Based on my reading of the Chronicle article, this incident could have happened at any bank, and it is unfortunate but not "six paragraphs of an encyclopedia article" unfortunate. Rhobite 01:00, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There's an entire article on this case, which personally I think needs some help, but in any case I added the link to the section here so all the details might be better placed in the Howard article, if the details can actually be accurately determined.  I do, however, believe the case deserves to be mentioned here.  At the very least, there should be a link and a line of explanation.  Cryptonymius 10:10, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Matthew Shinnick/Clark Howard Section 

message: I've been working on cleaning up this article - mainly by consolidating redundant information, and removing redundant/excessive linksage. I've also spent some time on the Overdraft Fee section, removing some of the confusing jargon and making the example more clear.Rasi2290 18:25, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I saw that your revisions made it more accurate (the specific number of days, etc.) but figured I could make it a little easier to understand. Rasi2290
Ok, I just went through the Corporate History and BofA Today sections and did a ton of cleanup. 1) I deleted an apparently random mention of a lawsuit that appeared to be copied from a news article. 2) I moved around the history of mergers to be more chronological. 3) I fixed some factual errors; such as the modern BofA being traced back to the Bank of Italy, in fact the original BofA can be traced this way, not the modern BofA. 4) I removed a whole bunch of redundant tags - do we really need a link for every year or place mentioned? 5) Some small grammatical stuff. 6) I broke out some of the history into a new section, "History since 1998", a period that really needs its own section because everything before that is the history of one bank or another, not the merged entity. Rasi2290 19:59, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup

message: The article states that New York, Nevada, and California are fighting Bank of America's Biggest Check First clearing policy, yet a google search for various key terms brings up no information except this page and a few rip off reports clearly referencing this page.  Can someone provide a link to an Attorney General's site, or a consumer advocacy site that actually details an ongoing investigation into the practice?  If not, I would suggest that the statement be removed for inaccuracy.
:Agreed; removed it. Rasi2290 16:52, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No one is going to argue that point, but if there were really an ongoing investigation by Attorneys General from 3 large states on such a hot button consumer issue, you would think there would be at least one source.  Since there's no source being provided, there's no reason for it to be on the page.  If you have a source, even a print source that's not on the web, please cite the reference and reinsert the text.  Stile4aly 06:09, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lawsuit? 

message: I have a problem with this company, known as NationsBank until 1998, having the original Bank of America's history presented as it's own. It makes as much sense as saying that their history is that of Fleet, or MBNA, or any other bank they've acquired over the years. That said, I'm fine with leaving the story of the original BofA in this article, as long as it's made clear that the modern BofA's history is that of NationsBank. I've redone the intro to say just that. Rasi2290 17:59, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it would be better to split off the Bank of America history into a separate article, BankAmerica, and then merge in the information from the NationsBank article. Doing this will highlight the difference between the old Bank of America and the current Bank of America. janus657 13:51, 01 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If anything is to be done about having BankAmerica history on the Bank of America page, it should be separated out onto the BankAmerica page, but NationsBank history should not be combined. Rather, links to the two pages for the pre-1998 companies would be more appropriate. The sheer confusion of having NationsBank's history on the Bank of America page (when in fact BankAmerica was originally Bank of Italy then "Bank of America") would not clear up anything. I think having the post-1998 history of the combined (technically NationsBank, but not really) company on the Bank of America page is appropriate, with an explanation at the beginning of the section and links to NationsBank and BankAmerica. akendall(talk) 02:36, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, there's the obvious problem that BankAmerica redirects to Bank of America, so that would have to be fixed, with a disclaimer at the top of the BankAmerica page, saying "for the modern Bank of America, which was the result of the 1998 merger between BankAmerica and NationsBank, see Bank of America" akendall(talk) 02:37, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: NationsBank

message: Is bankofamericasucks.com really an encylcopedic resource?  Unverified, unverifiable, and one sided consumer complaints aren't really valid to include in my opinion.  Any objections to removing it? Stile4aly 19:57, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's been over 2 months with no response or discussion on this question, so I'm going to pull the link for the reasons stated above.  Stile4aly 21:18, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: External Links

message: I found no sources by Google to support the statement that US Bancorp and KeyBank would tag-team on BofA. I would think that one of the largest companies in the world becoming a takeover target would make the news somewhere. Maybe I just wasn't searching in the right places, but I never found it.  SWalkerTTU 21:39, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Moreover, it's impossible.  US Bancorp and Keybank are much smaller than BofA, even if they merged prior to an attempt to acquire BofA.  Even if it were possible from that standpoint, the combined entity would exceed the 10% deposit cap placed by the federal government (no one bank can acquire more than 10% of the nation's deposits, except organically, and BofA is at that limit now).  I'm removing this section. Stile4aly 09:39, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  US Key Banks of America? 

message: Though SiteKey will by no means render Bank of America customers immune to phishing attacks, it is a step in the right direction since it demands a two-way exchange of authenticating information: The Web server presents the user its credentials (your chosen image and text) as a means of proving they really are the bank. Only after seeing the image they have chosen, the bank instructs its users, should they, in turn, present their credentials (user ID and passcode).
The bolded section of this paragraph seems somewhat POV to me. I think it should be reworded, to make it sound more neutral, or I could be reading too much into it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Acebrock (talk • contribs) 00:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  This Paragraph seems highly POV 

message: I've reverted this edit out, it really served no purpose in the article, and is no different than the policies of any other bank.User:Stile4aly 15:12, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You keep reinserting that Morris Law Firm webpage, but WP:REF states that instead of citing a document that references another, you should reference the original document itself.  In this case, instead of citing a PR website saying that there exists a court case in which these events occurred, you should cite the court case itself.  Until then, I'm deleting this para.  Also, you list the account closures as being "without cause or warning."  I can grant you "without warning" but not "without cause."  BofA clearly has a cause to close the account, even if it is only their own bottom line.  Also, in reading your sources, the first case that you cite (referencing the signature card) originates from prior to the Bank of America/Nations Bank merger.  The "Bank of America" referenced in that case no longer exists, and so the case is not relevent to today's Bank of America.  Moreover, it's discussing the bank offsetting accounts, not closing them.  This whole thing boils down to "I don't like their deposit agreement" which is not WP:NPOV.  A google search for "Bank of America closing accounts" doesn't bring up anything to suggest this provision is systematically abused.  I again question the usefulness of this section.User:Stile4aly 15:14, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Thank you for providing the references.  I did make one edit removing the sentence talking about Bank of America not providing the document to the customer.  I've read the court of appeals decision, and can't find reference to it. Stile4aly 20:09, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Closing accounts 

message: If you have questions regarding youor account, fees, etc. and are unable to find the answer online or on the automated phone, feel free to call -redacted-, Asst. VP of Executive Customer Relations.  The number is -redacted-.  She will be happy to assist you.
:Sorry to edit another user's talkback, but it can't possibly be appropriate to post an employee's name and contact information.Stile4aly 17:23, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's one thing to edit another user's entry when it posts private information.  It's another thing entirely to revert out that edit wholesale.  If you want to discuss the issue, feel free, but it's simply not ethical to put a private employee's name and contact information.  Stile4aly 23:01, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Phone number for B of A Customer Relations Executive Office