Friday, November 17, 2006

Gives new meaning to "Bad customer service"

I just read a story on boingboing.net about a guy who got seriously screwed over by the Bank of America. To sum it up, this guys sold a couple of bikes online for $600, and the guy who bought them sent a cheque for $2000, telling him that the extra $1400 was to cover shipping costs and his "trouble". He was suspicious, so when he went to the bank to cash the cheque, he told the teller that he wasn't sure if the cheque was real. She checked it out, the cheque was not real, and the guy was arrested and thrown in jail. Note that he did not write the cheque, he received it from someone else and tried to warn the bank about it. He's since been forced to spend over $14,000, in bail and, presumably, legal costs. The Bank of America refuses to apologize or reimburse him.

Since then, many people have closed BofA accounts in protest of this, totalling over $50 million. I don't have a BofA account, and I suspect the majority of people reading this are Canadian, but if you happen to have a BofA account, please consider closing it, and make absolutely sure to tell the branch manager why you're doing this.

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