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Fuck Bank of America. $12.00 maintenance fee every month for holding my money? $35.00 overdraft fees? </rant> I don't understand why they are patenting this st
by aburan28 11y ago
Fuck Bank of America. $12.00 maintenance fee every month for holding my money? $35.00 overdraft fees? </rant>
I don't understand why they are patenting this stuff, It will never hold up and they will never sue anyone
- sixQuarks 11y agoBank of America closed down my business checking accounts last week, right before I went away on holiday. No access to ATM, no way to deposit or make payments. When I tried to find out the reason why, they literally said "we don't have to provide a reason". Keep in mind I've had these checking accounts for 15 years. So yeah, Fuck Bank of America!
- bobfunk 11y agoThey did pretty much exactly the same here with our corporate account on the 24th. Had to spend 6 hours(!) Monday to get it unfrozen and don't actually know if it worked yet...
- thenerdfiles 11y agoThey did the same to our account, and informed us that they had sent an account shutdown warning notice to an address with no zip code. Then they reminded us that they do not have have to provide a reason, a month after they sent the letter, and of course after we called them.
- zanny 11y agoBecause 99% of patent litigation never goes to court. An entity like Bank of America can wield an army of lawyers to sue anyone they do not like for bogus patent infringement, and that alone will kill most competition because they do not have the resources to even meet BoA in court for a day. Its what patents are for in the modern economy after all - you get big, you make tons of them that cover everything, and then you sue anyone you don't like until they implode from spending too much time in court and not enough time innovating.
- mildweed 11y agoHooray for too-big-to-fail institutions.
- innocentoldguy 11y agoThe EFF sent out an email a few days ago regarding the Innovation Act of 2015, which is supposed to make patent trolling more difficult. Here's a link if you'd like to contact your representative: https://act.eff.org/action/stop-patent-trolls-support-the-innovation-act-of-2015 https://act.eff.org/action/stop-patent-trolls-support-the-in...
- mkhalil 11y agoI always here about stuff like this going on. What do people mean when they say stuff like "they do not have the resources to even meet BoA in court for a day"? How is spending too much time in court taking away innovating time? If BofA has 100 lawyers on a case, and you have one lawyer, what kind of advantages does BofA have? What kind of trouble can they cause that company? How does not having a lot of lawyers make it dangerous? Seems like in a court room only one lawyers runs the show mostly anyway.
- bryanrasmussen 11y agowell if your opponent has 100 lawyers, especially lawyers who are well-versed in different areas of the law they are able to make a more varied range of arguments than your one lawyer is, your one lawyer has to respond to those arguments and say why they are wrong or not relevant in your case or risk losing because of the existence of a particular argument, therefore your one lawyer has to do a lot of work that they might not have the expertise to do well or the time to do at all. Furthermore your opponents 100 lawyers may be more cost effective than your one, depending on the contract they have with the firm. Finally the 100 lawyers can take the time to file paperwork etc. that your lawyer has to respond to or again risk losing for not responding to some piece of paperwork. Finally when your sitting in that courtroom for a day that is a day when you will not be innovating and you will not get any money for the time you took off, courtroom days are not few and far between and your opponents 100 lawyers can spend their time making sure you have more courtroom days than you can afford.
- tyre 11y agoBecause they don't want patent trolls extorting them. Let's say I patent one of these myself and BofA develops anything with cryptocurrency. I can go to them and say they are violating my patent and they can either pay me $75,000 or we can go to court. Going to court costs them more than $75k, so they would settle. It is much cheaper to file the bogus patent yourself upfront then to be extorted later. Challenging a bullshit patent is often far more expensive than settling, but exceedingly more expensive than a patent application. So no, they likely won't sue anyone else.
- noonespecial 11y ago>Because they don't want patent trolls extorting them. Both they and patent trolls can file bogus patents covering the same ideas. The system is that bad. The patent office just grants and assumes the courts will sort it all out. Having patents is zero defense against trolls. Trolls make nothing and have nothing to cross license or lose. It is only a defense against another company that is patenting and making things in you industry.
- mildweed 11y agoIts almost as if the patent office should be disbanded entirely. The courts will sort it all out.
- josaka 11y agoSome countries have this system, e.g., I think Belgium at least used to grant patents without examination. A patentee would then sue and the validity would be taken up for the first time upon suit.
- geofft 11y agoI am under the impression that it is an easier defense (at least "we patented this because that's what we're doing, so either your patent which postdates ours is the same, so it's invalid, or not, so we're not infringing it"), even if you don't get to countersue a non-troll competitor. That is, while you still have to go to court against a troll, having your own duplicate patent means you're less likely to lose, which is even more onerous than just paying for lawyer time. (I don't base this on any particular courtroom experience with this, though, so maybe I'm totally wrong.)
- jrcii 11y agoThe only time I felt at all cared for by a bank was when I had an account at a small local bank with a handful of branches.
- morganvachon 11y agoJoin a local credit union. Some limit membership to employees of certain companies, but many simply require that you live in the area. A credit union exists to serve its members, and members have voting power in the union. You'll generally get much better rates on loans as well.
- stephengillie 11y agoIs there a benefit to local credit unions over the larger credit unions? I'm a member of a state-wide credit union.
- clort 11y agoa smaller business can be more responsive than a bigger business a bigger business can be more resilient than a smaller business => any reason you can't have an account with both?
- AaronM 11y agoMy Credit union auto deducts from my savings account if my checking account does not have enough funds in it. And that doesn't cost me anything.
- deelowe 11y agoSwitch banks. I recommend schwab.
- brobinson 11y ago+1 for Charles Schwab. I recommend the high yield investor checking account. All ATM fees (anywhere in the world) refunded at EOM, no minimum balances, amazing customer support via phone/live chat. I've never had to wait longer than 30 seconds to talk to a human when calling.
- deelowe 11y agoYep. Pretty much my experience as well. The best way to describe schwab is "it just works." I don't even notice that I have a bank account any longer. It's great.
- ac29 11y ago> $35.00 overdraft fees? Overdraft fees have been opt-in since 2010 in the United States [1]. If you have a checking account opened before 2010 that opted you in without consent, you can contact them and opt-out. Absolutely no one should be subject to overdraft fees in 2015 unless they have specifically opted in. [1] http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/bcreg/20091112a.htm http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/bcreg/2009111...
- thescriptkiddie 11y agoThis doesn't help people who opened accounts before 2010, or people who have been convinced by bank propaganda that overdrafts "protect" them.
- StrangeSound 11y agoCould you not close your account, and open a new one? Am I over-simplifying?
- forgetsusername 11y ago>or people who have been convinced by bank propaganda We're adults. If you don't understand that you'll be charged a fee for spending more than you have in your chequing account, maybe personal finance isn't for you.
- Lawtonfogle 11y agoThey tried to sell it as a benefit to me. I was so flabbergasted by how stupid the attempt was that I didn't know how to respond. These days I think I would just curse them out. Yes it is their job and they were just told to do it by someone higher up, but I've never bought the 'just doing my job' defense.
- noxToken 11y agoThe thing is that we are all human. I can think of two instances where I have accidentally overdrawn my accounts in spite of having available funds in my attached savings accounts. Both times were when moving. Most people do not enjoy moving. It's tiring. There are a lot of moving parts. Two of these times, I had forgotten to move money from my savings account to the checking account to cover the check for the deposit. This drained my checking account. However, my credit union will waive overdraft fees if the attached savings account has the available funds to cover the transaction. I feel like this is a very reasonable option to give customers instead of slapping on $35 fees immediately, because overdraft fees add up quickly. In my example, say that I overdrew my account for the deposit, went to get gas, then ran inside the gas station for a snack. That's three transactions totaling an additional $105. Not because I'm bad at personal finance - I know how much money I had, but because in the whirlwind of activity, I forgot to move funds from one account to the next. This isn't to say that banks should never get paid for covering your mistakes. They are not in the business of handing out free money, and it's very myopic to think there should never be overdraft penalties under any circumstances. I like to think of the way my credit union does it as a compromise between the two extremes.
- nobleach 11y agoOh they might. Luckily Patrick Byrne of Overstock.com has a couple of passions. One is defeating patent trolls in court, the other is crypto currency.
- ryan-c 11y agoFun fact: In California, it is illegal to pay employees with checks drawn on a Bank of America checking account. This is because Bank of America charges a $5 for non-customers to cash checks issued by customers, and California Labor Code Section 212 requires that paychecks be "payable in cash, on demand, without discount".
- forgetsusername 11y ago>$12.00 maintenance fee every month for holding my money? Go elsewhere, or store your money under your mattress if that's more convenient for you. Who makes you bank with them? >$35.00 overdraft fees? It's a short term loan, albeit an expensive one. Should it be free? Perhaps thy should just NSF the payment? They can if you tell them to.
- narsil 11y agoBoA NSF fees are also $35, except the transaction will be declined so you won't unknowingly rack up 4 of these transactions in a day. See https://www.bankofamerica.com/content/documents/deposits/service/pdf/docrepo/BAC_Core_Checking_ENUS.pdf https://www.bankofamerica.com/content/documents/deposits/ser... for an explanation
- FireBeyond 11y agoMind blowingly, or not - BofA will charge you $35 for the privilege of printing "DECLINED" on a pinpad terminal. There is the greater issue, to be sure of managing finances, but charging this fee on -electronic- transactions is highway robbery. Just say "DECLINED" and go on your way. Oh, and for shits and giggles - Declined? Your friendly helpful cashier may say "Oh, it didn't go through" and swipe your card again. Ding. Now you have SEVENTY dollars in NSF fees. Good luck getting that fee dropped too. "One courtesy fee reversal per customer per year".
- narsil 11y agoThat's a good point on the cashier swiping it again. Probably better off configuring mobile alerts to be aware of the overdraft and just letting the overdraft occur.
- electic 11y agoThe best way to get a bank to change their behavior is to remove your money from the bank. By keeping it there, you basically are telling them it is okay to do this.
- enginn 11y agoThe best way to change the behavior of any institution is to defund it and cut their income off at the root. The beauty of Bitcoin is that there is no such easy kill switch like this. This is the current money systems worst bug, and (sometimes) the current money system's greatest feature: the ability to press a kill switch on any organization, legitimate or otherwise. There are some organizations which by their very nature can be agreed upon to be truly unsavory and need to be be defunded at every opportunity. It's not so black and white. Wikileaks likes to complain about the banking blockade, but entirely overlooks how the banks can also cut off any number of unsavory organizations at the root which is why the banks have persisted for some time. This is not rooting for the banks, but it is also not rooting for bitcoin either, where for it not for the criminals latching on to Bitcoin at such an early stage, it would not have gained the media hysteria it has in recent years.
- waspleg 11y agoFind a local credit union. They'll pay you interest with no fees for holding your money (aka using your money to invest and making money with your money).
- ck2 11y agoYou haven't discovered Credit Unions yet?
- dikdik 11y agoYou have other options. Credit unions are particularly awesome.