Talk:Bank of America

Philanthropy

Why is there no mention of the Bank's efforts at philanthropy? Community Development lending and investment goal - $750 billion over 10 years - one of the largest community development goals ever established by an American financial institution. In 2005, the Bank of America Charitable Foundation, Inc., and other lines of business, contributed $130 million to address critical issues and direct resources toward the challenges facing our neighborhoods and communities.

I don't see any reason not to include this. Maybe it could be part of a "social responsibility" section and also include their new green-friendly building in manhattan.Rasi2290 00:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

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Does the section of NationsBank seem out of place at the beginning of this article? If the article is about Bank of America, why is there a lesson on the history of NationsBank at the beginning of this entry. stude62 02:54, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

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Because corporations take over each other all the time and adopt the target's name. The modern Bank of America is really Nationsbank.

When the two bank holding companies, NationsBank and BankAmerica Corporation merged, NationsBank was the surviving legal entity changing its name to Bank of America Corporation. When the two principal operating subsidiaries were merged, Bank of America NT&SA was the surviving legal entity (shortening its moniker to Bank of America, NA). In fact, the bank still operates under the same Federal Charter #13044 that it did when it was known as Bank of Italy, the bank founded by A.P. Giannini in 1904.

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Yes, corporations do take over each other and corporations merge. The name they settle on is the one with the greatest market potential, not the name of the target.

• In this case Bank of America name had greater capital value than Nationsbank.
• In the case of the merger between Key Bank Corp. (New York) and Society National Bank (Ohio) the resulting financial institution is Key Corp based in Cleveland.
• In the case of the Bank One/Chase Bank merger, Chase is the surviving name because it has greater recognition; Jamie Dimond, Bank One's CEO, will run the combined companies.

In any event, I still feel that Nationsbank deserves its own listing as does Bank of America.

One last thing, please sign your posts to the talk page by placing ~~~~ at the end of your entry - this helps everyone on Wikipedia.--user: stude62 user talk:stude62 14:16, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

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Well I am an anonymous user so its pure variable ip. Anyway, I feel that the standard for wikipedia is that the article about any corporation talks about the corporate entity which is the the one that did the taking over. The one which is shown on the stock history viewable presently, which is the one labeled as such by the SEC. So in this case, this article should be about the modern bank of america, the predecessor nationsbank, with a seperate article about the old bankamerica. Or it can be simply about the company after the merger, and we can have seperate articles about the merging companies. But it shouldn't be about the company after the merger AND the about the old bankamerica with a seperate article on nationsbank 67.180.61.179 03:13, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Buildings

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)

Expansion outside of California

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)

Actually, you're both right. Illinois is one of the few midwest states where BofA does have a presence. But much of the midwest (Ohio, Indiana, and then all the states between Illinois and Nevada, and north of Nebraska) do not have Bank of America branches, nor will they in the forseeable future. BofA currently holds 10% of the USA's funds on deposit, which is the maximum it can acquire by federal law. Although BofA can exceed this deposit cap organically (existing funds on deposit growing, or obtaining new customers within its current footprint) it cannot expand into new areas of the country. 70.190.107.5 06:39, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

First Paragraph

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)

Improvement Drive

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)

Acquisition of Farmland in the Thirties?

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)

Hope this helps - I've reorganized the corporate history, removed some redundancies, and generally made everything much more logical (at least I think so ;)). Since the history of BoA is primarily the history of NationsBank up until 1998, I put the emphasis on that. I also added the Controversy section and associated links.

63.72.208.223 16:49, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

BankAmerica vs. Bank of America

"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)

You are most correct. Stude62 15:38, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

neutrality?

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)

"The bank employs the same practice for ATM and debit card transactions. Another example: A customer has $100 in her account. On Saturday she withdraws $80 from an ATM. On Sunday she buy a coffee using her debit card for $3 and fills up her gas tank for $15. As of Sunday night, she still has $2 remaining in her account. On Monday, her recurring monthly cable bill is auto-debited from her account, for $150. The bank clears this transaction even though the customer is now in the negative. This is standard grounds for an overdraft fee, so the customer expects to find one on her next statement."

This is an inaccurate statement. Bank of America works in an environment called a "Memo post" environment, whereby transactions will show as "pending" via online banking. Pending transactions do not trigger overdraft fees, it's only when a transaction actually posts and the account truely goes overdrawn is a fee assessed. Bank of America only posts Monday through Friday, so if a transaction is done on Saturday and Sunday it would show as "pending" on Monday. ACH transactions (that use an account number and routing number - like a direct deposit) memo post the day they are run. Therefore, on Monday, so long as a deposit is made before the cutoff time of the banking center the account is domociled in, no overdraft fees would actually be assessed. This example also assumes all of the check card purchases would actually submit for payment on monday night, and therefore I call the neutrality of this article into question.

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I think you're actually agreeing with the example. You're saying that "pending transactions" don't trigger the fees, and that the bank only looks at when the charge posts. And that's exactly the point: more fees are accrued because of purchases that are considered pending and not posted. Other banks, for example Commerce Bank, don't do this. They recognize when the electronic transaction took place, and mark those funds as unavailable. So if this hypothetical customer used Commerce instead of BoA and spent her funds in the same exact way, in this scenario, she wouldn't be hit with multiple overdraft fees. Because as soon as she bought the coffee, gas, and made the ATM withdrawel, Commerce would mark those funds unavailable. They would set those funds aside specifically to pay those charges, so they couldn't be used for the cable bill, and she'd only get the one charge.

In other words, they use the same funds for two transactions and then blame the customer. AFAIK, no other bank does this. It's backwards and absurd, and a large part of why they were sued.

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The bank recently changed the way it pends transactions from witholding funds away from an account from one business day to three business days. But it has ALWAYS withheld funds from an account immedietly after a check card purchase, ACH, or an ATM withdrawl. It's not backward or absurd, in fact, it's actually quite beneficial to someone who keeps track of their account and a lot easier to understand. The vast majority of banks process their transactions this way.

Check card purchases are authorized based on the amount a customer has available in their account at the time of a withdrawl. Any transaction, be it a ACH, check card purchase, or a check is decisioned by the bank. A lot goes into making a decision to pay something that overdraws an account. BofA happens to use a formula based on your credit score and account tenure to determine how far you can overdraw your account and have the bank still pay for an item. It's there because sometimes merchants authorize a lot more on check cards than what they are entitled to, and the bank also realizes sometimes for people to eat they need to write a check that will bounce. To say BofA is the only bank that will pay for a check when you don't have funds is absurd and totally unfounded.

These transactions would all most likely post Monday night into Tuesday night processing. All of these would be listed as "pending" as soon as they took place, and a customer could make a deposit into the bank before the cutoff time on monday wouldn't pay any fees EVEN IF THE BALANCE WAS IN THE RED ALL DAY MONDAY before the cutoff time. The example leads one to believe that the fee would be charged as soon as the transaction occoured, this is a myth in a memo post environment, such as Bank of Americas. All purchases made after 6pm on Friday would be considered processed Monday night, and even if these transactions caused the account to overdraw, no fees would be assessed here unless no deposit was made on Monday. The example is written as though the bank works in a chrono post environment. The bank works in Memo post environment, and the time a transaction occours isn't as important as it is in a chrono post environment.

To explain the difference, let's say we had a customer do the following: Start of business Friday: Account balance is $100. Friday, 7:15PM - Dinner at red lobster = $40. Saturday 3:15PM - Coffee, Starbucks = $7.00 Sunday 4:00PM Cable Bill - $35 Sunday 7:00PM Wal Mart - $60 and let's say on Monday at 3:30PM a deposit is made for $200.00

Well, commerce bank would post the transactions in a chronological order. Therefore:

Balance $100 Red Lobster - $40, Bal. 60 Starbucks - $7.00 Bal $53.00 Cable Bill - $35.00 - bal 18.00 Wal-Mart $60 - bal <-48.00> Deposit - $200.00 bal 152.00 Overdraft fee (Let's just say it's $35.00) bal 117.00

Now, then, in a memo post environment, everything that was done over the weekend and Monday would go through overnight processing Monday into Tuesday. If you check your account balance Monday night: DESPITE the fact the deposit was made after these check card purchases, as long as the deposit was made before the cutoff time Monday, everything from the weekend would be covered.

Deposits always hit first, then withdrawls post largest to smallest. Knowing everything over the weekend posts Monday:

Balance :$100.00 DEPOSIT +$200.00 - PENDING bal. $300.00 Wal - Mart: $60.00 - PENDING - bal 240.00 Red Lobster: 40.00 - PENDING - bal 200.00 Cable Bill: $ 35.00 - PENDING- bal 165.00 Starbucks $7.00 - PENDING - Bal 152.00

Assuming all of these end up posting on the account Monday night, you wouldn't get an overdraft fee here. Since we know the deposit was Made on Monday, we would know that on Sunday night the pending transactions would overdraw the account. Chronological order is irrelevant. What's important is the day the check card purchase processes and posts. If the check card purchases over the weekend didn't post on the account, they would be given 3 chances - that is, three business days to post on the account. The bank pends transactions on it's check card purchases, and always has. What's recently changed is the fact the bank pends transactions for three business days, but it used to do it for only one. ALL banks in a memo post environment have a limited time in which a merchant can submit for payment to post to an account. Wells Fargo and Wachovia do this as well. It's an unfounded, unjustified slant towards the bank with no commentary as to why the balance is the way it is, and is therefore biased. It also doesn't take into account the formula the bank uses to compute what items the bank will pay in the event of an overdraft and what it won't Pay. Assuming the bank's formula for your account (i.e. for a person who constantly overdraws their account) will be minimal, your check card purchase would go through, but you STILL won't get an overdraft fee if the deposit is made on Monday because IT'S PENDING.

The example ignores how the bank posts it's transactions, the formula concept, how check card purchases are llowed through when and why, an understanding of memo post transactions and doesn't tell the whole story. It's completely biased and shows a lack of understanding of how a bank processes transactions. It assumes Bank of America is the only bank that pays its customers bounced checks and that it is the only one that lets you overdraw your account with your check card because of the overdraft formula.

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You've shed some light on the inner workings of banking, and I found it very interesting. But I don't think that knowledge is required to determine that BofA customers are incurring far more bounced check fees than they need to.

I notice that you changed the example in a few important ways: first, by adding a deposit. True, in the memo system (where chronology is less important), a deposit might prevent a bounced check even if the deposit comes later. That's definitely an advantage. But if you don't make that deposit, then what happens? You also changed the amounts and chronology to lessen the impact made in the example. So I've revised it below, removing the deposit and changing the amounts and times. Please confirm whether the following conclusions would be correct in both systems.

Start of business Friday: Account balance is $100. Friday, 7:15PM - Coffee at Starbucks = $6. Saturday 3:15PM - = Groceries = $10.00 Sunday 4:00PM Wal Mart - $12 Sunday 7:00PM Cable - $95

Using the chronological system with Commerce etc, you'd have:

Balance $100 Starbucks - $6.00 bal 93.00 Groceries - $10.00 - bal 83.00 Wal Mart - $12 - bal 71.00 Cable - $95 - bal <-24> Overdraft fee (Let's just say it's $35.00) bal <-69>

Using BofA's non-chronological memo system, which would post everything from largest to smallest on Mon or Tue:

Balance :$100.00 Cable - $95 - PENDING - bal 5.00 Wal Mart - $12 - PENDING - bal <-7.00> Groceries - $10.00 - PENDING- bal <-17.00> Starbucks - $6.00 - PENDING - Bal <-23.00> Three Overdraft fees at $35 each - $105 - PENDING - bal <-128>

So the BofA customer ends up $70 behind, because BofA took the money he/she spent on coffee and groceries, and used that money to pay the cable bill instead. That's the absurd and unfair part: the customer had the funds to pay everything except the cable bill, but by rearranging the order by biggest to smallest, the bank gets to charge them as though they had funds to pay NOTHING except the cable bill.

Furthermore, with Commerce and other banks, the one bounce fee for the cable bill would only apply if it's an autodraft or written check. But if the customer tried to spend that $95 on groceries, for example, it just wouldn't work: Commerce would have already set aside $71 for pending transactions, so the customer usually CAN'T overdraw that way. Rasi2290

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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

Corporate History - Bank of America, then BankAmerica?

Does Bank of America suddenly go from Bank of America to BankAmerica midway through the Corporate History section, without any introduction to BankAmerica? The paragraph I'm talking about discusses the bank using the name Bank of America, then all of a sudden it reads "BankAmerica" and continues up to the NationsBank merger section. In fact, the article header is title "BankAmerica and the BankAmericard".

Here's the paragraph I'm talking about -

"....federal banking regulators prohibited Bank of America's interstate banking activity, and Bank of America's domestic banks outside of California were forced into a separate company that eventually became First Interstate Bancorp, which was acquired by Wells Fargo Corp. in 1996. It was not until the 1980s with a change in federal banking legislation and regulation that BankAmerica was again able to..."

Shouldn't that be Bank of America, not BankAmerica? Johndeere82 01:18, 17 June 2006 (GMT -05:00 ET)

Edited by Johndeere82 01:20, 17 June 2006 (GMT -05:00 ET)

About SiteKey

The description given: "Only after seeing the image they have chosen, the bank instructs its users, should they, in turn, present their credentials (user ID and passcode)." is not correct. In reality, the sequence is as follows: first, the user enters user ID, then the server shows the site key (pre-agreed image and phrase), then user enters passcode (password).

Also, the description of BofA's web server does not give it proper credit. The fact is that BofA is on the cutting edge of consumer web security, and talking about "a step in the right direction" is at best an understatement.

Please, share your information here. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would be interested in what you have to say.

Well,

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)

Please,

what are Money Center Banks, Money Center Bank?

Thank You.

hopiakuta 19:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

MBNA

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)

The Matthew Shinnick/Clark Howard Section

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)

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I deleted the original Clark Howard section, replaced it with one that I hope presents the relevant facts, and moved the whole thing up to the Controversy section. See if you like that one better. Urshanabi 07:56, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

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I edited one little section regarding the order of events at the bank. According to the article cited, Matthew asked if funds were avaiable. The teller said yes. Matthew signed and presented the check. The teller then verified the check with the account holder via phone.

The teller did not verify the check with the account holder before informing Matthew that there were sufficient funds, as was originally posted. --66.156.60.136 21:32, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

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Thanks for keeping me honest... it was very late when I wrote that. Urshanabi 22:30, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

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I noticed someone "reverted" the Matthew Shinnick/Clark Howard section. It is essentially the same as the one that Jaysbro stuck a "disputed" sign on. This one does not have any documentation and contains unsubstantiated claims -- for example, the attorneys he is alleged to have hired. I am going to revert it to the edited version of the one I wrote if no one has any objections. For now, I'll leave this one, but mark it "disputed." Urshanabi 20:15, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

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The one thing that the "new" version and biased version of the Clark Howard paragraph is that it forgets to mention that he was cashing a BANK OF AMERICA CHECK at BANK OF AMERICA and the teller told him that funds were available in that BOA account. Matthew, I assumed did not have a BOA account. The bank manager pressed charges and this is why matthew had to spend 14k to clear his name. Wouldn't anyone take a check directly to the bank that is on the check? Of course you would cash it to make sure you had the funds before sending the bikes and the refund. Clark Howard's whole point is that a law is in place that the banks lobbied to get in that protects banks from being held liable when they blantantly cause a consumer harm in this way. So Clark is telling consumers to vote with their feet and remove their money out of BOA because BOA is not looking out for their customers. Brandon

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The newer version was not biased -- well, it was not intended to be. In fact, it was slanted a little toward Mr. Shinnick, now that I read it again. $14k is Mr. Shinnick's figure and we should have noted it to be such. This is an encyclopedia, not a consumer complaint forum. I think what Bank of America did was uncool on the undisputable facts alone, that is why I take an interest in this article; there is no reason to make it look like BofA entrapped him or anything of the kind. When editing Wikipedia, any assertion of fact added should be properly documented, if at all possible. If it is not possible to provide supporting documentation for an assertion, it is best to leave that assertion out. Unprovable assertions tend to reflect poorly upon Wikipedia's credibility. Urshanabi 23:34, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

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I'm sorry... the above post is going to be misleading because I was unaware of the edits to the version I was working on by a user called INeXuS. I believe that those edits reflected a certain POV. However, the section that completely replaced the one INeXuS edited contains unsubstantiated claims and suggestions that simply aren't supported by the known facts, but tend to make BofA look worse than it actually is (although it is pretty bad on its face IMO). The current section is not NPOV.Urshanabi 06:13, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

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A user deleted the Howard/Shinnick section completely, which is acceptable under common Wikipedia guidelines regarding POV and unsubstantiated claims. I reverted it to an earlier, more NPOV, version. I have a question now that didn't occur to me before: Is the background information regarding the circumstances under which he came to be in possession of a fraudulent check relevant? This is an article about Bank of America, not Matthew Shinnick. I think that the background could be shortened to just say that someone had written a fraudulent check to Mr. Shinnick, and that he was suspicious of a check he'd been written and wanted to verify funds availability with the issuing bank before cashing it. Thoughts? Urshanabi 17:58, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

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This thing about Matthew Shinnick and Clark Howard is not a large enough issue to be part of the Bank of America wikipage. Please take your issue to the BBB.

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I also agree that the Matthew Sninnick story doesn't deserve to be on the company's article. Not noteworthy enough. --Hawkeye216 01:12, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

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Matthew Shinnick's misfortune has nothing to do with the bank. This could have happened at any bank if someone unknowingly presented a forged check related to an account flagged for fraud.

Also, the entire section headed "Controversy" has misleading POV headings, e.g., "Raiding Social Security" implies misappropriation of Federal money, and should read something like "Illegal garnishment / withholding of customer funds". "Excessive overdraft fees" are excessive by what standard, particularly when other banks have similar practices? The sections related to online bill pay, fraud protection failures, local branch staff, and documentation of phone conversations are unsourced and POV. They sound like the ramblings of a disgruntled customer or conspiracy theorist who needs to find another bank.RandallC 14:03, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

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The latest edit to this section links to Clark Howard's website where he claims that his actions have resulted in $50 million being taken out of BofA. There are no stats to back this up, it's purely anecdotal. Clark Howard is basically pulling numbers out of the air. Is this really encyclopedic? Indeed, I wonder how long this should stay on the page as it's a bit of a flash in the pan controversy which even Clark Howard admits he's no longer actively pursuing.

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Well, there was an article published about it in a major news paper; that's enough to convince me it is appropriate for an encyclopedia.

I am almost to the point of washing my hands of this article. Between the pro-Shinnick faction, the pro-BofA faction, and the anti-Shinnick section faction, trying to keep this thing NPOV is proving to be a thankless task The original Shinnick section (which, contrary to some schools of thought, I did not write) was extremely POV and substituted assumption for fact. I attempted to change it by doing a rewrite based only on verifiable facts, but that doesn’t seem to have made anyone happy. People keep putting unsubstantiated claims into the text and trying to alter the language to favor either Shinnick or BofA. On that note, I was not able to find any record of Mr. Shinnick claiming that he has documents supporting his $14,000 figure. Whoever added that should provide a source or it will be removed. I am assuming the information is based on something Shinnick said, because it is not in the news article.

Many people want to delete this section. I do not think that will be effective, because people having an interest in the story will simply re post it; or, not seeing anything about it on the main page, write a new (and probably POV one). Is there an official process for permanently deleting just parts of articles?

Out of courtesy, please properly format and sign your comments.Urshanabi 19:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I definitely agree with deleting or at least minimizing this section. The situation is definitely an isolated incident and a blip in the grand scheme of things. Way too much energy has been devoted to this by people who appear to have an ax to grind. User: Jbliz

Cleanup

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)

Looking good. I tried reworking the example and updating some of the text to remove POV the other day, but your additions are very helpful. 171.159.64.10 15:19, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

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)

I'm trying not to be biased being on the West Coast myself. (That is really what we are talking about: West Coast Bofa (pre-1998) vs East Coast (NationsBank). But it appears you are talking about the history of the Bank of America name. Technically, the history of Nations Bank IS the history of Bank of America because they took over. I don't know if there is a better way to organize it than you did though. I know Bank of America itself refers to the pre-1998 Bank of America as LEGACY Bank of America. 28 Nov 2006 Jbliz

Lawsuit?

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)

NationsBank

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)

SiteKey Exposure

"Some people have noted that Sitekey, or at very least customer account numbers, may be subject to exposure via brute force attacks. When a user enters any valid bank account number, Sitekey prompts for the selection of the correct Sitekey. Thus it is possible to confirm the existence of a valid account by inspecting the format of a valid account number, cleverly tuning guesses of account numbers, and repeatedly submitting the numbers."

This is not true. In order to get to the SiteKey challenge a user enteres their User ID, which is NOT the same as their account number. Unless somebody can show otherwise, I plan on removing this paragraph.