The Banks

I volunteer for any firing squads dealing with bankers on Wall Street. Well, not really. But I would like to see them all out shoveling snow for a living from now on. I have a couple of reasons for feeling this way. One is on general principles. They screwed their banks and this country big time and now they are giving themselves huge bonuses again after the taxpayers saved them. Secondly, they make life difficult for their customers like me.

Consider Bank of America. My bank. But maybe not for long. You see, ten days ago Bobbi and me decided it might be a good idea to finally pay off our mortgage since I am retiring. So, we sent them a huge on line payment direct to the mortgage just as their web site instructed. As of today they still have not credited it to our mortgage account. Remember, this is ten days!

Last Thursday I called Bank of America to ask what was going on. All I got were electronic voices saying I could find out what my balances were and they all indicated no credits to my mortgage. Every time I pushed the button to talk to a human being, I was immediately disconnected.

Today Bobbi went by a branch bank and found a helpful branch manager who said she had never seen service like this before. She says the only way to get our money out of some dead zone where it ended up is to put it back in our savings account and then try again.

I know there must be a reason for all of this. I think it is all part of Bank of America's philosophy of making life difficult for its little customers when they do something, like paying off their mortgage which results in less interest payments to them. Or it is just sheer incompetence on their part which means their CEOs should be fired instead of pigging out on bonuses.