Mike Nicholson

Well Bank of America is at it again. I assumed that the Matthew Shinnick case was an isolated incident, but it appears that I was wrong. They really are a customer service nightmare it seems. Meet Rachel Poor. Maybe it's time for me to move all of my money to E*Trade, which has been a pleasure to work with so far (although I've had no fraud issues to date so my experience is limited).

The thing that really gets me about these cases is that they are both things that I could see happening to me. I've used eBay and Craig's List to both buy and sell stuff. I've accepted payment in the form of cashier's checks. I've handed my bank card to a waiter to pay for a meal and I've paid bills with personal checks (both of which would be enough for some nasty fraud in the wrong hands).

I suppose there's no replacement for being careful, but it'd help a lot not to be fighting my bank and fraudsters. At least BoA has nice branch hours which will make closing my accounts that much easier.

Update: (21 May 2007)

Another case: This time Bank of America is suing an identify theft victim for $23k after they did nothing to prevent her entire $38k life savings from being wiped out from identity theft while she was in the hospital being treated for heart problems.