Bank of America Corp. has begun offering credit cards to customers without Social Security numbers, typically illegal immigrants, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
The new Bank of America card is open to people who lack both a Social Security number and a credit history, as long as they have held a checking account with the bank for three months without an overdraft, the Journal said.
Bank of America tested the program last year at five branches in Los Angeles, and last week expanded it to 51 branches in Los Angeles County, home to the largest concentration of illegal immigrants in the U.S., the Journal said.
The bank hopes to roll out the program nationally later this year, the paper said.
I asked my personal banker about this — and she said her bank wouldn’t touch it with BofA’s flagpole.
it’s all about the money. I used to work for a national bank based in Seattle, and they would allow customers to open an account with only a matricula card. the card only indicates you are a citizen of the particular country the card is from. it doesn’t say anything about your citizenship here.
like the wise man said” Is God on your money, or is money your God.”(I think that’s how it goes)
Having all our financial information tied to social security numbers is dumb in the first place.
I would love to see BofA lose money on this. Not many of these illegals are ever going to pay the money back and they’ll be next to impossible to track down. This is almost as dumb as the sub-prime mortgage mess lenders find themselves in now. You know there’s too much liquidity sloshing through the financial system when it flows into stupid ideas like this.
I thought the Patriot Act had all sorts of ID requirements for banking accounts. I can’t believe that SS# isn’t one of them.
But that aside. A lot of the illegals change ID more often than they do underwear. BOA is going to loose a lot of money on this one and it serves them right.
Actually, when SS numbers were originally designed, the Feds stated that it would never be used for any kind of tracking purposes. By Federal law, you are NOT required to give out your SS # to anyone except your employer. Most people do not know this, but you are not required to give out your number to places like the power company, gas company, water, sewage… Nobody.
Those companies don’t like it, but they have no way to force it upon you (though they will gripe a bit about it over the phone because it usually requires a manager to override it).
As such, I doubt there’s a real “requirement” by the Feds to obtain SS #s of all people who bank at any bank, FDIC insured or not. It would be going back on their word (not like they haven’t done that before, but hey).
yup, only god-feerin ‘merkins should be allowed to have credit cards. All those furners change their ID like underwears and never pay there bills. BAH, I thought GWB said he was taken care of this.
Actually, Banks are about the only entity that can legally ask for (or require) a SS# for verification of ID, as it is mandated by banking regs for IRS reporting and/or compliance. And yes, USAPat (and a few others) requires a “taxpayerID” (SS/EIN, passport#, etc) of some sort to open a bank account. As to how many banks “actually” follow-through is another question.
WIth regards to BofA and credit cards: its for credit cards (not a bank account), so they can require (or not require) any information they want in determining the issuance of a credit card.
It’s a good deal for BofA, those checking accounts you get when you do not have a SS#, do not give interest.
Try doing something fun and sporty like not paying your income tax
or not paying sales tax and see how leniently you will be treated.
There’s another sort of obvious point here, as well, folks. If someone can’t or won’t provide a SS# — that probably means they’re not paying SS taxes. Which also means no IRS taxes either.
Another one of those occasions when I wonder how valuable citizenship is — when we are required to pay those taxes as a responsibility of holding a job; but, illegals aren’t?
I can’t believe that no one has mentioned identify theft yet. I’d think that it’d be quite easy to obtain a credit card in someone else’s name at BoA. Maybe I’m missing something.
#5 – you full social, sure – but a part of the social, generally, the last 4 digits, can be and is often used as a means of verification when calling in to customer solutions or technical support for most major telecommunications companies (unless otherwise specified by the customer, of course).
An assumption on my part, credit limit will be between $100 and $500!
#11 – Anyone can do that, illegal or not. However, the biggest component is knowing both the victim’s name AND social security number.
#12 – Right, but that’s because you’ve already given it to them when you started your account.
I had a roommate in college who just loved the legal system (a little too much). He’s never given his SS # to a telephone company, water company, electric or gas company. The sales reps over the phone would piss and moan about it, but legally, they have no foot to stand on. Social Security numbers were NEVER meant to be used to identify you to anyone other than the government for taxes and (what was supposed to be) your Social Security pension.
This argument is as old as FDR’s Presidency. Frankly, it’s Bank of America’s risk to take, just as it’s Citibank’s risk to market themselves to college freshmen, fresh out of Mommy and Daddy’s house with zero responsibilities. Coincidentally, this post is old news to me, as I know some illegal immigrants here in North Carolina where they have BoA accounts and credit cards.
And all the ones I know pay their balances in full, on time. They’re trying to build credit, not steal it, and they’re damn afraid of getting caught doing something wrong where they think they might get deported.
14. “Anyone can do that, illegal or not. However, the biggest component is knowing both the victim’s name AND social security number.”
You missed my point, and the point of this entire posting. At BoA you no longer need a SS number, all you need is a person’s name. That would seem to make it a lot easier to get a credit card in some one else’s name.
And that ruins your credit rating… How? They can’t report it to the credit bureaus without a SS #.
One more evil of having a SS # in everyone else’s hands.
You should be cheering this. Why should banks be asking for social security numbers? Since when do you support national ID cards?
Ditto #10.
Can I drop my SS# and become and ‘illegal’ and drop off the government grid (while still taking advantage of it’s copious services, of course!)
“You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.”
— Former Sun CEO Scott McNealy to a group of reporters.
Of course the quote’s taken out of context, but it sums up the post-digital world pretty well, seems to me.
As for SSNs, they’re not very private anymore but #14 is right – the immigrants I knew in California who could have qualified under B of A’s criteria weren’t into fraud. They wanted to build a stable life. Maybe B of A is reaching back to its roots, when Amadeo Giannini gave credit to immigrant Italians who could not get it anywhere else. Not really Americans, you know. And too swarthy in any case.
I’m old enough to remember, when I completed submarine school, having to sign a specific waiver of privacy so the Navy could send my SSN to my new boat together with my service record. No one ever refused (we wanted to serve on a sub or we wouldn’t have been there) but it was still a legal requirement. Those days are long since gone.
I say good for B of A. Identity theft is another question – I doubt someone could start a bank account under my name and tap into my account just on the basis of a no-SSN B of A account. Could they?
IM DEFINATLEY NOT RACIST SO DONT GET ME WRONG, BUT I HAVE TO PAY TAXES OUT THE ASS , SO EVERYONE HERE IN THIS COUNTRY SHOULD HAVE TO DO THE SAME DAMIT! OUR COUNTRY DOSNT EVEN TAKE CARE OF THE CITIZENS HERE LEGALLY PAYING TAXES!!!! SO WHAT THE HELL IS THIS COUNTRY COMING TO??? ANYTHING TO MAKE A BUCK, TO HELL WITH UNITED AND LOYALTY HUH? I GUESS THAT WOULD BE THIER PHILOSOPHY. WHAT A SHAME. PRES TRUMAN WOULDNT TOLERATE THIS SHIT, BUSH COULD LEARN A LOT BY AT LEAST READING A HISTORY BOOK TO SEE WHAT HE IS SUPPOSED TO DUE SEEING HOW HE HAS ABSOLUTLY NO IDEA.
Will this be available to Americans also? If not, isn’t that discrimination?
Caps lock your friend JOHN? I would agree with a lot of your thoughts, but if common sense has degraded so hard in our governmental districts, do you really think anything will get done about it?
Doubtful.
#19 – Speaking of history books…
Are you aware that 98% of all immigrants who came to Ellis Island during its tenure were accepted into the country? Only 2% were sent back?
Why are we now so elite that we only let the wealthy doctors from Europe into our country and not the less wealthy, yet highly entrepreneurial and hard-working individuals from Hispanic countries?
I live in a state where illegals are quite prevalent. The vast majority of the ones I’ve met have been decent, honest, law-abiding people. Honestly, I think a lot of Americans could gain a lesson or two in work ethic from this “undesirables.” The only law they’ve broken was the one that tried to keep them out. It’s discrimination, pure and simple.
Personally, I say, “Bienvenido a los Estados Unidos. Que se prosperen ustedes.”
Find your history book (and that caps lock) yourself.
‘Why are we now so elite that we only let the wealthy doctors from Europe into our country and not the less wealthy, yet highly entrepreneurial and hard-working individuals from Hispanic countries?”
Huh???????????????????????????????. WTF?
“The only law they’ve broken was the one that tried to keep them out. It’s discrimination, pure and simple.”
Oh yeah, that pesky little law again, just keeps gettin in the way. The people who came through Ellis were doing it LEGALLY!
gwendle…your right, the only way the matter will be corrected is that it will benifit the government in some way or the other.
sad but true
“the only law they have broken” well that says it all…
#23, The only law they’ve broken was the one that tried to keep them out.
Is this the only law they have broken? Or just one of many that started with not registering when they crossed the border?
#24 – Currently, the only immigrants they’re allowing here are the typically highly-educated individuals who fill a certain high-skill need, such as nurses, doctors, and the occasional computer expert. Others do occasionally get visas, but the Feds rarely allow them to renew. Do you have any idea how difficult it is for foreigners to even visit this country? It’s even worse to try to become a permanent resident, and damn near impossible for one to obtain citizenship (usually requires a lawyer, about $7k to $10k per person in legal fees, blood work, the classes, background checks out the wazoo, sponsorship, etc.). It’s a wonder anyone wants to come here at all (see some of the previous topics that discussed this).
#24 + 26 – Yes, the only law that most of them have broken was that they came here when we, the country that used to welcome immigration, decided we were too good to have anyone else partake in our system. “They’re taking our jobs?” Horsecrap. Our unemployment is as low as it was during the Clinton era.
If we’re going to be elitists and close our borders, we might as well strike the following words at the base of the Statue of Liberty, the same statue many of our forefathers saw as their first insight into America…
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
What happened to this? Why is this apparently long forgotten?
Well, that will make this guy happy http://web.nossn.com/nossn.nsf/cc2d6c02a82e4218852568f0001c8524/9b4bf6591d348d80852569210068b27d!OpenDocument
This guy sounds like my old roommate in college. The only difference between me and him is that I’m only an a-hole when I need to be.