This has TREND written all over it. People complaining in public on You Tube. It should spark more and more of these vids. Let them come!! What is interesting to me, as this video makes the rounds, are the a-holes who defend this and other usurious banks. I bank with a good honest bank and know the difference. Apparently the public doesn’t.
It should be noted that when the Bank saw the video, the PR mechanism went to work to get this woman her old interest rate back. This means the only way to get their attention is via public out-cry.
Really John? People who defend the bank are a-holes? My wife hates B of A so when we got married, I moved my account to Washington Mutual with her (and how are they doing now). But aside from being charged higher fees than I was elsewhere, B of A treated me fairly and my experience was satisfying. Which makes me an a-hole, yes?
Nevermind actually. This comment might be more compelling if I wasn’t really an a-hole, but I am! 😉
“A good, honest bank?” Clearly you must do your banking outside of the U.S…
I bank with a credit union. At least there I know the owner.
Stupid. If you’re pissed about your interest rate, don’t carry a balance. Why do people feel like their entitled to spend money they don’t have? If you don’t want to pay interest, don’t spend money you don’t have. I hope she goes to prison for a long, long time.
30% is rape. She is 100 % right. They got bailed out and we are still paying the price. I was forced to use a sub prime lender for 2 broke down cars and my bill has near doubled a year later. That was at 27% interest. BofA card at 30% is worse than loan sharks !!!! And I have good fico too. This is a bad time to need money.
#4 this comment is lame. Credit is a cornerstone of the economy. It’s not the 1700’s. Smug pontification about the evils of owing money is bullcrap.
#1 keep banking with them and then you’ll see. Report back in a year.
then, of course… the “tinhatlady” jumps on the trend immediately adding a note of weird humor
OR, she could just cancel her account. What a whiny baby.
I love it when people stand up and fight against these giant banks and corporation!
Something is cooking in America and I like the smell of it.
A second revolution is brewing…
#6 – John,
Credit may be a cornerstone of the economy, but repaying your debts is as well. You can’t borrow money and then just decide not to repay it. That’s called STEALING.
Hmmm, a business that isn’t behaving like they should. How about you just don’t do business with them?
YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and all the other social media is well outside the control of large institutions like BofA. Couple that with easy, easy tools for creating YouTube content (connected cameras, iPods, simple editing software, etc) all sorts of people are going to do this – praising and blaming the company for service.
JCD is right, this is a trend. BofA and others better pay attention to this and respond in a genuine manner, or 5 years they will be replaced by another lender with a far more responsive model.
I say good for her.
#11 I’m reminded of an old Public Access show in NYC done by Al Goldstein, the then publisher of Screw Magazine. He essentially came on the air to bitch like this about some products and services he bought. The crux of the show was his giving the finger on the TV and saying “Fuck you (company name) over and over. It was quite hilarious.
Once people discover that the cheapest digital cameras can make You Tube videos, then this could explode.
Someone tell this woman about Dave Ramsey.
#3 I couldn’t agree more – I closed my last bank account 10 years ago and have never looked back. Only do business with Credit Unions now. Service and rates are excellent.
However, the reality is that the top 1% own (almost) everything that us average Americans need. So even it there were a revolution it would be a bloody and likely futile affair. The only chance would be terrorist tactics and well gee, terrorists are public enemy #1 – how convenient. We just have to hope that the pendulum swings back in favor of morality and ethics soon. It seems like the pendulum of reality was stuck on evil for far too long.
#9 – Kahles,
Jacking up someones rate on money they have already borrowed is usury. While I agree, debt must be repaid, there is little recourse for the common citizen but to refuse payment. I once refused to pay my PG&E bill until a mistake was corrected. Guess what, they fixed it immediately and I had been waiting 6+ months for them to do so before
The state legislatures need to bring back the usury laws. I am not for government intervention, but anything higher than 18% is usury. My state went after the title loan people and said they could only charge about 21% APR. They were charging 400% APR.
#4 People that follow the terms and agreement of their credit cards and pay their bills on time shouldn’t have their interest rates raised to 30%.
This is old. BofA responded and gave her a better rate.
John C is correct in that this behavior on the part of the banks damage the economy. ie, delaying deposits, while fast-tracking withdrawls, thereby racking up overdraft fees and costing their “customer” hundreds of millions per year. Most people don’t read the fine print on the back of their statement, or posses the ability to understand it.
#9
And which bank do you work for?
She Clearly states (if you listen) that she’s willing to pay her debt back if only the bank is willing to be reasonable; it appears as though her video had the intended effect, she’ll continue to pay off her debt like a good citizen, and the bank will pretend not to be the scum that they are.
“First thing we do is kill all the Bankers”
Completely agree with #4 and #9.
# 16: “Jacking up someones rate on money they have already borrowed is usury.”
Perhaps, but agreeing to a contract and then deciding to break it when it’s inconvenient is disgusting.
# 17: “I am not for government intervention, but anything higher than 18% is usury.”
Right, you are not for intervention, but the state really needs to tell people how to do business with each other.
# 9 Kahles,
“Credit may be a cornerstone of the economy, but repaying your debts is as well. You can’t borrow money and then just decide not to repay it. That’s called STEALING.”
I guess your one of those conservative hypocrites, where it’s ok for banks to default on their really low interest loans and receive my tax money but hell yes to userary rates on middle America and hell no to a middle America bankruptcy.
Your one of those hypocrites, straining at gnats, but swallowing elephants whole.
Kahles said, on September 24th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Credit may be a cornerstone of the economy, but repaying your debts is as well. You can’t borrow money and then just decide not to repay it. That’s called STEALING.
And what do you call it when your interest rate triples on the flimsiest of excuses?
#23 noname,
No, it’s still stealing when the banks do it. I for one don’t believe the banks, the auto industry, or anyone else should have been given bailout money. If they could not repay their debt, they should have failed, as should this woman.
This whole thing is symptomatic of a larger problem though. At the root of it, people are living off credit cards. Credit cards have always had rates that continue to go up. If you sign up for a credit card, it states in the paperwork that the rate may change, and you sign off that you accept it. We need to get back to where people live within their means. If that were the case, we wouldn’t have the housing collapse, and perhaps not the larger economic collapse.
All I’m really saying is, when did it become OK for people, corporations, etc. to abdicate all responsibility for their actions? Grow up America, and live with the decisions you’re making for yourselves.
“The state legislatures need to bring back the usury laws. I am not for government intervention, but anything higher than 18% is usury.”
#18 They cannot.
Bank deregulation in 1994 means that state governments have no right or ability to try to regulate out-of-state headquartered banks.
At least this is my understanding of how things work now.
#24 Troublemaker,
I call it the cost of using credit cards. As to John’s earlier comment about credit being the cornerstone of the economy, if you look at lots of other forms of credit, they don’t (necessarily) have variable interest rates. You can get fixed rate home loans, which allow you to buy a home and know that you can afford it. You can get car loans with a fixed rate so that you know you can afford it. All credit cards have language written in the contracts that state that the rate could change, and give a time period for notification. If she was unhappy with the rate change, she could pay off the card (at the current rate) and then cut it up.
I love it when people assume that if you’re against stealing from businesses, you must support those same businesses’ being able to steal.
No, it’s a general principle too many people don’t seem to grasp: theft, or breach of contract, is a sign of bad character regardless of who is doing it.
# 24 Troublemaker: “And what do you call it when your interest rate triples on the flimsiest of excuses?”
It’s called “part of the contract that you agreed to and are now trying to weasel out of.”
#19
Well that’s that all sorted then…
So the bank decided they would lower her rate to 12%. Wow. Big whoop!
And what about everybody else that’s getting these rate hikes. They all need to do youtube videos?
#22
‘Perhaps, but agreeing to a contract and then deciding to break it when it’s inconvenient is disgusting.’
Disgusting? That’s a bit strong.
So if the bank put up the rate to 100 million percent, and people refused to pay that’d be ‘disgusting’.
And before some muppet says ‘go to another bank’ etc. Banks, insurance, mortages, etc work largely on confusion. They give you pages of fine print, thats hard to understand. So it doesn’t work as a regular ‘free market’ for most people. Because they don’t compare and contrast – based on rational reasons. They get the card where they can put a picture of their dog.
For that and other reason its hard to compare products. Regulation which gives simple single page explanations of standard products that are comparable would improve things hugely. That and having some guarantee of the max interest rate on credit cards – that might help too.
>BofA card at 30% is worse than loan sharks !!!!
Then borrow from the loan shark and pay off your credit card bill. If her credit is so good, better yet, borrow from a bank and pay off the bill.
Actually loan sharks charge more than 30%