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Broken: Bank of America jailing a customer
Nov 6, 2006
I've heard of customer-hostile banks (and have experienced them myself), but this Bank of America story takes the cake.
Matthew Shinnick dropped by a Bank of America branch in San Francisco to make sure a check he was about to deposit wasn't fraudulent. The teller found that the check was fraudulent and told the manager, who then had Shinnick thrown in jail.
Are you getting this right? The customer who wanted to make sure he wasn't about to draw on a fraudulent check, got thrown in jail by Bank of America.
The San Francisco Chronicle ran a story quoting Gel speaker and craigslist founder Craig Newmark, among others. From Check from a scammer bounces victim into jail:
The teller contacted the business and was informed that no check had been written to Shinnick for $2,000 or any other amount. She immediately passed the check to the branch manager. "I saw him talking on the phone and staring at me," Shinnick said. "A few minutes later, four SFPD officers came into the bank. They didn't say a thing. They just kicked my legs apart and handcuffed me behind my back." The police report for Shinnick's arrest says he was taken into custody "for the safety of the bank employees as well as the bank customers."
Shinnick spent several hours in jail, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, before his father posted $4,500 bail. All told Shinnick spent $14,000 to clear his record. Bank of America refused to reimburse him. In response, consumer advocate and radio host Clark Howard started a Bank of America "Money Loss Meter" to show how much money his listeners have withdrawn from BofA as they close their accounts in protest. It's up to $50 million. (There's more on Howard's site.)
And from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Clark Howard takes on B-of-A. For their part, Bank of America denies that customers are closing their accounts as Howard claims.
Bank of America spokespeople point out that the bank was just following California state law, which requires certain reporting of fraudulent activity. But even if they had to throw Shinnick in jail (which I doubt), they could still show their opposition to such a strange and hostile law. Imagine if they paid part of Shinnick's legal expenses, or even advocated a change in the law; think how much better Bank of America would look in that case.
Companies have a responsibility to do right by their customers. I'm not even making a moral case, though I think there is one; here I'm just pointing out the financial responsibility. By hurting Matthew Shinnick, and hiding behind a flimsy legal defense, Bank of America hurt its own brand. Many customers left the bank because of this incident, and B of A will have to resort to costly advertising to win back those accounts. A customer-centric response would have been faster, easier, and cheaper; good experience is good business.
I left BofA almost 2 years ago because of absolutely shitty service. I had been very pleased with them until I moved to WA. Once I moved, I kept getting nickeled and dimed to death with lots of fees. It took several months to finally close my accounts but not before they tacked on additional fees for going below the minimum account balance, despite the fact I told them I had withdrawn all the money because I wanted to close the account. And that I had asked them to close the account a couple of times but they could not until all the "supposed checks" passed. There had been no activity on the account in months. So the remaining $4.50 caused me to be assessed almost $10 in fees until the two weeks had passed. Meaning I owed then $5.50 just to leave them. They also had absolutely awful web services for WA.
I have since moved to a credit union which has bent over backwards to help me. They found ways for me to consolidate two old CCs that I had been trying to pay off but the fees were so high. After consolidating them at less than 10% I had them paid off in 1 year.
After reading this post I would have left BofA out of principle even if I had not already.
Check out http://bankofamerica-reallysucks-com for all the latest on Matthew. Clark went ahead and paid his 7,000 on Matthew. Seems like Clark Howard is suddenly silent on the issue. Bank Of America still sucks.
This story provides a great opportunity for businesses and individuals to learn from this experience. However, BofA seems to not want to be a learning organization.
I left BofA over 20 years ago for their lack of customer care. Much like the comment about "shitty service", I too had to deal with countless incidents of excessive charges, fees, and other inconviences that were given to me with a "I don't really care" attitude, and excuses about that policies that had to be followed. Maybe its time the policies be given a look and reassesed. Also, there are some great books on customer service that could be beneficial the BofAs of the world.
Sadly, most people seem to put up with poor service because the effort to leave is too great.
Much like democracy, if you are too lazy to take part, it stops working for everyone. If more people left bad organizations, customer service would improve.
I finally left Chase after the last straw of no security and idiot employees. The satisfaction I've had from Citibank has been well worth the move. It was so easy to do.
Great Post!
I was just starting to write a entry about "banks silently charging for overdrafts" on my blog (www.standing-out.com) when I saw this post. What you wrote here about BOA trumped everything I wanted to say about Banks and Customer Experience. I guess now I will have to change my post and link it to yours :)
I already quit BofA earlier this year because of their customer-hostile style. I wish I could quit them again in a show of support!
I had just decided to leave BofA last week. They make too many mistakes and then punish the customer with high fees. I am in CA and looking for a new bank. Not sure which bank ranks high for customer service. Is there a place to learn what companies are the most customer focused?
What a stunning example of the danger of following the letter of the law while forgetting the humans involved. I doubt they've set out to be seen as a corporate thug that abuses the little folks.
But the danger of dehumanizing creeps in when companies (and persons) don't actively resist.
Just as companies can learn from this, I hope for this to be a reminder on a personal level to avoid mechanizing the people I engage on a daily basis.
Thanks Mark!
This I believe is the same issue with counterfeit money. If you go into a bank with counterfeit money, they will not only take your money but they might arrest you as well. EVEN, if you specifically go into the bank to see if it was fraudulent in the first place.
I remember receiving $20 from a deli in NYC which seemed a little weird, but I didn't think anything about it. Sometimes I feel so removed from crime (even after living in NYC for 12 years) that I still have this sense that it would never happen to me. Without thinking I gave the $20 to the teller for a Subway ticket. He refused to take it. I mentioned that I would go to my bank to report it. He said, "no way", that would be the last place you want to go. Unfortunately, I did not remember the deli I went to in order to return it to them - not that they would believe me anyway. And needlesstosay, I did not go to my bank.
I firmly believe more crimes would be stopped if we all had a closer relationship with law enforcement officials. I personally feel as though we have very little to no relationship with them and therefore there will always be people committing crimes which hurt all of us directly or indirectly.
In addition, I believe there is a mind-set among our ‘men in blue’ (and others) that if they are scary then crime will be reduced. I think this has a minor effect, but if reversed it could have a much greater one. My thought is that the majority of people commit crimes because they feel as though the risk is very low they will get caught -- all they need to do is to keep from being seen by the police. However, if they thought that everyone in the community had their eyes and ears open with great open and clear communication path to law officials they would have to "hide" from everyone -- which might be much harder a task.
I would love to hear any best practices out there regarding creating closer relationships between the community and law enforcement.
Thanks for the story Mark.
~ janice
Mark, thanks for another great, and truly relevant story. It was also nice to see two people that I admire dearly (yourself and Clark) mentioned in the same sentence.
I think you have touched on a big issue with this horrible BOA encounter. It’s just another example that the days of giant corporate bank domination may be numbered, as smaller, customer-centric community banks have learned how to compete.
For example: One of the biggest obstacles for "Small Bank" was overcoming the disadvantage they have with “Big Bank” (like BOA) when it comes to ATM locations. Big Bank has thousands of ATMs, while Small Bank has 12. A few years ago, Small Bank customer would have to pay two sets of fees to use a Big Bank ATM: fees from their Small Bank for going outside of their ATM network, and fees from Big Bank for using their ATM as a non-customer. The (eventual) solution for Small Bank: not only do away with the fees for using an ATM not owned by them, but also PAYING for the fees issued by Big Bank. The result: zero ATM fees. Not only did this eliminate the "disadvantage" but it one-upped Big Bank because now they have an actual ADVANTAGE: Small Bank customer can use a Big Bank “B” (like Wachovia) ATM for free while Big Bank “A” customer (BOA) gets 2 sets of fees for using that same ATM. A brilliant strategy for Small Bank. Down south, Compass Bank is doing this with the message “every ATM on earth is free for our customers.”
One of the main things driving this revolution is the imbedding of values into a company’s culture. We may be biased because we’re based in the south, but people down here truly appreciate honesty, integrity, hard-working types, hospitality and fairness. So naturally, Small Bank can succeed using this approach—especially in a time of corporate scandals and c-level corruption. With Small Bank: some cookies in the lobby, an actual live person that answers the phone, an honest smile from the teller, and a firm handshake from the branch manager—can now trump Big Bank’s multi-million dollar TV buy that have ads showing Bill surfing with his grandson, talking about “banking.” (Ah, the importance of staying relevant.)
We recently did a branding campaign for such a bank in Jacksonville, Florida. (http://www.firstguarantybank.com/). The positioning statement we came up with, based on a comprehensive customer research effort: “Values beyond financial.” And just like every single project that starts with the words “comprehensive customer research”, this campaign has been very well received. And this isn’t a bank that just decided to “come up with” values so they can use them in a campaign because the research told them it was the new cool thing—but rather harness the existing, deep-rooted values they’ve held true to for 60 years to help build the brand. It’s not about who has bigger portfolios, more ATMS, more locations worldwide, a cooler website, or access to ridiculous libraries of stock photography. Customers keep coming back—and spreading the word (shameless plug for the value of net promoter score)—because they value the integrity of the company.
So in this case, values helped CREATE the customer experience. Conversely, in BOA’s case, having a “lack” of values helped DESTROY the customer experience. (Not to mention the $50 million in funds taken out by disgusted customers.)
It’s amazing how simple it is, isn’t it?