Bank of America sued over mandatory arbitration on clarkhoward.com

Clark has long objected to companies putting mandatory arbitration clauses into contracts. Many car dealerships, home builders, cable providers, cell carriers and others do this. Why? They want to be able to cheat you and not worry about consequences.

The city of San Francisco now is suing Bank of America over its mandatory arbitration process. Stacked-deck kangaroo courts allow BoA to win 99.9% of the time with the arbitrators they choose. Sounds like the results of a Third World election.

One supposedly impartial arbitrator in Minneapolis has heard more than 18,000 cases. The arbitrator found for businesses 18,045 times and for the consumer 30 times. How can that be unbiased?

Clark loves alternative dispute resolution, which offers a mediation process where both parties agree not to go to court and instead arbitrate in a mutually decided upon forum. But that's not what BoA is offering; their arbitration is just a joke and they have no intention of fairness. The irony is that it will be up to courts again to decide if BoA's use of the mandatory arbitration process is fair. Boy, that bank is lucky that Clark's not sitting as the judge!

What others are saying

B of A looses one more customer
B of A and I have had a long business relationship. I have borrowed and paid numerous loans. $5K here, 10K there, always paid ahead of time and have never ever ever had a bounced check. I have four accounts, two business, one personal and one savings. I had two lines of credit. One on my rental house and one on my main house...just in case I need a quick access to repair or replace something on the house(s) and for nothing more. We are not ones who go on fancy vacations or drive brand new cars. We "squirrel away" and spend our hard earned money on our daughters four horses instead. Nuff said. It'd be cheaper to go to Hawaii every year.
B OF A closed my line of credit without so much as a "hey". I get a letter notifying me after-the-fact. They said that they price of my rental property has fallen too much to be of sufficient collateral. If I did not agree, I should present three comps and list the improvements made to the house. I did. Three most recent, most close and most accurate sales all support my position that this house is worth enough to present $80K collateral for a $10K line of credit, with $7.4K out on it.. They then denied because my credit wasn't good enough as per their reporting agency..( I have a credit score of approx. 820). Then I find out that B of A, which is full of B of S, uses foreclosures and shortsales in the entire county, not just my town, not just my neighborhood, to derive their valuation. They're comparing apples to walnuts. I've opened up an account with Rogue Federal Credit Union, who pulled my credit report (820) as part of membership application. They also know the neighborhood my rental ( it's only 12 years old, too) is in and they're shocked at BofA too. I have what's left of my Line of Credit with it's 4.75 APR on 7400 bucks. I tried to convert to a fixed loan because I just don't trust BofA and I expect them to do rotten things to me from here on out. They want %12 percent interest on a fixed rate loan. Would Clark advise me to keep that 4.75 and make double, triple or quadruple payments to hurry up and close the account? Or should I keep loan at payments sufficient enough to amortize in five years? One More Leaves B of A. Next: Discover Card: the Ham of 20% interest.
By Geoff in Ashland Oregon @ 09/15/09 11:48:20 PMreport abuse
B of A Is Not Responsible for Their Own Errors!
My wife recently put a stop payment on a business check that she had written the day before. The customer no-service agent entered the wrong check number resulting in the loss of $1900.00 to a disreputable contractor who has since refused to refund our money. When we realized that the check had gone through we call customer no-service and figured out what had happened. After speaking with her supervisor, the agent informed us that since the error was the bank's own fault they would be refunding us the money within three business days. Needless to say, my wife and I were shocked.
I was much less shocked when my wife called again after four days to ask why we had yet to receive our refund and was told that our "claim" had been denied by B of A corporate. "Claim"? No one said anything about any "claim". We were told that it was their error and we would be reimbursed, period.
After two subsequent calls, we were finally told in no certain terms that we would not be getting any money back and that the bank gives no guarantee when placing a stop payment on a check. We were also told that they are not responsible for employee error and that we probably told them the wrong number in the first place!
If you have any accounts with B of A, I suggest you do what my wife and I are doing and take your money to someone who has some sense of business ethics and simple right and wrong, for that matter
By Aaron Mule` @ 08/31/09 03:00:09 PMreport abuse
BoA Credit Card User Beware!
BoA is charging me late fee on a statement that I have never received. I found out the late fee when I log on to my online account, called the customer representative and he was no help. He said if I use the credit card, I should be deadline conscious and not relying on their statement. The truth is I have not used the card for a while and I don't know when it's due. My usage was $39.03 and the late fee is $39.
I begin to wonder, did BoA ever send out the statement or the bank wants our money so bad??? Thanks.
By CC @ 05/17/09 10:04:55 PMreport abuse
Bank of America
My wife and I filed for arbitration through our attorneys in September, 2007. We are finally going on June 8, 2009. What a joke.
By Eric Gertz @ 05/14/09 11:49:25 AMreport abuse
bank of americal
I visited boa today to cash a $300 paycheck drawn on their their bank and they charged me $6 and I was livid and started spewing clark howardisms like a benzadrened puff-adder and that I felt I was being cheated and her comment was that clark howard's a liar and maybe I should use my own bank to cash my check and that boa is doing very well and that boa has never cheated her,so all I could say is that I hope someone buys this bank and use the "new broom sweeps clean" method of clearing out the debris.
By William @ 04/23/09 02:32:56 PMreport abuse
Boycott Bank of America and put your money in credit unions
Bank of America charges extremely high fees and they have the worst consumer service. I was a faithful customer for years when I went through a divorce and started having financial problems they started charging $35 for every overdrawn. They seemed like they could care less. http://stopbankabuse.com/
By Rob @ 02/28/09 04:58:58 PMreport abuse
Bank of America
Dear Clark and staff,

I am currently with Bank of America, use online checking to pay my bills, and unfortunately believed the numbers posted for the account. Instead of having the money stated on the account, it was not updated correctly, and was charged two debit payments of $35 each ($70 total).

I do not trust them anymore. The numbers always seem skewed versus the true amount. Would you please, please recommend what my best options are for online checking?

Thank you.
By Thomas @ 12/31/08 12:15:22 AMreport abuse
Bank of America and Fraud
We have a truck for sale in our business and have put an ad into Auto Trader. We received an email about a month ago that someone was interested in the truck. After two weeks of negotiation and explaining how it was going to happen, I received a cashier’s check in the mail. I automatically went to the bank (Bank of America) to make sure it was good. The cashier’s check was made out to me personally and I was trying to deposit into the business account. The teller had to first approve that through her boss and said that it was ok to do that! Then she told me that I should have availability to the funds within 24hrs. The money was posted to the account the next day. My understanding of the way the bank works is that they didn’t post money into your account if it was not verified and I put all my trust into the bank to protect me. Well that scenario is not TRUE. Of course we sent a cashier’s check to pay off the loan for the truck (10,500) and started expending some of the money!!! The so call agent/shipper, that was going to pick up the truck, we wired $6,500 has vanished. Again, we didn’t think twice about it, due to putting all our trust into the bank and being that the money was posted to our account. Well eight days later they took the funds back, due to a fraud check. If the bank would have mentioned that even thou we were going to have availability to the funds it still wouldn’t mean the check was good, we would not have done anything with that money. We are not stupid, and we try our hardest to protect ourselves, we just thought we could trust the bank. If we can’t even trust the bank that has all of our money, who can we trust?

We would really like to hear from anyone and any suggestion or fighting tools we can use with the bank to bring justice to this situation. We do accept losing the money, but we lost the money due to trusting the bank to
protect us!!!!!!!!!!!!

By the way, the bank went as far to tell us that this fraud happens all of the time and that the do not have their tellers advise you of this. Also, a hold does not ensure that the check has cleared either. I was told that the hold could be lifted and that the check could still be fraudulent.

PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
By Jason and Dawn Wilkerson @ 05/26/08 02:37:18 PMreport abuse
Bank Of America
I am also a small business owner, and tend to vote for whomever is pro-business. However, the big banks are taking advantage of people, participating in unsavory business practices, and make a lot of errors in their favor. I am not against capitalism or making a buck. However,it is bad when banks change the interest rate on something that was charged in the past, have special software to maximize overdraft fees, change due dates on cards to induce higher fees, or worse delay posting payments so that they can get the late fee. I hope that we get someone in office that will stop this madness. It has really gone too far. I know people that have had a really tough time with Bank of America. However, Citibank is the worst. My Sears account, which is really Citibank decided to change my due date on the card last month. They sent me the bill on the 25th and the payment was due on the 27th. My choices were to 1) pay it over the phone with a fee 2) Drive to Sears or Kmart and pay in person. I decided to stop by Kmart. They still charged me a $39 late fee. It was removed after faxing them a copy of the store receipt(pain in the a..). Word of advice, never put your payments in any payment drop off slot at Lowe's or Sears. If their credit is managed by Citibank, who knows whether or not it will get posted. Sears/Citibank is still charging me for an order that was canceled in November. I had to send them 15 pages of supporting documentation and they still have not made a decision about the credit. CitiMortgage is just as bad. On one of my rental properties, they did not pay the homeowner's insurance. However, they took the money out of escrow and the policy was canceled. I am thankful that the property did not burn down. Another time they did not pay taxes(different property) The scary thing about all of this is the fact that it usually takes 10 representatives before they can correct any error. I feel for the people out there that 1) Do not keep good records 2) Cannot understand complex banking errors 3) Do not have a background in business or a business degree. This leaves a whole lot of people that are more or less unarmed to defend themselves against a big bank. If they do manage to prove them wrong, they can always go to arbitration.
By Alecia @ 04/12/08 03:05:25 PMreport abuse
BOA Arbitration
It is hard to tell what the numbers mean unless you have all the facts. I would like to know how many of those suits or complaints were frivolous. As a small business owner, I think arbitration or mediation is an excellent way to stop frivolous lawsuits as it is my understanding that somebody with a "suit" against you would have to put up some money (which they could lose to you).
By Darrik @ 04/10/08 10:36:58 PMreport abuse
Oops, I accidentally posted my comment to the wrong place. Sorry about that.
By magnoliasouth @ 04/10/08 05:55:56 PMreport abuse
Discover Card ripoff
I recently refinanced my Discover Card loan which was about $8,700 through my local credit union. The loan was paid on 3/298/08. Although Discover's closing date is 4/2 and they were paid before that time, they still managed to sock me with nearly $85 of interest. However, according to their voice system, I had a credit of $39 and then received a bill in the amount of $46 and change which ate up the $39 credit. Customer Service took of the $46 charge but I'm also not getting my credit. Is there anything that can be done about this? I had been a loyal Discover card user for over $20 years but have since relegated them to the "never use" pile. Any information will be appreciated.
By Donna Gordon @ 04/10/08 02:54:07 PMreport abuse
BANK OF AMERICA
We are delighted to have closed our account after 25 years as a customer. We experienced incredibly bad service in the past few years. Thank goodness for Wachovia!!
By April Burger @ 04/09/08 08:30:07 PMreport abuse

B of A looses one more customer

B of A and I have had a long business relationship. I have borrowed and paid numerous loans. $5K here, 10K there, always paid ahead of time and have never ever ever had a bounced check. I have four accounts, two business, one personal and one savings. I had two lines of credit. One on my rental house and one on my main house...just in case I need a quick access to repair or replace something on the house(s) and for nothing more. We are not ones who go on fancy vacations or drive brand new cars. We "squirrel away" and spend our hard earned money on our daughters four horses instead. Nuff said. It'd be cheaper to go to Hawaii every year.
B OF A closed my line of credit without so much as a "hey". I get a letter notifying me after-the-fact. They said that they price of my rental property has fallen too much to be of sufficient collateral. If I did not agree, I should present three comps and list the improvements made to the house. I did. Three most recent, most close and most accurate sales all support my position that this house is worth enough to present $80K collateral for a $10K line of credit, with $7.4K out on it.. They then denied because my credit wasn't good enough as per their reporting agency..( I have a credit score of approx. 820). Then I find out that B of A, which is full of B of S, uses foreclosures and shortsales in the entire county, not just my town, not just my neighborhood, to derive their valuation. They're comparing apples to walnuts. I've opened up an account with Rogue Federal Credit Union, who pulled my credit report (820) as part of membership application. They also know the neighborhood my rental ( it's only 12 years old, too) is in and they're shocked at BofA too. I have what's left of my Line of Credit with it's 4.75 APR on 7400 bucks. I tried to convert to a fixed loan because I just don't trust BofA and I expect them to do rotten things to me from here on out. They want %12 percent interest on a fixed rate loan. Would Clark advise me to keep that 4.75 and make double, triple or quadruple payments to hurry up and close the account? Or should I keep loan at payments sufficient enough to amortize in five years? One More Leaves B of A. Next: Discover Card: the Ham of 20% interest.

By Geoff in Ashland Oregon @ 09/15/09 11:48:20 PMreport abuse

B of A Is Not Responsible for Their Own Errors!

My wife recently put a stop payment on a business check that she had written the day before. The customer no-service agent entered the wrong check number resulting in the loss of $1900.00 to a disreputable contractor who has since refused to refund our money. When we realized that the check had gone through we call customer no-service and figured out what had happened. After speaking with her supervisor, the agent informed us that since the error was the bank's own fault they would be refunding us the money within three business days. Needless to say, my wife and I were shocked.
I was much less shocked when my wife called again after four days to ask why we had yet to receive our refund and was told that our "claim" had been denied by B of A corporate. "Claim"? No one said anything about any "claim". We were told that it was their error and we would be reimbursed, period.
After two subsequent calls, we were finally told in no certain terms that we would not be getting any money back and that the bank gives no guarantee when placing a stop payment on a check. We were also told that they are not responsible for employee error and that we probably told them the wrong number in the first place!
If you have any accounts with B of A, I suggest you do what my wife and I are doing and take your money to someone who has some sense of business ethics and simple right and wrong, for that matter

By Aaron Mule` @ 08/31/09 03:00:09 PMreport abuse

BoA Credit Card User Beware!

BoA is charging me late fee on a statement that I have never received. I found out the late fee when I log on to my online account, called the customer representative and he was no help. He said if I use the credit card, I should be deadline conscious and not relying on their statement. The truth is I have not used the card for a while and I don't know when it's due. My usage was $39.03 and the late fee is $39.
I begin to wonder, did BoA ever send out the statement or the bank wants our money so bad??? Thanks.

By CC @ 05/17/09 10:04:55 PMreport abuse

Bank of America

My wife and I filed for arbitration through our attorneys in September, 2007. We are finally going on June 8, 2009. What a joke.

By Eric Gertz @ 05/14/09 11:49:25 AMreport abuse

bank of americal

I visited boa today to cash a $300 paycheck drawn on their their bank and they charged me $6 and I was livid and started spewing clark howardisms like a benzadrened puff-adder and that I felt I was being cheated and her comment was that clark howard's a liar and maybe I should use my own bank to cash my check and that boa is doing very well and that boa has never cheated her,so all I could say is that I hope someone buys this bank and use the "new broom sweeps clean" method of clearing out the debris.

By William @ 04/23/09 02:32:56 PMreport abuse

Boycott Bank of America and put your money in credit unions

Bank of America charges extremely high fees and they have the worst consumer service. I was a faithful customer for years when I went through a divorce and started having financial problems they started charging $35 for every overdrawn. They seemed like they could care less. http://stopbankabuse.com/

By Rob @ 02/28/09 04:58:58 PMreport abuse

Dear Clark and staff,

I am currently with Bank of America, use online checking to pay my bills, and unfortunately believed the numbers posted for the account. Instead of having the money stated on the account, it was not updated correctly, and was charged two debit payments of $35 each ($70 total).

I do not trust them anymore. The numbers always seem skewed versus the true amount. Would you please, please recommend what my best options are for online checking?

Thank you.

By Thomas @ 12/31/08 12:15:22 AMreport abuse

Bank of America and Fraud

We have a truck for sale in our business and have put an ad into Auto Trader. We received an email about a month ago that someone was interested in the truck. After two weeks of negotiation and explaining how it was going to happen, I received a cashier’s check in the mail. I automatically went to the bank (Bank of America) to make sure it was good. The cashier’s check was made out to me personally and I was trying to deposit into the business account. The teller had to first approve that through her boss and said that it was ok to do that! Then she told me that I should have availability to the funds within 24hrs. The money was posted to the account the next day. My understanding of the way the bank works is that they didn’t post money into your account if it was not verified and I put all my trust into the bank to protect me. Well that scenario is not TRUE. Of course we sent a cashier’s check to pay off the loan for the truck (10,500) and started expending some of the money!!! The so call agent/shipper, that was going to pick up the truck, we wired $6,500 has vanished. Again, we didn’t think twice about it, due to putting all our trust into the bank and being that the money was posted to our account. Well eight days later they took the funds back, due to a fraud check. If the bank would have mentioned that even thou we were going to have availability to the funds it still wouldn’t mean the check was good, we would not have done anything with that money. We are not stupid, and we try our hardest to protect ourselves, we just thought we could trust the bank. If we can’t even trust the bank that has all of our money, who can we trust?

We would really like to hear from anyone and any suggestion or fighting tools we can use with the bank to bring justice to this situation. We do accept losing the money, but we lost the money due to trusting the bank to
protect us!!!!!!!!!!!!

By the way, the bank went as far to tell us that this fraud happens all of the time and that the do not have their tellers advise you of this. Also, a hold does not ensure that the check has cleared either. I was told that the hold could be lifted and that the check could still be fraudulent.

PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By Jason and Dawn Wilkerson @ 05/26/08 02:37:18 PMreport abuse

Bank Of America

I am also a small business owner, and tend to vote for whomever is pro-business. However, the big banks are taking advantage of people, participating in unsavory business practices, and make a lot of errors in their favor. I am not against capitalism or making a buck. However,it is bad when banks change the interest rate on something that was charged in the past, have special software to maximize overdraft fees, change due dates on cards to induce higher fees, or worse delay posting payments so that they can get the late fee. I hope that we get someone in office that will stop this madness. It has really gone too far. I know people that have had a really tough time with Bank of America. However, Citibank is the worst. My Sears account, which is really Citibank decided to change my due date on the card last month. They sent me the bill on the 25th and the payment was due on the 27th. My choices were to 1) pay it over the phone with a fee 2) Drive to Sears or Kmart and pay in person. I decided to stop by Kmart. They still charged me a $39 late fee. It was removed after faxing them a copy of the store receipt(pain in the a..). Word of advice, never put your payments in any payment drop off slot at Lowe's or Sears. If their credit is managed by Citibank, who knows whether or not it will get posted. Sears/Citibank is still charging me for an order that was canceled in November. I had to send them 15 pages of supporting documentation and they still have not made a decision about the credit. CitiMortgage is just as bad. On one of my rental properties, they did not pay the homeowner's insurance. However, they took the money out of escrow and the policy was canceled. I am thankful that the property did not burn down. Another time they did not pay taxes(different property) The scary thing about all of this is the fact that it usually takes 10 representatives before they can correct any error. I feel for the people out there that 1) Do not keep good records 2) Cannot understand complex banking errors 3) Do not have a background in business or a business degree. This leaves a whole lot of people that are more or less unarmed to defend themselves against a big bank. If they do manage to prove them wrong, they can always go to arbitration.

By Alecia @ 04/12/08 03:05:25 PMreport abuse

BOA Arbitration

It is hard to tell what the numbers mean unless you have all the facts. I would like to know how many of those suits or complaints were frivolous. As a small business owner, I think arbitration or mediation is an excellent way to stop frivolous lawsuits as it is my understanding that somebody with a "suit" against you would have to put up some money (which they could lose to you).

By Darrik @ 04/10/08 10:36:58 PMreport abuse

Oops, I accidentally posted my comment to the wrong place. Sorry about that.

By magnoliasouth @ 04/10/08 05:55:56 PMreport abuse

Discover Card ripoff

I recently refinanced my Discover Card loan which was about $8,700 through my local credit union. The loan was paid on 3/298/08. Although Discover's closing date is 4/2 and they were paid before that time, they still managed to sock me with nearly $85 of interest. However, according to their voice system, I had a credit of $39 and then received a bill in the amount of $46 and change which ate up the $39 credit. Customer Service took of the $46 charge but I'm also not getting my credit. Is there anything that can be done about this? I had been a loyal Discover card user for over $20 years but have since relegated them to the "never use" pile. Any information will be appreciated.

By Donna Gordon @ 04/10/08 02:54:07 PMreport abuse

BANK OF AMERICA

We are delighted to have closed our account after 25 years as a customer. We experienced incredibly bad service in the past few years. Thank goodness for Wachovia!!

By April Burger @ 04/09/08 08:30:07 PMreport abuse

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Apr 09, 2008 -- Bank of America sued over mandatory arbitration

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