Legislation forces BofA to lay off thousands of jobs

General General Discussion
21

There is no competition in payment systems. Visa and MC are both tentacles of the same big monopoly monster. And the fact is, you cannot survive in retail without doing business with them. So they basically have you bent over the table and telling you to like it.

There is no negotiation on these sorts of fees. The banks subscribe to services from Visa and MC to label their debit cards and basically force the merchants to cough up a certain percentage of each sale. This is no mutual agreement – it is “take it or leave it.”

22

Show me another type of company that can get away with something similar to fractional reserve banking.

23

A perfect example of why BoA is so reviled:

When they decided recently to discontinue free checking, they implemented a tiered system of accounts, with various levels of services, fees, and products associated with them. These ranged from a $5/month plan to a $25/month plan. When I got my letter informing me of this change, BoA in their infinite wisdom decided to automatically put me on the $25/month plan, and started charging me immediately for it. One way to waive the cost of the plan was to have a BoA-owned mortgage, which I had, but they did not seem to realize it.

So I went down to the local branch and told them politely that I wanted to close down my account. That got their attention, and they waived the fee even before I told them I had a mortgage and it should be waived anyway. So, I let the account stay open… just long enough to open a new account elsewhere, where customers are treated with respect. I don’t generally go in for all the bashing of ‘soulless corporations’, but BoA is the exception. I’m gone, and I’m staying gone.

24

I have been raped by big banks so hard, I hope they burn. When the check holding policy went into effect, the pony bank would take me for several hundred dollars in overdraft fees! That’s fucking bullshit! Living paycheck to paycheck, this was a cycle they created for me. I had babies to feed, and I tried like hell to avoid the fees, but a 10 day hold on a regular payroll check was unacceptable. I switched to a credit union and have never had an OD fee in the 5 years since.

Sorry for the hijack, but if the big banks can’t keep their employees in a job with those theiving policies, fuck 'em.

I have no problem with any company trying to make a profit. I don’t feel like I am owed anything. I do have a problem with outright theft. Banks can do it easier than anyone.

25

Well Fractional reserve banking is a whole other issue.

26

I think it is. Fees were being hidden inside transactions, being charged to the merchant. The merchant turns around and hides that fee inside the price for all his goods and services. The customer pays the fee without knowing.

This law comes along and prohibits that. Banks like BofA come up with the idea to charge a service fee to make up the lost money. Consumer balks. BofA and their customers get in a staring contest and BofA blinks.

27

Horseshit! I was a DRE (district retail exec/Vice President) with BBVA/Compass until 10mos ago when I had stomached all of the BS I could from banks! FYI, I was in banking for 12yrs. The fees that the banks are forced to eat will impact their bottom line, but in no way does it affect the banks funtion or their ability to operate. Just like the overdraft fees that banks were no longer allowed to charge if a customer decided to “opt out”. I sat in a number of meetings in which our regional manger told us that we needed to think outside the box and figure out how to replace the revenue that the bank was losing due to the inability to charge overdraft fees (fyi, industry wide overdraft fees made up 2billion in revenue), my district had an estimated 275,000 in fees per qtr!!! So we were told to figure out ways to get this money by other means. Rather than the bank say " you know what the fees were wrong and we’re not collecting them anymore" they still held us to the same numbers.
This is what Wall str is doing to the banks. The banks are no longer able to pass these fees on to the client it becomes an expense, this expense impacts the bottom line, a way to alleviate that is to fire employees. Did you know that when a company fires it’s employees they are able to transfer the money spent on salary as an expense over to the income side of the books? Meaning that by firing employees they lower their operating expenses and can actually show a profit or less of a loss due to the elimination of positions. We are nothing but numbers, and no it’s not really the retail banks fault. It’s the investment banks and funds out there. They are the ones who calculate what a company’s projected earning should be. If the company comes in higher than expected, then they are a hero to wall street and their stock value goes up/income and bonus’ go up. If they come in under projected earnings then just the opposite happens, but if they come under in actual revenue, due to say a down economy, then hey they can fire people and turn those numbers around!!! Pretty great huh?

28

I don’t think the .gov should’ve intervened in this case. We mollycoddle people too much. BoA would’ve laid off those employees without a convenient scapegoat in Congress when angry customers left them.

29

I do work at a bank operations hub part time and you hear all kinds of sick and twisted plans managers propose to try and scam people out of their money.

I don’t bank with anyone currently. I cut up all the credit cards, and use a prepaid debit card. Short of that, everything is cash, just like my grandparents, and it’s freaking great.

My attitude is quite simple. Whenever I give anyone money, it’s a privilege. I shouldn’t get bent over for doing someone else a favor.

30

An example of why banks suck. This is first hand experience.

A certain bank sent out replacement debit cards for no reason. The whole purpose was to get people to call in to activate cards just so the bank to could pitch their shitty new products/services.

It was their way to get around the “do not call list” and pitch to people who would otherwise be inaccessible. Lots of customers called in confused because their cards still had plenty of time till expiration.

31

yeah that’s logged as a service call and not a sales call. That’s how they get around that.
If people only knew just how hard the bankers and tellers at their local branches are pushed to sell them products and services.
Most branches have, at the very least, a monthly call night. That’s where all of the bankers stay after work and call their client books, scrubbed lists, etc.
And then there are the onsites. This is where a banker will go to a local company and they will ty to open liability accounts. Oh that’s another point. Checking and savings accounts are liabilty accounts they are a liability because you have full access to your money so they can’t really carry these funds as assets. Asset accounts on the other hand are mortgages, credit cards, etc…these are funds that are held and making money for the bank through interest payments.
If you are a reasonbly bright guy and you spend time around banking institutions it finally will just make you sick at how these companies manipulate clients and try every way possible to get money from you.
I know Chase and Wells Fargo were big in the minority markets for a number of years. The reason being, and I heard this from both institutions (6yrs with JPMorgan Chase/Bank One, and 2.2yrs with Wells Fargo) this people keep low avg balances and typically will acrrue 3-5 NSFs/mo. at 35.00 a whack that’s 100-160.00/mo in overdraft fees. Their credit is usually bad so they don’t qaulify for overdraft protection and they pay the NSF because the like to have a visa or mastercard logo on their card. The Visa debit card was a brilliant idea, now that the NSF fees are going away you can bet that they won’t be pushing them as much. Don’t get me wrong Visa and Mstrcd still collect their vendor fees, but the banks aren’t making mad money on Overdrafts like they used to.

This is exactly why I left the industry and am now going back to school for a medical degree. If any of you have kids in high school make them get a professional degree if they plan to go to college. Dont let them get a business or a marketing degree or some crap like that. Most of the people I see with degrees like are working in banks on the retail side, or as recruiters, the pretty one’s girls and guys’ do pharm sales, ( i did pharm sales for 1yr and couldn’t stand it). A few get into Medical device sales, but a lot of the med device sales companies want a science or nursing degree.
I did mortages for 5yrs before moving over to the bank side and then management.
i can tell you that the clients I had that were happy and had good careers were either in the trades, plumber, electrical, etc. or the had tech/professional degrees, accouting, computer science/software engineer, engineers in general, nursing/Doctor, Phys Therapy, dentist, IT, Teachers, lawyers, CPAs…If your kid or you as parents are going to drop the coin on a college education then you need something that will pay money back.
Notice I didn’t put down psych, biology, chemistry, physics etc…the reason I didn’t is because you need to (at the very, very least) have a masters degree and get published in an industry specific periodical or your going to make 35-45K/yr. I’m not saying that this is a bad income, but if you’re going to raise a family then you and your spouse are going to have to work. On the other hand a petroleum engineer right out of college can make 75-85K after his first year. So you do the math…literally tell your kids to do the math and the science!! If you’re not good at math or science don’t be embarrased most people aren’t that’s one of the reason we have so many tech jobs going overseas or immigrants coming over here on H1B ( which are supposed to be temporary!) and then bringing everyone, but the family dog over to the US. If you want to make money and have a good living then you need to get a professional degree. In the past just having a college education seperated you from 76 percent of the population so you were assured a good job. after the crappy economy of the late 90’s a lot of students stayed in school and also got their masters degrees. so now a BA or a BS is no big deal. Couple that with all of the programs for foreign people to come to the states on financial Aid(from our gov’t) and then staying here after they graduate. Well now you can see how the job market changed dramatically in the past 15yrs! Our own Gov’t sold us down the river. They set up free education for underdevloped countries to send their brightest to come here and learn and then go back to their country and become leaders, workers, trade partnes…didn’t happen and isn’t happening! They come they go to school for free and then don’t want to leave and now they compete with Americans for the same job.

I was part of the football hall of fame dinner and auction in support of the Wounded Warriors here in San Antonio ( I have to say I meant some wonderful guys’ a few weeks ago! Some very, very brave men!) It was at the JW Marriot here in San Antonio. During this event I looked over at the conference room next to where we were having a dinner and meet and great and it was a convention for H1B visa application companies and immigration attorneys. If you do not know this…and I didn’t, then you need to get informed. Immigration, and not lettuce pickers, but engineers, doctors, etc…is big business in this country and across the world. There were immigration attorneys from China, Japan, India…just from everywhere. These people all over the world are working day and night to get people into this country anyway they can. And there are actual companies, whos’ income and sole being is to expedite this immigration. These are US companies…we’re at 9% (actually closer to 17% actual) :help:unemployment and these companies are trying to shove as many people here as possible. I’m sorry if I got off on a rant it’s late and I am a very pissed off American Citizen. Charge me for the hour if you want.

Mods i’m sorry I’m sure this will be deleted by morning. This is what happens when Makers Mark and computer get together!

32

Actually the “Do Not Call” list does not apply to you when you do business with a company calling you. If I am doing business with a bank or any other business, they have the right to call me regardless of the Do Not Call list.

The Do-Not-Call registry does not prevent all unwanted calls. It does not cover the following:

[ul]
[li]calls from organizations with which you have established a business relationship;
[/li]> [li]calls for which you have given prior written permission;
[/li]> [li]calls which are not commercial or do not include unsolicited advertisements;
[/li]> [li]calls by or on behalf of tax-exempt non-profit organizations.
[/li]> [/ul]

Source - http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/do-not-call-list

33

Unintended consequences of legislation happen so often I don’t believe they’re unintended anymore.

34

Banks fucking suck for thier but they’re a business, it’s their job to make money for the owners/stockholders. You don’t have to like it, it’s just the way it is.

  1. Stop complaining about businesses doing business
  2. Move your money somewhere with better services & lower expenses (be an informed consumer)
  3. Buy stock in a profitable (i.e. greedy) corporation… like a bank
  4. Profit (off the billions of suckers out there)
35

Negative, ghostrider.

The banking industry is being forced to raise capital. BofA can’t or won’t raise capital to match its current balance sheet - so, it is shrinking its balance sheet to match the capital funding requirements spelled out by regulators.

Dodd-Frank is causing deflation.

36

Because the largest expense for any business is labor. If anything will eat into any kind of revenue faster it’s any increase in salaries or wage. If you can work it so that you can distribute the tasks that is performed by a single employee to three other employees, you can cut your expenses by at least a quarter. What you save is the salary and other overhead that is associated with each individual employee (IE: health care, 401Ks, etc.).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating any of this just trying to point out this reality. This is why Labor Unions as we know it nowadays are costing employers a lot of revenue. They protect even employees who do not contribute to the overall productivity which is a drain on everybody. JM2CW.

37

Could you please explain your use of the term monopoly as it applies to the credit services industry. With Visa, Master Card, American Express, Discover, Diners Club International, and all of the other individual retail credit cards I’m struggling to see the “mono” in the system. I think that a better term might be oliogoply but even that is a stretch.

38

If all the players make sure to screw you in the same way it isn’t much different than a monopoly. Kind of like cable companies. While there are a number of companies there isn’t really any “choice” involved.

39

Visa/MC together form the mono. Discover and AMEX are a drop in the bucket compared to those two. And they (Visa/MC) march in lock step, basically as a single entity as far as the merchants go. When you get a merchant account, you do not get a VISA account, or a MC account. You get a “merchant” account that covers both Visa and MC under basically the same terms.

ETA: Notice I said: two parts (or both tentacles) of the same big monopoly monster. I acknowledged that there were two actual entities but they act and appear as one for all practical purposes. (Like what some people accuse the Republicans and Democrats of doing)

And btw: Diners Club is owned by Discover now.

AMEX and Discover are a drop in the bucket and are merely optional add-ons to a “merchant” account for a merchant. You see a few discover and AMEX purchases for every metric buttload of VISA/MC ones.

(I am speaking as someone who has sold at retail and had a merchant account since 1996).

40

I think you missed the modifier “productive” employees.