Bank of America-the nickel & diming of the middle class

All the News That Gives You Fits! Bill Maher coined the phrase "Skank of America" right after the big bailout and I was bemused because up until Friday February 5th and Sunday February 7th 2010 I had not received that ever so personal touch (that resonated like a cheap shot kick to the crotch) that only Skank of America can deliver so adeptly.
I have been a loyal Skank of America customer since 1998. I have always paid my monthly bills on time and always paid more than the required monthly payment. Frankly, like many of you I dislike dealing with credit cards and the banks that issue them but in the realities and complexities of 21st century American life they have become a necessary evil- with the operative syllables being E-VIL… but I digress. One can NOT rent a car, or hotel room or purchase neither a plane ticket nor shop on the Internet without one of these "modern conveniences." So when you are made an offer you may not refuse, one must submit one's self to these "non choices."
My story begins with my charging the annual maintenance fee on my time-share in St. Martin to my Skank of America Visa card. When this month's bill showed up I was chagrined to find that I was charged a $16.38 "Foreign Transaction Fee" even though I had sent the bill back to Miami, Florida, USA as I had done for ten previous years, without having seen this charge before. Being a Virgo I always check each item on my bills meticulously. Mind you this was not a great sum of money but inquiring minds want to know. I also noticed that the bill adjusted my (what I thought was a) fixed APR to 3.5 points higher with the following disclaimer, "Includes Periodic rate Finance Charges and Transaction Fee Charges that results in an APR which exceeds the Corresponding APR above." WTF?
So I called the 1/800 number and after spending ten minutes or so dealing with the inherent joys of navigating through many computer menus I finally reached a real person named Ryan (they never give last names even though they ask you what your mother's maiden name is and every other bit of personal information about you) and inquired about these two anomalies. Ryan of course said that VISA, not Skank of America was responsible for that Foreign Transaction Fee and basically Pontius Piloted the whole thing. Ryan then informed me that the FTF of $16.38 was what changed my APR just for this month and my other charges for this month were assigned my usual APR but that it was no longer a fixed rate but a variable rate. I informed Ryan that I had not been informed of this and Ryan informed me that Skank of America had informed me on 7/12/09, which coincidentally was when I was in St. Martin last summer. I don't recall seeing neither any phone message on my answering machine nor any mail in my mailbox informing me of such change upon my return. Ryan said that perhaps I would like to speak to someone in finance who could address these issues more clearly. Foolishly I agreed to speak to someone in finance forgetting the stories I had heard about people who had called Skank of America to complain and what had happened to them.
After holding for five minutes or so and listening to 1984 type mindspeak ads telling me how wonderful Skank of America is I was finally connected to Chris (also no last name) who asked me all sorts of personal questions again to verify who I was for my protection. Chris went on to explain how lucky I was that the prime rate had stayed the same so that my variable rate had still stayed at a seemingly fixed level but that was just the way Skank of America does business now; they no longer offer fixed rates, so in essence take it or leave it.
Chris went on to ask me more personal specific questions about my income and then said to me, "I can't help you on the Foreign Transaction Fee and I can't help you on the variable rate but what I can do for you is to lower your credit line by 20,000 dollars." WTF?!?!? I thought. Am I hearing this right? How is this helping me? At this point I had only about 1,500 dollars of credit available to me instead of $20,000 ?!?!? Now I am not a deadbeat and have religiously paid all of my bills without ever being delinquent and now I'm being treated like scum? There was no further rational discussion possible with Chris at this time. He had made his unilateral and arbitrary decision and it was final. He then said, “Thanks for calling us have a nice day.” I was miffed and I thought of the Groucho Marx quote, "I don't want to be member of any club that would have me as a member." So I would just not use my Skank of America card unless I had no other choice. So be it- but the plot thickens.
On February 7th my wife, Debi, wanted to go shopping before the BIG Super Bowl to buy some furniture to fill in the empty space left by the piano which we had shipped down to our daughter, Jamie, who lives in Maryland. We never seemed to have had enough seating in the den so we thought it was a good idea. So on the way back from CostCo we stopped at a nice furniture store on RTE 27's service road and looked around. Finally Debi decided on two chairs and we proceeded to the check out only to discover that the nice store no longer used American Express. The price was under $1500 so we decided to use the dreaded Skank of America card and pay it off on full as if it were American Express when the bill came, as we wanted to have a buffer for emergencies in case American Express is not accepted. Well, when the card came back declined Debi got a little embarrassed and I got a little annoyed. The nice people at the store called the 1/800 number and after navigating through computer menus again I spoke to John (who gave me his last name but he was just reading from a script so I don't want to blame him) who said my credit limit was $500 but he could help me and approve this charge if I agreed to pay a $39.00 "going over limit fee." By now the smoke must have been coming out of my ears but I stayed calm and asked if he were kidding me? Now mind you - it's not the money here- it is the principle. Two days ago I had $20,000 available and now I have only $500, not even the $1500 Chris from finance had told me?? WTF?? So I asked John if this was the same Skank of America that we taxpayers bailed out last year and is this the way they show their appreciation to the middle class taxpayers who had helped them out? I also told John that he could please tell his superiors to take this card and to shove it where the sun does not shine as I will be paying off the entire sum I owe on this card by the summer and then canceling it. John told me that he was sorry that I felt that way.
The nickel and diming of America- is this what we have to look forward to? The story has a happy ending as the nice furniture store agreed to try to use my American Express Gold card and it worked just fine. Today as I read Newsday I found the following Editorial interesting. This was printed on the editorial page A29 of Newsday 2/8/10
"Bank of America Probe- Did executives bilk us out of millions?
Taxpayers deserve to know if Bank of America executives misled Washington to get billions of taxpayer dollars for their crisis driven merger with Merrill Lynch."

Please pick up a copy of Newsday or go to Newsday.com to see the rest of this editorial to understand that Bank of America is not only screwing me, but also screwing you whether you know it or not. My interaction is but the microcosm of this company's macrocosm that affects all of us Americans! My experience is but the tip of the iceberg of miasma that this company spews.
We cannot stop Skank of America from initiating its evil policies but we can choose not to be a part of them. I urge all of you who are reading this to not only liquidate and cancel your accounts with Skank of America as soon as it is feasible, but also to share this information with everyone you know so we can tell this bank that is "too big to fail" that we no longer support them. The only language these corporations understand is money, so if we withdraw our money and no longer use their services, perhaps then Skank of America will change their heinous policies and stop nickel and diming us and start serving us instead of themselves. We don't need them- they need us. If they decide not to change-then on an individual level we will no longer be affected by them. It will be up to the government and the judicial department to stop Skank of America from continuing to cheat us on a global level. That's the news and my skewed views. What are your views?