A bail-in is when savings are used to finance the bank or the state by turning them into illiquid debt, bank shares, or when they are simply forfeited. This happened in Cyprus in 2013 for example.
This is merely false bravado in this day and age. The police can take your money, if they suspect that it is proceeds of a crime. Lots of money under the bed sounds like proceeds from a drugs deal! You can take a few of them down with you, but it won't end well for you..
As the 4th amendment against seizure of your money is no longer being protected (see: "Civil assert forfeiture"), know that the police may steal the money under your mattress and murder you for attempting to exercise your rights.
I had the same problem with one of the biggest french bank.
I saw an important withdrawal on my account in a city where I wasn't. I called my bank and I explained the situation. They told me I'll get the money back in one day. I asked if I should change my credit card in case it was hacked, they told me calmy it was just an error on their part because another client had the same last name. I just couldn't believe it.
Ultimately, that's what happens when it's a human that gets the final sign off. You can put all the control and checks in place you need, either the human validates the case and events like this happens, or the computer has final authority and people complain about lacking human touch and comprehension and "they know me for decades but I can't get 20 euros out without several proof of identity".
I'm not sure which way I would consider best. I guess as long as banks are stepping up to their errors and fixing them immediately as in your case, I prefer that.
I had something like that happen with a closed credit card. I don't know what the mistake was, but I suddenly had a $6,000 statement credit due to a misapplied payment. When I called to tell them, they offered to send me a check! After I declined the misbegotten windfall, they put in a little effort and figured out where it was supposed to go.
In many contries, if they send you a check, even in error, you are allowed to cash it if you choose. I recommend consulting a lawyer, and keeping it in a seperate account for a while before spending. Local laws vary widely, some jurisdicitions will disagree. Consider local and national laws as they may appy. Ianal.
Regardless, it wouldn't have been right to keep the money. Especially since doing so probably would have caused problems for the person who made the misrouted payment.
I've actually never heard a story end that way. Pretty much all of them involve the bank convincing a court that a reasonable person would have recognized the error, and therefore you need to pay up.
About 20 years ago on a Saturday I was shopping for a new washer and dryer for a new house. I gave the cashier my Visa card (from my credit union) and was subsequently told that I was over my credit limit. (At the time that card had a $20k limit and no balance.) I used a different card and waited until Monday to contact my CU. They told me I had requested a balance transfer, but when I pressed them they realized that it was a different customer with a similar name (who was overdrawn on all accounts). Somehow the CU clerk decided to use my account because it had enough credit available to complete the request.
I closed all of my accounts at that CU shortly thereafter. (It was actually after a second fiasco where they failed to pay my property tax, but still withdrew the money from my account.)
While BofA has its share of blame to absorb here, the specific issue is the lack of support for unusual names such as names containing whitespace. The issue may affect other banks, big or small. I for instance had once to deal with a banking application not supporting non-US phone numbers for 2FA, and yet positioned to serve customers 24x7 globally.
It's not like unusual name support isn't a common issue, but they also had a unique key that they failed to check - the SSN. The name at stake could have just as easily been Bob Smith.
The issue in this case wasn't a technological one, but a procedural one. Third-party withdrawal due to court proceedings is an exceptional scenario - not a regular one. Managerial staff would have had to sign off. Someone had to explicitly decide to ignore all the conflicting information.
Was the bank really at fault here? From what I see they receive a legal letter from the Sheriff’s Department, and they complied with the letter. The article doesn't say what was included in the letter to the bank, I assume the author doesn't know either. It could have the wrong SSN, or the Sheriff’s Department just looked up the defendant's name, found the author's account number and SSN, and sent those to the bank.
Any major corporation has lawyers (either in-house or on retainer) to verify that court orders are valid before complying with them. Bank of America either chose not to use them, or they didn't do their own due diligence. You can bet this wouldn't have happened if the case involved several hundred thousands (or millions) of dollars.
Court orders have to be specific for a reason - to protect property rights. If some of the information on a court order doesn't match the facts, the proper thing to do is challenge it. Using a warrant as an example, law enforcement isn't allowed to get a judge to allow them to enter a property and just take "anything incriminating". They need to specifically list what they're taking, what case it's in conjunction to, and how the property relates to the case. They're not allowed to take anything that doesn't match the exact specifics of the order.
And if any of that information is wrong, the order is invalid and executing it makes people liable to civil suits. The bank should have challenged it themselves, since they had the necessary information to do so (a name and SSN). Failing that, they should have informed the customer with sufficient time to do it for them.
Bank of America doesn't deserve a pass on this. They screwed up. The court did, too, but it's BoA's job to hold on to people's money and verify identities before handing it out. Had they just told the court that the bank account didn't match the specified person, the court would have taken "no" for an answer.
Not sure if you have small claims court in America. In Canada for losses under 10000$ process is fairly straightforward. You should file and follow the process. If they don't give money back, go to the court and execute writ of seizure. One guy did this.
The branch didn't even have a copy of the court order, there is no way they could have matched the SSNs. They were just doing whatever the county clerk told them.
That would be a hell of a coincidence: "Typo'ed SSN just happens to give someone else who is a customer with the same bank and multiple components of the same name (Cheng Jiang vs Cheng Xian Jiang, IIRC).
In theory: the blog's author would counter argue that BoA didn't perform due diligence in checking that the order mentioned the correct person, and even then, they didn't send the notification on time. The court rules against BoA, and it's up to their lawyers to recoup the money.
In practice: BoA pays straight out of their pocket, sends those $3.4K to losses, and shuts this down before the media finds out. And based on the speed of votes this article is getting, they will find out.
Absolutely correct. This is pocket lint to Bank of America. The big banks operate at an absolutely mammoth scale; BoA has 208k employees. More consequential mistakes than this happen by the thousands every day. There is, quite literally, a budget for it.
It is an unfortunate reality for the US that you have to present as a savvy professional, but as soon as BoA is institutionally aware that there is a savvy professional who is at the point of involving a lawyer, I give them ~48 hours to make the decision internally "We're totally paying that" and a total resolution time of under two weeks.
If it were me here, I'd ask for the branch manager at my first visit immediately after getting the run-around from tier 1 CS. I give better-than-even odds that the branch manager can self-resolve this, particularly for a longer-term customer or relationship they'd otherwise have reason to care about. If the branch manager isn't super receptive to that immediately, walk into any lawyer's office and say "I want a letter written to Bank of America saying that they owe me $X plus whatever you charge for the letter." (If you for whatever reason can't afford a lawyer or can't get a lawyer to take you seriously, you can get much of the same effect by saying "Regulation E" on paper. [+])
Your lawyer won't even have to threaten a suit over this. Everyone knows the score here.
(I use to ghostwrite letters to banks. One of my weird hobbies.)
[+] Regulation E governs electronic funds transfers at US financial institutions. People who know that are very dangerous people for banks to annoy, because Regulation E contains a state machine which is very consumer-favorable, and there is an implicit threat of "I bring your operation of the state machine to the attention of a bored regulator who has no joy in their life other than opportunities to hold your feet to the fire for improperly operating state machines."
There exists a message board called "Credit Cards and Consumer Debt" within the Motley Fool. I commented there for a few years on a variety of subjects, under a pseudonym (which is laughably transparent to anyone who knows me but please don't take that as a challenge, HN).
I was originally there because my credit report suddenly got $100k+ of debt added to it due to a series of errors. I researched the CRA and FDCPA and, in the process of doing so, found that forum. Many folks with different fact patterns needed relatively similar resolutions to mine or ones which were predictable based on information I had access to, so I started writing replies like "Yeah just write your bank and tell them $FOO." It turns out that the types of folks who end up deep in credit card debt often have some difficulty in banging out a quick professional letter. I didn't, and I had a lot of free time on my hands, so I drafted perhaps a few hundred letters.
This is one of my more esoteric hobbies, but it has been occasionally useful over the years.
Man alive, remind me to consult HN next time I'm in a situation like this (unlikely, I know). I admit I'm quite surprised at the level of detailed knowledge on this thread, particularly in this comment.
Unfortunately, I think it would have required a second visit.
Until he had confirmation that the court order was for the wrong person; everyone, including the branch manager would have fallen back on "It was a court order. We didn't have a choice."
Armed with the knowledge that it was a court order for a different person with a similar name but different SSN, a stern conversation with the local manager would have probably been enough.
It could be solved in the first visit, since it's not generally sufficient to say "we had some court order" but they'd have to show a copy of that particular court order to him - assuming that it included the wrong SSN, they could have resolved that it's for the wrong person right then and there without contacting the sherif office.
That was the original problem that sent him to the branch. He couldn't view the court order online and it said to go to the branch. The branch manager apparently never gets a copy of the court order and just blindly executes whatever comes in, so they were no help in resolving the issue.
Yes. My grandmother noticed multiple transactions from the web on her account. She does not have a computer. Her local branch did not help her, and told her it was her mistake.
I found the fraud hotline number, called, and explained the situation. They were very helpful, and resolved it.
Small claims court is actually mentioned in the Constitution. However, the actual guarantee in the Constitution is for claims of less than $20. All states also allow you to file for larger amounts, usually something like $5000.
I think you're referring to Amendment VII which provides for jury trials in matters greater than $20, not less than. This refers to guarantees of federal civil courts, in which this matter (all parties local to CA?) would likely not fall.
> "In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."
What I don't get: Why would he pursue some court order he's not a party to? The only logical counterparty to this dispute is BoA. They gave away your money without proper title. That shouldn't hold up in court? That they gave some money to the LA Sheriff’s Department, that would be BoA to recoup.
Trouble is, this guy is a random citizen who doesn't know much about how the law works, and so it hasn't clicked who the correct plaintiff would be for his case.
He'd probably get told who the right parties to lodge a complaint against, if there was any lawyer willing to talk to him for about 15 minutes, but the last half of the article is basically him being bounced all over California by legal professionals who won't speak to him, because he's out of their bailiwick.
Shouldn't this be the case though? Isn't that how the population /wants/ the problem to be fixed? Look at various TV BS court dramas where people behave in a way the population expects them to (versus what actually happens... and no, Phoenix Wright isn't an example since it's interactive).
> Why would he pursue some court order he's not a party to? The only logical counterparty to this dispute is BoA.
As someone very ignorant in how to handle legal issues, as the story went on I originally thought he had to go through the court system to get his fees returned. It didn't occur to me, until the very end, that it's something he needs to dispute with BoA.
Obviously the author needs to take BoA to small claims court but it took me a little while to realize that so I can understand.
If I got told I had to travel 6 hours to retrieve my money due to someone else's mistake, it would probably take law enforcement to calm the scene I would cause. I'm wondering how much this poor guy was bounced around because he was too much of a gentleman to express his frustration.
You mean the IBAN? We've used it to send money back and forth between people and companies all the time. For the most part it works. And if there is a dispute or error it can be reversed.
I doubt that would have helped here, since the bank itself did the matching and picked the wrong account.
EU (IBAN to be exact) bank accounts do have a check digit, so typos tend to be caught and result in a transfer being blocked. More relevantly Dutch banks are going to add name checking in 2017 as an extra protection as well. The exact introduction date will vary per bank.
I especially like how in every case of being screwed by the bureaucracy the lowly citizen has only one option - go the the lawyers. And what are those? More bureaucracy!
The corp ones, somewhat. The kind the lowly citizen would hire is more of a hired guide to hack his way thru the red tape to the goal. Dont paint all lawyers with the same brush.
Don't mess around with the court, the whole thing is Bank of America's problem, don't let them make it your fault or the courts. They have debited the wrong account, you can prove this; in the UK if this happened and they didn't return me my money I would take them to the small claims court which can be filled in online. Surely California must have this?
Australia has a banking ombudsman that resolves disputes like this, though I've never had reason to use it. There's also a telecommunications ombudsman - it's a magic word whenever the phone companies screw up (a fairly regular occurrence, though less so recently), I just say I'm recording this call to send to the ombudsman and everything is fixed really quickly.
I believe there a sort of government service but the banks/telcos pay for them by each complaint they get charged - it's free for consumers and works well.
I realise it doesn't help the ops current problem but just mentioning it as a good solution.
It has become a taxpayer ID number too. It's not just citizens. Every individual who is legally authorized to work has one. Every legal entity (like corporations) that has assets usually has one too.
If you know a little bit about legal procedure dealing with something like this shouldn't be too hard.
You'd file against your local bank based on the address of the branch you go to for an order to show cause hearing where they are tasked to show up and show cause as to why the transfer of money should go forward. You'd state the basic grounds of mistaken identity, propose a temporary restraining order barring any further action until the case is heard, and go to the court for a judge to sign the order and give instructions for service.
Once it gets on everyone's radar as a conflicting court proceeding (rather than a customer service complaint) they'd likely quickly get to the bottom of it.
It sounds really hard but it isn't, most courts in bigger cities at least will have an office where you can make an appointment to get free volunteer legal help.
Yes this will burn a couple slightly frustrating afternoons getting it together but it's eminimently possible to do, and an interesting exercise for the average person who enjoys learning how things work.
> If you know a little bit about legal procedure dealing with something like this shouldn't be too hard.
Well, responses on here vary from "sue the bank, it's their fault," to "contact/sue the LASD, it's their fault" to "contact the plaintiff's lawyers, they'll fix it" to "contact the defendant's lawyers, they'll pay for it or else."
So clearly, this is likely to cost more than a couple afternoons.
One day, a sheriff showed up at my home and confiscated my guns. Turns out some lunatic that I don't even know had filed a domestic abuse restraining order against me and the state I was in grants a temporary order by default. Took 2 months to resolve this and cost me about $6k in legal fees. Took several months to get my guns back.
While that's not the same as "you're not actually the guy named in the lawsuit", it illustrates how disruptive this kind of thing can be.
Absolutely. And he's lucky it was just $4k. What of it was $100k and included money you needed to live and pay the mortgage with? This type of negligence by the bank is downright scary.
It's not clear to me that it's the bank's fault. The court must've done some kind of discovery to send the bank a garnish order. So was the bank lazy and just took money from a similar named account without checking the details?
Or did the court identify the wrong defendant and issue a garnish order for the wrong person?
I wouldn't be surprised if they are specifically barred from doing this to avoid having defendants liquidate their assets right before the confiscate order comes through.
Which is no different than just taking the money. You can't get a loan against a frozen account, you can't use a frozen account to buy groceries or pay your mortgage, and you can't get an extension on your credit cards because your account is frozen.
Swap out "took my money" with "froze my account" in the article and 90% of the comments here would be identical.
One is an administrative hold that can be lifted by the bank. The other is an inter-bank transfer process that maybe has to go through the courts. The reason the person in this article has had such a hard time is that he has to convince more than just his bank that they screwed up because they don't have his money any more.
You're right actually. The post doesn't mention whether it was the bank or the sheriffs office that goofed on the name. He also mentions something about his credit union being more competent. That suggests it may have been the sheriff's office that mixed up the names if two separate banks had garnish orders.
It seems clear that its not a mistake of one party or the other, clearly its a mistake on both parts. The Sheriff should have checked better and the bank should have double checked.
If the details of the story are true, there is no way for the bank to be completely innocent here and it doesn't matter whether the police or court messed up. Upon receiving a legal order for some customer, the bank should at least make sure the name, SSN, and mailing address match before zeroing out the account.
I'm sorry that happened to you. You shouldn't lose our 2nd amendment rights based on unsubstantiated claims that you can't defend against. Very unfair and not right.
Unfortunately, this is the law in California. But it should be changed, because it's unconstitutional and it's not right.
> You'd file [...] an order to show cause hearing where
> they are tasked to show up and show cause as to why
> the transfer of money should go forward.
The article very plainly describes how he was not notified until after the transfer of money already occurred.
Then you'd file an OSC with a draft order to restore the money to the account. The only catch would be convincing a judge to sign it, which if you stated the basic facts reasonably clearly and had a little help making sure formatting was correct would likely not be a problem.
The overall point is that courts are just another system with a ton of formal rules and procedures, but for the average programmer/hacker type it's really not that hard to learn the basics of how things work and make some headway.
People have a slightly irrational fear of the court system (only slightly irrational, it is terrifying) that tends to be paralyzing. Walking in the front door of the court and asking for help, plus a little online research, can help quite a bit. There's quite a few options available to your average smart citizen who wants to navigate it alone.
It doesn't help that the guy talked to over a dozen people who all passed the buck and gave him everything from useless and misleading advice to a shrug and a "not my problem".
In the end, he couldn't find a single lawyer who was both qualified and interested in his case. Everybody was either out of their jurisdiction or uninterested in such a small case.
In California, I don't believe you can file against a local branch. You'd need to file against BofA at their central legal location for service, which I believe is in LA. However, I think (though not sure) you can still file the case itself in the county where you reside.
I know this because I recently filed a small claims case that included Chase as a defendant, and this was the process.
The small (<10k) amount of money makes this a bit difficult because that typically falls within the realm of small claims, and they don't move quickly with court dates. My hearing date was about 3 months after filing. Maybe there are special procedures for things that have to move quickly like this?
> Maybe there are special procedures for things that have to move quickly like this?
Yes that's what I'm proposing. I don't know CA specifically but in general courts have what's called a "special term" or an "ex parte part" or something similar. In that court a judge is sitting during the day and is available to sign orders that relate to exigent circumstances, which this would qualify for.
Typically you can file an OSC and/or a TRO and seek temporary relief while you make arrangements to actually begin a proper suit. It's very commonly used, for example to prevent a business partner from cleaning out an office full of jointly owned supplies, or preventing the auction of a property when there's a dispute over ownership.
It's very different from the long slow plodding process by which an actual court case proceeds. But it's applicable here since this isn't an actual court case, it's mistaken identity. Once it comes to everyone's attention formally, with a judge's order, it's almost certain to end right there.
I don't get how BoA would pay when the SSN didn't match.
But maybe the LASD didn't cite the SSN, but just the bank account that they had erroneously identified. But still, it's mind-boggling that they'd be so sloppy.
It is not shocking at all that the bank had sloppy accounting. You don't get very many highly motivated professionals to sit around an office and help people fill out checking account applications all day. It's a retail gig with a fairly low salary, not much different than running a register at the Gap. If you are doing anything even slightly out of the ordinary you will run into headaches more often than not.
This entire fiasco could have been avoided if people were identified correctly. Here's another recent article where simply using "firstname lastname DOB" as a primary key resulted in a collision: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/03/identity-the...
BofA ranks first by the total number of cases which is to be expected given their footprint. What's notable is that BofA has actually improved over time.
BoA gave everybody's money-substitute-government-credit away, but few have realised it (Even thou BoA says so themselves in their financial statements). So the guy is lucky in a way; he now doesn't trust the thieves. Even fewer realise that the banknotes they are so proudly holding have long ago been defaulted on. It's all running on illusions now. Sell your paper.
Idiot gives out full name, last four of social, takes time off to visit the bank (??) and also went to blizzconn. Confirmed for sheltered nerd that had no idea how to do anything, bumbled his way through a situation and is surprised at the results.
As far as I know, the only correct action is to write a letter detailing the entire situation to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in Washington DC.
I don't understand why he's taking this on himself to be honest. If I was incorrectly named in some sort of lawsuit, my first reaction would be to call my lawyer. Who knows if there's also an incorrect arrest warrant out for example?
He hasn't been incorrectly named in a lawsuit. His Bank of America account was mistakenly debited as a result of a legal order against some other, unrelated person with a similar name.
Most people don't have lawyers to call. The last 1/3 of his story was about him calling lawyers trying to find one who would talk to him.
If someone told me to call my lawyer I wouldn't know what to do. I don't have a lawyer. I don't know people who "have lawyers" or can recommend one. I met a lawyer once, I think, when I bought my previous house. I'd probably search online for "Lawyers in San Francisco" and pick one at random.
Sue the bank for the $3400 plus legal costs, fees associated with the loss of fluid assets, punitive charges, and mental anguish. This is a tens of thousands of dollars ask.
Sue the LASD and the LA county court for violations of the fourth, fifth, and sixth amendments. There was no due process against OP. OP's property was seized without warrant, trial, or even suspicion against OP. The OP had no access to trial or to legal representation but was separated from belongings. This is a multiple hundreds of thousands ask.
Someone will surely notice the wrong of $3400 plus legal costs and some interest and fees and settle before the tens and hundreds of thousands get in front of a judge.
I recently went through a similar legal situation to recover basically the same small amount. I find these incidents to be really interesting and oddly beautiful.
Exploring the broken beaurocracy to retrieve your money is a game; when you finally send enough documents and certified letters to satisfy/scare the otherside it's extremely satisfying.
Hm ... the bank acted clearly careless, but I am surprised that there is so little blame on the court/sherrif, as they messed up in the first place and then in the end to not really be willing to undo their misstake.
Do we really know it was the court/sheriff who messed up in the first place? Maybe the actual defendant also had a BofA account, and the mixup was entirely by BofA. (Maybe not - I just don't see a means we have to distinguish, from afar).
From your own source, the government _made_ about 2 billion off of the BofA bailout. This includes the 2 billion write-off of TARP funds they gave to the home mortgage group.
Not defending BofA, just saying your source material doesn't make the point you think it does.
Disclaimer: I know very little about any of this, and am just commenting because I was surprised by one of the places listed. That place listed, I work for its 'sister' credit union, State Employees' Credit Union (NC)
It looks like the list items are there for different reasons, not all because they're big lenders who got bailed out. I clicked on Greater Kinston Credit Union[1]. Its reason for being on there is the 'Community Development Capital Initiative'[2].
Excerpt from [2]: 'designed to provide cheap financing to Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI): banks, thrifts or credit unions that operate in markets underserved by traditional financial institutions. The idea was that the banks would then lend that money to small businesses in their areas.'
That one sounds pretty benign (i.e. it's not "bailing out Too Big To Fail companies for crappy practices"--GKCU is a small credit union), so I think the list you posted is more nuanced than crappy Too Big To Fail bailout companies.
TARP made money for the US government. They lent banks money at interest, and were paid back. If the government were a private entity that would be recorded as "profit".
If you want more government revenue, you should be pushing for more frequent bank bailouts.
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[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 270 ms ] threadAlso, credit unions have a different insurance scheme than the banks, which insulates them from this.
Finally, credit unions are more aware of possible jeapardy, and so tend to act more prudently.
I'm not sure which way I would consider best. I guess as long as banks are stepping up to their errors and fixing them immediately as in your case, I prefer that.
Every story I have ever heard, ended with the bank basically saying "You owe us money. Pay us it back in 3 days or we are going to the police"
Seems not a good plan.
I closed all of my accounts at that CU shortly thereafter. (It was actually after a second fiasco where they failed to pay my property tax, but still withdrew the money from my account.)
Somehow cash under the mattress seems safer...
The issue in this case wasn't a technological one, but a procedural one. Third-party withdrawal due to court proceedings is an exceptional scenario - not a regular one. Managerial staff would have had to sign off. Someone had to explicitly decide to ignore all the conflicting information.
Even if not, the bank still failed to notify him in time to contest the levy. That makes it their fault.
Court orders have to be specific for a reason - to protect property rights. If some of the information on a court order doesn't match the facts, the proper thing to do is challenge it. Using a warrant as an example, law enforcement isn't allowed to get a judge to allow them to enter a property and just take "anything incriminating". They need to specifically list what they're taking, what case it's in conjunction to, and how the property relates to the case. They're not allowed to take anything that doesn't match the exact specifics of the order.
And if any of that information is wrong, the order is invalid and executing it makes people liable to civil suits. The bank should have challenged it themselves, since they had the necessary information to do so (a name and SSN). Failing that, they should have informed the customer with sufficient time to do it for them.
Bank of America doesn't deserve a pass on this. They screwed up. The court did, too, but it's BoA's job to hold on to people's money and verify identities before handing it out. Had they just told the court that the bank account didn't match the specified person, the court would have taken "no" for an answer.
http://business.time.com/2011/06/06/homeowner-forecloses-on-...
“Is the last four digit of your SSN not 5189 (not the actual digits)?”
Sounds like brunt of this mistake lies with the bank.
Unless an incredible coincidence occured, the bank did not match the SSN.
In practice: BoA pays straight out of their pocket, sends those $3.4K to losses, and shuts this down before the media finds out. And based on the speed of votes this article is getting, they will find out.
It is an unfortunate reality for the US that you have to present as a savvy professional, but as soon as BoA is institutionally aware that there is a savvy professional who is at the point of involving a lawyer, I give them ~48 hours to make the decision internally "We're totally paying that" and a total resolution time of under two weeks.
If it were me here, I'd ask for the branch manager at my first visit immediately after getting the run-around from tier 1 CS. I give better-than-even odds that the branch manager can self-resolve this, particularly for a longer-term customer or relationship they'd otherwise have reason to care about. If the branch manager isn't super receptive to that immediately, walk into any lawyer's office and say "I want a letter written to Bank of America saying that they owe me $X plus whatever you charge for the letter." (If you for whatever reason can't afford a lawyer or can't get a lawyer to take you seriously, you can get much of the same effect by saying "Regulation E" on paper. [+])
Your lawyer won't even have to threaten a suit over this. Everyone knows the score here.
(I use to ghostwrite letters to banks. One of my weird hobbies.)
[+] Regulation E governs electronic funds transfers at US financial institutions. People who know that are very dangerous people for banks to annoy, because Regulation E contains a state machine which is very consumer-favorable, and there is an implicit threat of "I bring your operation of the state machine to the attention of a bored regulator who has no joy in their life other than opportunities to hold your feet to the fire for improperly operating state machines."
I was originally there because my credit report suddenly got $100k+ of debt added to it due to a series of errors. I researched the CRA and FDCPA and, in the process of doing so, found that forum. Many folks with different fact patterns needed relatively similar resolutions to mine or ones which were predictable based on information I had access to, so I started writing replies like "Yeah just write your bank and tell them $FOO." It turns out that the types of folks who end up deep in credit card debt often have some difficulty in banging out a quick professional letter. I didn't, and I had a lot of free time on my hands, so I drafted perhaps a few hundred letters.
This is one of my more esoteric hobbies, but it has been occasionally useful over the years.
Until he had confirmation that the court order was for the wrong person; everyone, including the branch manager would have fallen back on "It was a court order. We didn't have a choice."
Armed with the knowledge that it was a court order for a different person with a similar name but different SSN, a stern conversation with the local manager would have probably been enough.
I found the fraud hotline number, called, and explained the situation. They were very helpful, and resolved it.
And then what? People are going to just now start hating Bank Of America? I've got some news for you...
That's not a winning argument.
> "In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."
He'd probably get told who the right parties to lodge a complaint against, if there was any lawyer willing to talk to him for about 15 minutes, but the last half of the article is basically him being bounced all over California by legal professionals who won't speak to him, because he's out of their bailiwick.
It's the XY problem in legal form...
As someone very ignorant in how to handle legal issues, as the story went on I originally thought he had to go through the court system to get his fees returned. It didn't occur to me, until the very end, that it's something he needs to dispute with BoA.
Obviously the author needs to take BoA to small claims court but it took me a little while to realize that so I can understand.
EU (IBAN to be exact) bank accounts do have a check digit, so typos tend to be caught and result in a transfer being blocked. More relevantly Dutch banks are going to add name checking in 2017 as an extra protection as well. The exact introduction date will vary per bank.
I believe there a sort of government service but the banks/telcos pay for them by each complaint they get charged - it's free for consumers and works well.
I realise it doesn't help the ops current problem but just mentioning it as a good solution.
Basically, an identification number used by US Citizens.
"Social Security Cards Explained" - CGP Grey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erp8IAUouus
You'd file against your local bank based on the address of the branch you go to for an order to show cause hearing where they are tasked to show up and show cause as to why the transfer of money should go forward. You'd state the basic grounds of mistaken identity, propose a temporary restraining order barring any further action until the case is heard, and go to the court for a judge to sign the order and give instructions for service.
Once it gets on everyone's radar as a conflicting court proceeding (rather than a customer service complaint) they'd likely quickly get to the bottom of it.
It sounds really hard but it isn't, most courts in bigger cities at least will have an office where you can make an appointment to get free volunteer legal help.
Yes this will burn a couple slightly frustrating afternoons getting it together but it's eminimently possible to do, and an interesting exercise for the average person who enjoys learning how things work.
Well, responses on here vary from "sue the bank, it's their fault," to "contact/sue the LASD, it's their fault" to "contact the plaintiff's lawyers, they'll fix it" to "contact the defendant's lawyers, they'll pay for it or else."
So clearly, this is likely to cost more than a couple afternoons.
One day, a sheriff showed up at my home and confiscated my guns. Turns out some lunatic that I don't even know had filed a domestic abuse restraining order against me and the state I was in grants a temporary order by default. Took 2 months to resolve this and cost me about $6k in legal fees. Took several months to get my guns back.
While that's not the same as "you're not actually the guy named in the lawsuit", it illustrates how disruptive this kind of thing can be.
The middle ground is "notify the customer and freeze the accounts while they're responding".
Swap out "took my money" with "froze my account" in the article and 90% of the comments here would be identical.
One is an administrative hold that can be lifted by the bank. The other is an inter-bank transfer process that maybe has to go through the courts. The reason the person in this article has had such a hard time is that he has to convince more than just his bank that they screwed up because they don't have his money any more.
Unfortunately, this is the law in California. But it should be changed, because it's unconstitutional and it's not right.
The article very plainly describes how he was not notified until after the transfer of money already occurred.
The overall point is that courts are just another system with a ton of formal rules and procedures, but for the average programmer/hacker type it's really not that hard to learn the basics of how things work and make some headway.
People have a slightly irrational fear of the court system (only slightly irrational, it is terrifying) that tends to be paralyzing. Walking in the front door of the court and asking for help, plus a little online research, can help quite a bit. There's quite a few options available to your average smart citizen who wants to navigate it alone.
In the end, he couldn't find a single lawyer who was both qualified and interested in his case. Everybody was either out of their jurisdiction or uninterested in such a small case.
I know this because I recently filed a small claims case that included Chase as a defendant, and this was the process.
The small (<10k) amount of money makes this a bit difficult because that typically falls within the realm of small claims, and they don't move quickly with court dates. My hearing date was about 3 months after filing. Maybe there are special procedures for things that have to move quickly like this?
Yes that's what I'm proposing. I don't know CA specifically but in general courts have what's called a "special term" or an "ex parte part" or something similar. In that court a judge is sitting during the day and is available to sign orders that relate to exigent circumstances, which this would qualify for.
Typically you can file an OSC and/or a TRO and seek temporary relief while you make arrangements to actually begin a proper suit. It's very commonly used, for example to prevent a business partner from cleaning out an office full of jointly owned supplies, or preventing the auction of a property when there's a dispute over ownership.
It's very different from the long slow plodding process by which an actual court case proceeds. But it's applicable here since this isn't an actual court case, it's mistaken identity. Once it comes to everyone's attention formally, with a judge's order, it's almost certain to end right there.
But maybe the LASD didn't cite the SSN, but just the bank account that they had erroneously identified. But still, it's mind-boggling that they'd be so sloppy.
https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/consumer-complaint-database...
BofA ranks first by the total number of cases which is to be expected given their footprint. What's notable is that BofA has actually improved over time.
https://github.com/axibase/atsd-use-cases/blob/master/Consum...
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet.
If someone told me to call my lawyer I wouldn't know what to do. I don't have a lawyer. I don't know people who "have lawyers" or can recommend one. I met a lawyer once, I think, when I bought my previous house. I'd probably search online for "Lawyers in San Francisco" and pick one at random.
A lawyer to fight this costs a lot more than that. Also, there's another issue. What if that was his entire savings? Now he has $0 for a lawyer.
Sue the bank for the $3400 plus legal costs, fees associated with the loss of fluid assets, punitive charges, and mental anguish. This is a tens of thousands of dollars ask.
Sue the LASD and the LA county court for violations of the fourth, fifth, and sixth amendments. There was no due process against OP. OP's property was seized without warrant, trial, or even suspicion against OP. The OP had no access to trial or to legal representation but was separated from belongings. This is a multiple hundreds of thousands ask.
Someone will surely notice the wrong of $3400 plus legal costs and some interest and fees and settle before the tens and hundreds of thousands get in front of a judge.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/03/identity-the...
Left me thinking that people who give their children names like River Phoenix or Seven Costanza might be on to something.
Exploring the broken beaurocracy to retrieve your money is a game; when you finally send enough documents and certified letters to satisfy/scare the otherside it's extremely satisfying.
Not defending BofA, just saying your source material doesn't make the point you think it does.
It looks like the list items are there for different reasons, not all because they're big lenders who got bailed out. I clicked on Greater Kinston Credit Union[1]. Its reason for being on there is the 'Community Development Capital Initiative'[2].
Excerpt from [2]: 'designed to provide cheap financing to Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI): banks, thrifts or credit unions that operate in markets underserved by traditional financial institutions. The idea was that the banks would then lend that money to small businesses in their areas.'
That one sounds pretty benign (i.e. it's not "bailing out Too Big To Fail companies for crappy practices"--GKCU is a small credit union), so I think the list you posted is more nuanced than crappy Too Big To Fail bailout companies.
[1] https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/entities/936-greater... [2] https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/programs/13-communit...
If you want more government revenue, you should be pushing for more frequent bank bailouts.