Bank of America changes it’s name to Bank of Tommy “The Shark” Martorano.

Ohhhhh if I had some good PhotoShop skills I would have really done a number with the picture below and the Bank of America picture.  Bank of America, consider yourself lucky. 

My wife who banks with Bank of America had her interest rate nearly double for no apparent reason a few months ago.  She has good credit, pays on time, and pays more than the minimum.  She  immediately called them and their answer was something to the affect of, we see that your debt-to-income ratio is out of whack.  Hmm, so you see that someone’s ability to repay their debt could be hampered by their existing additional debts and you decide to double their interest rate?  I fail to see how that would help the situation.  The other issue is her debt-to-income ratio is skewed since they’re not taking into account that she’s married and it’s not just her income it’s both of our incomes that support our household. 

After having my interest rates jacked recently (more on that later), I recently revisited the issue and asked myself.  How would Bank of America know what her debt-to-income ratio is without pulling her credit report?  Something they wouldn’t have been authorized to do without some sort of credit application.  Well folks I now know what they’re doing.  Apparently we requested a personal loan to consolidate debt into one payment at which time they run a credit report.  That loan was approved with a ridiculous interest rate and we subsequently declined that offer fearing we might bump into this loan shark in a dark alley and have our knee caps broken.  What they’re doing is taking the information they have on file (in this case, the loan application done months before the credit card interest rate was nearly doubled) and using it against you.  Wow.  That’s some sneaky shit and quite frankly unfair, because again as I stated in my aforementioned paragraph they’re not taking into account that she lives in a married household with dual incomes.  Not to mention the um, you know, the fact that she pays on time, more than the minimum payment.

I had long vowed to never do business with Bank of America regardless of the fact that you could find a Bank of America ATM in your crack dealer’s basement if you wanted.  I had heard horror stories about them for a long time and I never liked their affinity for sodomizing hard working Americans while having the audacity to call themselves Bank of America.  Somehow implying they’re somehow the bank for the people.  But then again, Black folks have always been weary of a bank who’s logo shares the same colors as the confederate flag correlating them with rape, inequality, and oppression.  Ok that was a bit much right?  But it’s true.  Bank of America is doing  just that.  Raping customer’s ass holes, paying executives tons of money while hurting the middle class (inequality), and oppressing the middle class by continuing to hike interest rates for no valid reason other than they can.

In fairness (because you know how important it is to me to report the news fairly, right).  Bank of America allows you to decline the credit card hike, thus allowing you to pay existing credit card debt under the same interest rate as long as you don’t make any more charges on the card going forward.  Essentially your card/account will be closed once it’s paid.  But they’re so caring they actually leave the card activated and working for you just in case you decide you must have something.  This way if you do make a charge to the card they can immediately assume you’re interested in keeping the card, you’ve essentially reaccepted the interest terms, and jack your interest rate back up while you pay off the card.

More recently I’ve had my credit card interest rates jacked up by Chase and some other bank who’s name I can’t even recall.  Same situation, they’re just looking to fuck the average Joe by any means necessary to recover from those defaulting mortgages for which they should have known would default in the first place.  I mean come on, you gave the guy sweeping the floor at Dunkin Donuts a $700,000 mortgage and called it “exotic financing” by pulling tricks like ARM and interest only loans.  My idea of exotic isn’t living in a shelter in two years which is exactly what’s happened to millions of now ex-homeowners. 

For those who don’t know a big reason we’re in a recession is because of the housing market.  Remember not long ago the housing market was booming!  Why?  Because people were buying homes left and right.  Why?  Because the Wells Fargo and Countrywide mortgages of the world would get you financed for $700,000 homes when they knew you wouldn’t be able to afford it when that adjustable rate changed, or that interest only loan caught up to you.  It’s called predatory lending and my wife and I know first hand.  Luckily for us we were educated consumers and knew the difference between a 30-year fixed rate vs. an ARM or interest only.  But that didn’t stop the lenders from trying to shove it down our throat.  One lender (the biggest loser in the whole housing bubble burst), Countrywide actually refused to give us a GFE (Good Faith Estimate) for a 30-year fixed interest rate.  He insisted we go with an ARM even though our credit was good, and we knew we could get a low fixed interest rate.  It mattered to him because they got bonuses for predatory lending.  We ended up telling him to go fuck himself and left his office.  Same situation with Wells Fargo.  We couldn’t believe it.  They were trying to talk us into $500,000 loans by going with an ARM or interest only loan when we KNEW that’s not what we wanted.  We wanted $300,000 and a fixed rate.  Now look at the millions of American’s who got FUCKED because they either didn’t know better and got taken by big corporations, or tried to live above their means.

Now these same corporations want to double dick the consumer by now saying we’re jacking up all those credit card interest rates to make up for defaulting home loans.  Oh, and we’ll take that bail-out money too Mr. Obama and continue to pay top dollar to our executives. 

So again, in fairness to Bank of America, they aren’t doing anything other banks aren’t doing, they were simply on the cutting-edge of consumer sodomy.  They were hiking interest rates before the other banks had even thought about it.  Now other banks are following suit jacking up rates ahead of congress passing new credit card legislation that would essentially put a number of regulations on when and how credit card issuers can increase interest rates.  It’s a very positive measure but banks simply decided to jack those rates up before the new measure goes into effect.  The feds however are trying to backdate the measure to May.  This means any bank who jacked up interest rates after May (around the time this legislation was introduced) would be forced to retroactively comply even though the effective date might not be until Dec. 1st.

That helps for some who have multiple credit cards.  But as I previously stated, Bank of America clearly saw this coming before May and had already started hiking interest rates.  Those cunts strike again! 

Don’t forget to stay tuned next week.  Be sure to subscribe to my blog!  The more people I see the more I tend to want to write more.