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How Bank of America Gave Away My Money

soraven.com

81–90 of 261 posts

Re: How Bank of America Gave Away My Money

#81
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 professio…

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.

Re: How Bank of America Gave Away My Money

#82
post #59

They have failed to pay back billions, much less $3k. Do not do business with any organization on this list: https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list

All TARP funds were paid back with interest. From a revenue standpoint, the government should bail out banks more often.

what?

Re: How Bank of America Gave Away My Money

#83
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got a bonus 5k in my account once because a deposit was off by one digit. The bank was very prompt in taking their money back :)

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.

Re: How Bank of America Gave Away My Money

#84

He should be calling up the plaintiff's lawyers, not BOA. Lawyers don't want to collect only to have to give it back. Find out who they are and call them. Any other attorneys involved as well. Once they have proof the money should not be given out, any ethical attorney would be very wary of handing out money. It's also likely the money will be sitting in the trust account of an attorney before it actually gets disper…

Not bad, contact the defendants attorney in writing, then inform them that you will be notifying the bar as well

No need to wait that long, just call them and say you'll fax over the proof. Lawyers don't want to be a party to a lawsuit later over a few thousand dollars if they might clearly lose it.

They will keep some of his money as fees and give some out to clients, so then if they can't get it back from clients, depending on the rules, they might have to come up with it all themselves. No regular attorney wants that, nor do they want the hassle.

Just call them all up and say this money isn't from one of the defendants, it's an accidental transfer from an unrelated third party and they will be getting it back.

Re: How Bank of America Gave Away My Money

#85
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this ever happens in the US it really​ won't matter where​ your savings are.

In USA, if savings are under your mattress, they are protected by 2nd Amendment...

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..

Re: How Bank of America Gave Away My Money

#86
The error was committed by the LASD, their response here is wrong:

A few minutes later, she came back with the bad news. “Why didn’t you call earlier? It’s too late for us to withdraw the request. The money was already sent to the court! You need to go down to the courthouse and ask them to show you the court documents.”

It is not his problem what they did with the money, they took it from him plain and simple. The error was on their part and how they correct it on the other end is their problem.

Back in the day when people use MCI for some of their phone services , I got an adder to my phone bill from ATT (my carrier) for a charge attributed to a John Fox. I called ATT a couple times and pointed out that I'm not John Fox and they tried to tell me to call MCI. MCI used their LEC billing agreement to have ATT collect the fee. At some point I explained that I was not an MCI customer, had no relationship with them and that ATT had actually charged this fee to me, which is incorrect - how they wanted to deal with MCI or John Fox was their problem. They credited my account and I never heard about John Fox again.

EDIT: Actually the comment below by CLPX is better - the bank did this, they took his money and it is THEIR problem not the LASD. My point remains somewhat valid, it's not your problem to chase the money after someone wrongly took it - it's their problem. The bank didn't do a decent job of verification - they went on a partial name match alone apparently (no SSN, no account number, WTF).

Re: How Bank of America Gave Away My Money

#87

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.

Re: How Bank of America Gave Away My Money

#88
post #55
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 professio…

I'm ... shockingly interested in this bank letter ghostwriting thing. Could you say more?

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.

Re: How Bank of America Gave Away My Money

#89
post #25

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 f…

> 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.

Re: How Bank of America Gave Away My Money

#90

If everyone on this thread tweeted his story, he'll get his money back. In the age of social media, the only effective tool we have against corporations is public shaming.

I've found it's best not to get involved in that kind of mob justice when you don't necessarily know all the details.

This case seems pretty legit, but you never know when someone is leaving out important parts of the story that change things entirely!

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