Stoopid 'R Us

[xela]

I accidentally became a Bank of America customer a couple of years ago when they bought MBNA, with which I had a Visa card. I prefer not to do business with megacorps, and especially when it comes to banking, where I have always been very happy with my small local bank. But BoA has been fine as a credit card provider; their website has failed to conspicuously suck; and I have occasionally considered opening a checking account with them for the convenience of always having a no-fee ATM within spitting distance.

So when I signed on to look at my credit card statement the other day and saw they were offering me $75 to open a no-fee, no minimum balance checking account, I decided to go for it.
A few clicks and a couple of checkboxes later, I get to the application form (image reduced to 2/3 size):



Now the first thing I noticed was the "We also recommend" section, with the savings account checkbox conveniently pre-selected. I also noted that the savings account is not no-fee, no minimum balance. So I unchecked it, filled out the rest of the form, and clicked submit:



The resultant error page has, you will note, a big red exclamation point next to my email address fields.¹ Fields that were pre-filled by the server in the first place, with the email address of my existing account. You may also note that, without drawing any attention to it, the error page has the savings account checkbox, which I had unchecked, auto-checked again.

I uncheck the savings account checkbox, carefully type my email address, copy-paste it into to both fields, click submit again.

And hey, what do you know, I get exactly the same error. Lather, rinse, repeat, and by now I'm pretty sure I know what's going on: My "error" isn't my email address: it's that I'm trying to take advantage of the offer as stated, for a free checking account, without also signing on for the fee-if-you-don't-jump-throuth-hoops savings account.

Nickle-and-dime sleaziness form a megabank? Say it ain't so!

It ain't so.

I decide that for $75 I'm willing to go to the hassle of complying with the minimum requirements to make the savings account no-fee, so I resubmit without changing anything.

The error page comes back. At which point I remember Hanlon's Law:

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

I try a shorter email address, at mit.edu: error page.

I try a gmail.com address: success.

I can only assume that BoA has hired programmers so stupid that they only consider .com email addresses valid.

---

¹ Since this is a public post, I've erased my phone number: the email address is disposable; my phone number isn't. Aside from scaling, that's the only change I made to either screen shot.

Comments

[crs.livejournal.com]

Downside of posting this is, now, if you get spam at that address, you can't blame them...

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

Right, but that's a calculated risk, and if it happens all I have to do create a new address and redirect that one to /dev/null.

[gardenfey.livejournal.com]

It's worse than that. We have a credit card that was taken over by BOA also. We just got a letter that told us that they were re-issuing our card because there was a potential security breach and private information may have been released.

I am so through with this bank.

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

For reasons I fail to understand, when a retailer has a security breach, credit card companies send their customers this sort of passive-voice notification and a new card; it's hard to tell from your summary but I'm guessing that's what this is about. I'd have a lot more respect for a bank that sent me mail saying "Because TJ Maxx's network is run by imbeciles, your credit card number has been stolen, so we have to issue you a new one."

[gardenfey.livejournal.com]

I had assumed it was the bank's fault because I haven't shopped at the infiltrated stores in a long time. Though now that I think about it, I don't know the dates that the data was stolen from.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

Stay with them.

You got a letter.

Me, I got nothing. My husband too.

http://awfief.livejournal.com/550416.html

Just turned off, we had to call customer service to find out the card had been deactivated. Oh, and they can't turn off just the credit card part, so we couldn't use it in an ATM.

They used next-day mail to send out new cards. Or so they said. Tony got his the next day. Mine came a week later. And we both use it many times per day.

[mama-pipa.livejournal.com]

I have a bank that did just this. For which I am very happy.

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

May I ask which bank?

[mama-pipa.livejournal.com]

SchwabBank (Yes I am a corporate slut and bank with my own company)

[eccentrific.livejournal.com]

I just opened up a BoA account myself. My mit.edu address worked fine, but I did it in person. I don't like starting that kind of business relationship over the web.

And on the plus side, by doing it in person I got free checking and savings and checks. The customer service person who opened my account signed me up for the spiffy account and then put in a waiver to avoid fees. I think that's a sign that business has been slow because of the economy....

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

> My mit.edu address worked fine....

Yeah; I'm sure the problem is in the web form's address-checking. Especially given that the form was autofilled with the address I use with my existing boa account.