corporate greed

Bank of America gets the spot light now. Ken Lewis raises your rates, find out what you can do about it. By the way Ken, your slogan “Higher Standards”, we hope the rest of the industry doesn’t follow your lead. We encourage comments from the executives at B of A.

Bank of America Criminals
OK Bank of America it’s your turn to face the music. Last week we grilled Wells Fargo for their deleterious acts on consumers as far as raising interest rates, now we would like to put the spot light on Bank of America. We would also like to add some visual aide in this week’s article of raising interest rates by corporate criminals.
“Boosting profits” through consumer gouging! B of A is using an industry wide tactic that is common place for creating the “Recession Cushion.” MSN money has a great article with consumer feedback on exactly what is going on over there in Bank of America’s little world. Another informative site with a lot of the same user comments is, themoneyblogs.com. Now back to basics, as of 15:46 ET 17 Apr 2008 B of A is trading at +0.14 (+0.58%), not too shabby. Another item to report is their quarterly gains.

As you can see B of A has seen a sharp drop in their profits, but is not showing in the red yet. Now let’s take a look at CitiFinancial’s chart and do a comparison.

By looking at these two charts it would be fair to say Citi is doing much worse than B of A. Bank of America was at least showing a net profit.
All right Ken, you have been in a position of power for quite some time. Have you forgotten business is all about the consumer and not the “bottom line”? From your history we see you have held a position in upper management since 1988(1). So it’s understandable (maybe) that you have forgotten your customer service skills. But, we will remind you that your customers who can, will dump you as a lender and will not forget how you have stole their money through unfair business practices. It is also fair to say that you do not experience massive interest rate hikes as you are a man in power that is also extremely overpaid. Ken, how can you justify taking $24,844,040 for a yearly salary(2), while your customers are struggling to pay debt on a credit card that now has a 24% interest rate? Ken, another question for you is, if you are so concerned for the company not to take huge loss due to the current recession, why don’t you cut back on waste? Let’s give an example shall we, last year B of A paid $117,180 to its top 7 executives for tax preparation. Why don’t you top 7 employees pay for your own tax work and roll that money back into the company? No, 117k will not do much when dealing with a multi-billion dollar conglomerate, but this is just one example of waste. For a more graphical expierence take a look at Forbes, Last year Ken won top honors for CEO compensation.

We now need to look into the future for you the consumer who holds a B of A credit card. If you have not yet received an “amended agreement” from B of A chances are you will if your debt on your card is close to the maximum limit. Let’s discuss why. Ken and the team are in the middle of acquiring Country Wide(3) the world’s largest mortgage lender. As foreclosures increase, B of A’s net income will decrease. You will pick up the tab as this endeavor flounders before it rebounds. In previous articles we have talked about the consumers options in dealing with these extraneous debts. As another option we would like to point out, when you get your amended agreement notify them you will opt to not use your card or account so that you can keep the current interest rate. Furthermore, notify your senate committee even if you achieve a locked low rate. Your senate acts on behalf of the bigger voice, not necessarily the biggest wallet. Here is an example letter that was sent. Good luck to you all who have been effected, and Ken remember the consumers will have the final say.

1. http://www.businessweek.com/bw50/2005/executive/BAC.htm
2. http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/70858/000119312508060591/ddef14a.htm#toc79615_21b
3. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/business/12bank.html?_r=1&oref=slogin