Why Bank of America Fired me - Story from a collector

[TwixVoy]

Here is a video from a Bank of America collector fired this year for showing some compassion to people who were struggling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5E0WNO7e_Q&feature=player_embedded

[hedgehog]

1. My daughter's boy friend has a similar story to tell.

[Kansas Wyatt]

2. People like her are the ones who need to run this country.

President Obama should make her an adviser, and actually listen to her and act on her recommendations.

[varelse]

3. Wow - people need to see this

:kick:

[abelenkpe]

4. put it on

your facebook page, or whatever. I just did.

Definitely indicative of the times....

[Generic Other]

5. They can't pay her enough not to care

Workers all across the country in that kind of bind. She's an inspiration. Hope she lands on her feet.

[G_j]

6. she gets fired

they get bonuses

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. This has got to go viral.

How does one send a YouTube video to Alan Grayson, or Kucinich, or even Dodd?

k&r

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. Click on "Share" under the video screen

An e-mail form pops up.

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. Thanks.

[eridani]

22. They have "re-elect" pages with email addys on them

Their official congressional pages will generally only accept email from constituents.

[imdjh]

8. I have worked in a card call center, and can witness that every worker has these stories.

People quit my company, because they found the job to be morally unacceptable. I had one employee, a 22 year old man, quit. His reason, "I'm a Catholic. I can't treat people this way." That's integrity, more than I had. He was right- we treated people like crap. This wasn't collections, we were supposed to be nice to people. Half the time, the company wouldn't permit us to make things right. We were constantly told that some things (like outrageous interest rates) were "business decisions" as if that excuses anything that might pass under that title.

Well, now all that's offshore.

[AllentownJake]

11. On my facebook page

[blueredneck]

12. Sleep tight young lady.

Thanks for sharing that. Kudos to her for thinking outside the box. I hope she bounces back tremendously and goes on to run a successful corporation herself one day.

[rantormusing]

13. Bless her

There's something really wrong with this country, it's spiraling towards one of those generic corporate totalitarian future that we've seen in a movie or read in a book.

Heaven help us if things don't change, or if we can't turn this tide around. It can only get worse and more abusive.

There's still a lot more bankruptcy law that congress can still whittle away.

[Bette Noir]

29. "Rollerball" seems more and more prophetic every day.

[rantormusing]

52. Read

Stephen king's the running man

[UndertheOcean]

14. Beautiful !

[dysfunctional press]

15. i was a collector at the first national bank of our town during the raygun recession...

i finally had to quit, from the stress of dealing with all the crap.
i remember at an employee meeting, someone asked about the possibility of an 'incentive program' for employees, and one of the vice-presidents made the response that 'your incentive should be that there are 10 people out there who'd love to have your job.' and he wasn't making a joke.
worst job i EVER had.

except for some of the car repossessions...they could be downright fun.

[pipoman]

27. Speaking as a repossessor

for 20 years, having repossessed in the neighborhood of 12,000 vehicles...it was fun in my 20's, tolerable in my 30's, and unbearable in my 40's to the point of leaving a 20 year, well paying career in favor of human service at a tremendous pay cut..car repossession can be extremely heart wrenching. Will give one example, I have hundreds more.

Around 10 years ago I received an order on a mini van. I went to the given address and found it empty with legal notices on the door showing foreclosure and eviction of the debtor. I asked neighbors, they didn't know where the family of 4 had gone after the eviction and that the mini van was the family's only transportation, and the father had been laid off several months before from the aircraft industry. (this is the real job of a true repossessor.. finding people who don't want to be found..anyone can run out to a given address and remove the car from the driveway) I digress. I determined the school district that the elementary aged kids attended did not have bus service. I sat at the school one morning and waited for the van. It arrived, dropped the kids at school, then I followed the van 12 miles to a state park where the debtor parked beside a tent where the family was apparently living. The lender promptly told me to get the van....I did...how did the kids get home from school that day? How about back the next?..it ain't worth it for me..

[dysfunctional press]

40. i was in my 20's when i was doing it...

and like i said- 'some' of them could be downright fun- others, not so much...this was during the raygun recession, and there were a lot of horrible stories back then as well.

[Hatchling]

42. Ours was repossess in the early 80's.

We were dressed and heading out to work when we saw our little Toyota was gone. We called the police to report a theft and they told us it had been repo'd.

Imagine our distress because our payments were completely up to date!

We got it straightened out but the tow truck company still made us pay towing charges to get it back.:(

[dysfunctional press]

46. if your payments were up to date- you should have been able to file charges against someone...

for auto theft.
there's no way in hell that i would have paid any towing charges in that situation.

[Hatchling]

57. Looking back, I agree.

But we were really naive back then.

[Joanne98]

16. I posted it in videos. Please rec!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x407878

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. kicking

[debbierlus]

18. Kick & Recommend

[Bluebear]

19. "Customer service is a euphemism for the collection department" - :nodding:

[Mira]

20. K&R Horrible story - everyone needs to know this and get out of banks and

into Savings and Loans or Credit Unions.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

21. That is just idiotic,

Working with a debtor is just smart if your a creditor,

1. It reduces the probability of filing for bankruptcy, which will in most consumer situations leave unsecured creditors with nothing.
2. It resets the clock for the purposes of securing a judgment against a debtor, which in some states is as little as three years.
3. Most responsible debtors will with reasonable terms make good on all or a significant portion of their debt.

[Greyhound]

24. If they were running a traditional business you would be right, but as has been demonstrated,

BofA is "too big to fail" so there is no down-side risk to abusing employees or customers or even in breaking what few laws might apply to them.

This is a multi-national corporation born in crime who's losses are guaranteed/covered by the American taxpayer. They are literally above any laws, so why not squeeze as hard as possible?

[Bette Noir]

30. Not "born in crime."

The original founder, known as Papa Giannelli, if I recall correctly, walked the streets of San Francisco handing out money after the disastrous earthquake and fire of 1906. He expected repayment, but took it on faith. There were no forms filled out.

So, not "born in crime," although they certainly turned to the dark side at some point.

[katkat]

23. B of A

Decades ago I had a mortgage on which automatic payments came out of my Crocker Bank account. One month, B of A, which unbeknownst to me was doing the actual transfers (they were not the savings and loan that held my mortgage) screwed up and took the monthly payment out twice from every Crocker checking account. Heck, for all I know, every banks' accounts.

B of A's last word on a "fix" was to say the following month they'd not take that month's payment out. The people at Crocker processed all the checks in all those accounts by hand until then, so that people's checks wouldn't bounce.

Crocker got swallowed up by Wells Fargo, otherwise I'd have been a customer until my dying day.

[meow2u3]

25. "There's something evil about my job"

No, Ms. Ramos, there's something evil about your former company. Bank of America is organized crime, IMO.

[dixiegrrrrl]

26. Kicking

Brave woman...I hope it is contagious.

[Moosepoop]

28. Now they'll probably sue her for slander

since she named names publicly. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if the individuals she named file slander suits (with the attorneys/legal fees involved provided by BOA). I hope some ethical employer somewhere sees this video and offers her a decent job, even better if the job entails helping people in some way.

She's awesome, and she's my new heroine.

[laughingliberal]

53. Truth is a defense against slander or libel accusations in this country

Not so much in England where there is no right to free speech. But here it is. :)

[nuxvomica]

31. A very compelling story

She explains the issues simply and clearly. People who have been fortunate enough to stay out of either side of those turnip-bleeding situations may not even imagine that such policies exist because the policies don't make any sense. We often hear the moralistic argument that these customers shouldn't rack up so much debt in the first place but where is the moralistic argument about the bank policies that bleed people dry or the targeting of vulnerable demographics? But of course corporations aren't people so we haven't the same gut reaction to their immoral behavior.

[AllentownJake]

32. I posted this on my Facebook page

and a former co-worker from 5 years ago said yes, they are evil, I worked for them for 2 years.

[tilsammans]

33. What a principled and courageous young woman!

If there's still an ethical employer out there: Please hire her ASAP!

[NJCher]

34. I want to hug this young woman

She stood up for what was right.

On Mari333's thread CNN/Bimbo's thread, we have an instance of a female anchorperson perpetuating ageism and sexism. She could have stood up for what was right: she chose not to.

This young woman stood up for what was right and got fired.

There's a price to pay when doing right and that's why what she did called for courage.


Cher

[Roland99]

35. Corporations and the Public Interest

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Roland99/58

[The_Commonist]

36. "Don't deny for a second...

...that there are systematic practices put in place to keep America in debt."

[pmorlan1]

37. I hope she has a good lawyer

I hope she has a good lawyer because she's gonna need it when they sue her for revealing what they will call proprietary information. If they do sue her it would be really cool if every collector who works for Bank of America quits and becomes a witness for the defense. I know that won't happen but it would be nice if everyone stood up and fought these evil practices that so many credit card companies use to cheat their customers.

[Hansel]

41. She doesn't work for them anymore so they can't fire her again

and there really is no proprietary information exposed that is going to hurt BOA in any way that they can prove in a courtroom. Their collection policies are public information (since they are obligated by law to disclose them) and saying that they are heartless is pretty much already known. I don't think a jury in this country would side with BOA or their supervisors.

BOA is not going to give this story legs by suing her. They will just call her a disgruntled employee. In fact, I think the best thing for credit card customers would be for BOA to sue her and act like they are afraid of her and that what she says is credible. The backlash would be unbearable and likely put a stake in their heart. She's far too innocent and credible for them to fight.

[tomm2thumbs]

38. '... just following orders.'

if more people stood up for what is right and less for overt greed and dehumanizing treatment of others, this world might be in a little better shape than it is now.

and maybe even more than a little

[Hamlette]

39. the only thing in our society that keeps ppl in debt are stupid ppl who live beyond their means and

those who believe ppl who live beyond their means should not have to pay for it.

I have sympathy for ppl who charge necessities but for each one like that, there are a larger number who charge a new iPhone each year then want to walk away from the debt.

I have no sympathy for those people and the more sympathy we as a society show for those people the more junk we sell and most of it is on credit.

I know lots of ppl who work for or have worked for collection agencies/banks collecting on credit cards and they know what you charged. Each one tells me they will cut you some slack if its necessities but not if its bling on your card. They now tell me that they cannot forgive charges for ppl who purchased necessities because of the new law limiting how much they can charge. Now they have to go after everyone instead of letting those who abused the card pay a greater share. Yay for our team!

[Patiod]

51. I could afford whatever I put on my card at the 8% I contracted for

bling or food - but now I'm struggling to pay it when it was randomly raised to 30%.

I agree that people should have to pay their debts, and pay the interest they contracted for.

I've been excellent about paying on time (and still am), but a dispute with Macy's sent both my other cards to 30%. I didn't sign up for 30% and wouldn't have charged anything at 30%. Now I have to pay the balance at 30%, not 8%. Am doubling my usual payments to get them down quickly, but still stuck with 30% until I do.

[Hamlette]

58. your contract provided that the interst could be raised for any reason

The thought of paying interest drives me crazy, whether its 8% or 30%, I'm paying money to a bank and get nothing in return.

I have always lived within my means. When things got tight this recession an my husband's business went south, we just put off some things we'd been meaning to do. (Like fix the toilet in the guest bathroom. It's complicated in that we have to remodel the entire bathroom at a cost of $7,000. It's been broken for 3 years. We could take out a second mortgage but in my family, that's a sin.)

And speaking of being a fiscal conservative, did you know nearly 20% of your tax dollars go to pay interest in the national debt? I never complain about taxes but it rubs me the wrong way that so much goes to interest!

[laughingliberal]

54. We hope you enjoyed this word from our sponsor. We now return to regularly scheduled programming nt

[MadMaddie]

43. And this is one of the reasons I don 't bank there anymore!

[jackieramos]

44. thank you

Thank you guys for posting this. I am touched by the amount of people that have responded to my video. I am definitely not a disgruntled ex employee. I didn't bash anyone in my video. Instead, I just wanted to bring to light the practices of big banks, not just BOA. Hopefully this video gets enough attention so that congress will listen. Keep playing the video. Keep posting it. Write your congressman and write to Ken Lewis before December. Consumers have rights. We need to start protecting them.

[IdaBriggs]

45. Welcome to DU - and thank you!!! :) nt

[Moosepoop]

48. Welcome to DU, jackieramos, and I hope you stick around!!

No, you didn't bash anyone in the video -- you simply told the truth about the job you had. You did what was right, both before and after the loss of your job, and I meant what I said about you being my new heroine!

Would you be kind enough to do two things? I for one would be interested in knowing if you receive any blowback from BOA over this, and also in knowing when you have found new employment (so I can stop worrying!). :hug: I hope you post if/when these things occur.

[laughingliberal]

55. Thank you for your excellent video and principled stand

:applause: :applause: :applause: :bounce: :applause: :applause: :applause:

Welcome to DU!!!

[OneGrassRoot]

56. Yes, a huge welcome and thank you! :)

:hi:

[Kat45]

47. I got this going viral in fundie-land!

I put the video on my Facebook page, and I have a few fundie Facebook friends from another (non-political) email list. One of the fundies commented on the video, appalled by what she saw, and she posted it on her own Facebook page, which I'm sure is read by many of her fundie friends. This is the kind of story that can reach across the aisle.

[jackieramos]

49. wow

thanks a ton guys. lets get this story going viral. I will definitely keep you guys posted. i love love love message boards. its good to meet everyone :)

[Kat45]

50. It's great to meet you too.

Making that video was a terrific thing. People respond more when you put a face to it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

59. kicking for exposure and in support of our new DU member who made the video.

:hi: to jackieramos.
May you be blessed a 1,000 times over for your courage and for dong the right thing.

:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:

[redqueen]

60. Thanks for kicking this.

Wish I had seen it in time to rec.