Powder Blue Report: Bank of America Illegal Alien Credit Card Update

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Bank of America Illegal Alien Credit Card Update

...except for illegal aliens
I just spoke to a representative of Bank of America about their ridiculous new illegal alien credit card policy. There was nothing this poor guy could say to appease me. He said "a lot" of people have been calling today threatening to close their accounts and/or move their business to another bank. GOOD. He ended up giving me a snail mail address and a fax# to send a letter to. I don't know if this will have any impact, but all I know is that I'm not doing business with a company that not only is blatantly disregarding federal law, but also affecting the quality of life here in socal. Maybe someone could try to walk into a branch without any kind of ID and try to get one these credit cards. Heck, we should just burn out SS cards & drivers licenses. It's becoming obvious there is no need for them anymore. Here is a great comment thread from a USA Today article this morning, specifically:

All of you Bank of America customers call the number on the back of your ATM cards and push ZERO to speak to a customer service representative. Then ask to fill out a voice of the customer form. The representative will enter your comments and it will get mailed to the quality assurance & customer satisfaction department. The bank takes these forms very seriously. Lodge your complaint and make your voice ring loud and proud to Bank of America President Ken Lewis.

I believe this address is for California customers only, but I'm not sure. Here it is:

Bank of America
attn: Customer Relations
P.O Box 513609
Los Angeles,CA 90051

fax# (804)262-8160

14 Comments:

At 11:06 PM, Anonymous said…

I to am steamed about this! It is just another thing that makes it easier for illegals to get away with living here illegally. It helps legitimize illegals. Afterall, only illegals have trouble getting a valid social security number. B of A requires a deposit account in order to get the credit card. A deposit account can be obtained without a social security number by getting a taxpayer ID from the government. No credit history is required. B of A charges about 21% interest. B of A claims that they are following the guidelines of the Patriot Act. That may be true because the Democrats have weakened the Patriot Act as much as possible. A social security number should be required to open an account. Unfortunately, I doubt that enough customers will cancel their accounts to make up for the business B of A will gain from illegals. When illegals default on their credit card payments, that will raise the costs for the rest of us too.
At 11:28 PM, Anonymous said…

Lee. Get your facts straight. I'm not carrying any water for BofA other than they are in business to make money. Something conservatives claim as the sole purpose of being.

But whomever has these accounts can not default on them. They have to have funds in place that establish their credit line. As long as they have funds in place they can't charge more than that amount.

Your usual blabber about Dems weakening the Patriot Act is pretty funny considering they've only been in the congressional majority a little more than a month.

Do you actually believe what you're saying? Or do you just make it up as you go along?
At 12:40 AM, Anonymous said…

Fred, as usual you are mouthing off and trying to blame conservatives for what liberals do. Claiming that conservatives think the sole purpose of being is to make money is your usual self-serving oversimplification. That is spelled B---S. If you are anywhere near as knowledgeable as you claim, you know that last year the idiot Dems tried their darnest to weaken the Patriot Act. I don’t care if everyone knows what library books I check out! Since Republicans had only a narrow majority in the last House of Representatives, as usually happens with a narrow majority they could not get everything they wanted passed because few Dems would put the country above their overblown privacy and rights concerns. According to a financial reporter that I heard, by opening a $99 deposit account they could get a credit card limit of $500. Many people with credit cards never pay their bills off and the credit card companies end up writing them off. Then the rest of us pay more because of it. Stop making all your excuses for illegals just because you think you can import more Dems this way. I wonder if you are really as thick-headed as you sound. You really need to get over the fact that President Bush TWICE beat what you think were superior candidates. I’m about done wasting my time trying to educate someone that sees only some of the trees in the forest and doesn’t want to see the forest as a whole.
At 8:00 AM, Anonymous said…

Lee. I heard a different story. That's okay. I like your rants anyway.

Having worked in the banking industry for several years (above the branch level) I can assure you this move wouldn't be getting done if it hasn't been looked at six ways from Sunday. And I can assure the analyses have been done that give it a great chance of being profitable. Contrary to what you may think, banks aren't in the business of giving money away.

And Lee. Do you live in the past? You keep brining up Bush's two wins. Yup he won. Fair and square. But looking at the numbers for those committed to logic and organization would reveal he lost the popular vote in the first election, and won by a whopping 2.5% in the second. The narrowest margin of victory for an incumbent since Harding. I'm not sure but you can look it up since I don't care. Regardless. His two wins are hardly resounding victories.

What we saw in the midterm elections was the equivalent of someone getting fired. Now we are watching him clean out his desk.

And if conservatives felt that strongly about the Patriot Act they could've ignored the dems and the people who are concerned about the government snooping into every private detail of one's life. Conservatives claim to revere the Constitution and then are willing to just give those rights away at the drop of a hat. Yet another paradox in their philosophy.

And now since your attacks on me have become personal, I am even more convinced your ideas are bankrupt.

Thanks.
At 12:51 PM, Dan Chmielewski said…

Fred's right Lee. Argue on facts and the merit of those facts. But start calling someone names and its so playground.

Thanks for correcting your poorly written headline or typographical error; if Allan can come up with a way that we can edit our comments, I can correct my typo before your blood pressure goes up.

Lee, Liberals and Dems haven't weakened the Patriot Act; they have been in power for 6 weeks. Your arguement has no basis in fact.
At 11:05 PM, Anonymous said…

I’m sure that B of A has done a lot of analysis on the pros & cons of this program. That is a normal way to do business. Wells Fargo & Citibank also do this. There also is a program where those without social security numbers can get mortgages. As I said earlier, I doubt that enough customers will cancel their accounts to make up for the business B of A will gain from illegals. However, that doesn’t make it right! According to the LA Times, Wells Fargo has opened over 1 million accounts for Mexicans without social security numbers since 2001 using matricular consular ID cards. They also accept Guatemalan, Argentine & Colombian ID cards. 23 million $ was sent to Mexico in remittances in 2006. This is Mexico’s #2 source of foreign exchange topped only by petroleum sales. Illegals with bank accounts often get cheaper rates on remittances and mortgages.

Liberals keep making a big deal out of Democrats picking up some seats in the 2006 election. It is hardly unusual for the president’s party to lose seats in an off year election. I think it is an average of 30 seats the president’s party typically loses. A change of 16 seats in 2008 would make it evenly divided. 2002 was a big exception for Republicans. We actually picked up seats. That is one reason Carl Rove was such a big hero. So Democrats should stop patting themselves on the back as if it is an earthshaking event. Voters are notorious for impatience when wars aren’t going well. Bush may have won both presidential elections by a small margin but that is better than losing like Dems did.

Dan, pay attention! I clearly said above, “last year the idiot Dems tried their darnest to weaken the Patriot Act.” Don’t use the new congress as an excuse. The Patriot Act was renewed last year but apparently you are not knowledgeable enough to know that. It is time to start watching FOX NEWS to get the truth instead of the slanted message your liberal channels give.
At 12:54 AM, Anonymous said…

Hey Lee. You say we're lucky Bush won. Can you name one aspect of this administration's policies that are going well?

Foreign policy....um no.
Domestic policy....um no.
Fiscal policy....um no.

Where is the great success other than propping up the economy with billions of borrowed dollars?
At 10:30 AM, Anonymous said…

Economy...........….......um YES
Lower Taxes...............um YES
Domestic policy............um YES
Fiscal policy.........….....um YES
Stopping Terrorism.......um YES
Nominating good judges......um YES
Strengthening the deadbeat bankruptcy laws...…..um YES
Putting a backbone back into our foreign policy....um YES
No oral sex in Oval Office (no Monicas).....…......um YES

Again, you are getting off topic. This was about illegal aliens.
At 11:24 AM, Anonymous said…

Well lets take these one at a time.

Economy...........….......um YES
Easy to do when borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars
Job creation under Clinton was far greater and with a
balanced budget.

Lower Taxes...............um YES
Irresponsible considering the massive increases in spending.

Domestic policy............um YES
Considering this thread is about illegal immigration
I guess you've changed your mind about illegal
immigration since that would be
considered a facet of domestic policy

Fiscal policy.........….....um YES
See posts on Economy and Taxation

Stopping Terrorism.......um YES
What has he personally stopped. The latest
NIE details our policy in Iraq has become a
training ground for terrorists. Well done.

Nominating good judges......um YES
Matter of opinion. I'll give you a pass.

Strengthening the deadbeat bankruptcy laws...…..um YES
Didn't realize this was an issue of such pressing concern. Show me
where the fate of the Republic hanged in the balance?

Putting a backbone back into our foreign policy....um YES
And now we are involved in a war where there are few if any good
options. All the while our brave men and women are dying or being
maimed and is either emptying the national treasury or placing us
more and more at the beck and call of those holding our debt. i.e. The Chinese,
Japanese, Taiwanese, etc.

No oral sex in Oval Office (no Monicas).....…......um YES
Didn't realize you were so interested in the private affairs of
individuals. Is there something lacking in your life you want
to tell us about? Like when was the last time you got oral sex?
Or sex at all for that matter.
But here's the paradox. I always thought conservatives held
the belief that an individual's private life was no one else's business.
Yet they spent years and $70M with their faces glued to Clinton's pants.
Can you explain that paradox Lee.? It confuses me still.

Lee. I like your world. Can you tell me where it is? I'd like to live in a place devoid of any semblance of reality.
At 1:19 PM, Anonymous said…

Here you go Lee. More evidence of a successful foreign policy.

Billions of dollars wasted in Iraq and counting

Wanna bet some of those missing dollars were funneled to insurgents to buy weapons used against our troops? You'd be a fool to take it. And it means the US taxpayer is funding both sides of the war with borrowed cash.

Explain with your traits of organization and logic how this can be considered anything remotely successful.
At 10:34 PM, Dan Chmielewski said…

Lee -- you are assuming that voters will balance the books and elect Republicans; by your own claim, Dems should pick up another 30 seats.

Lee, might I suggest you visit a site called www.newshounds.us which fact checks Fox News on a regular basis.

And for someone so critical of my spelling errors and typos, it's Karl Rove... with a K and not a C. His nickname is Turd Blossum and that's from W.

Economy -- yeah, we're doing so well that Chrysler has to lay off 13,000 people.
Lower Taxes -- only for the wealthy.
Domestic Policy -- those people in New Orleans would surely agree wouldn't they?
Stopping Terrorism -- the troops stationed in Iraq would disagree with you. The number one draw for Terrorism is W's failed policies in Iraq.
Nominating good judges -- yeah, that Harriet Myers should have been a shoo in. I'm always amazed that you don't mind judges legislating from the bench if its conservative issues being legislated from the bench (Terri Schaivo).
No oral sex in the Oval Office; maybe we should get W an intern because Bill Clinton presided over the longest boom market in ou nations history, had an incredible record for job growth and job creation (good jobs at good wages), we had a budget surplus, we actually consulted with the GOP on judicial appointments, and the last time I checked, W was in charge on 9/11.
At 11:52 PM, Anonymous said…

Fortunately, I have never had any problems with banks to write so long comments. Best of luck for all of you!
At 9:54 PM, Anonymous said…

to the cretan defending sex in the oval office. Apparently liberals are suddenly all in favor of sex in the work place. However, that is not a place of 'privacy'. The president Blabbing on the phone to heads of state while his head is already 'on hold' doesn't help this country. Take your so-called privacy nasty comments and keep them to yourself. The clod was impeached for lying about it. Oh gee, why? if it is so okay for him to be doing it. He's a rapist, and a pervert. On record forever....impeached sorry excuse for President, Husband, Commander in Chief, Governor, father, or anything else ....ta da. On history docs forever HA HA HA.
At 7:17 PM, Anonymous said…

I have been a B of A customer for over 40 years but I cannot stay with a bank that caters to illegals. I live in the middle of the illegal invasion and know just what it has done to my community and my state.
I am going in Monday and closing all my accounts and I intend to tell them why. I hope others do the same.