They should rename it Bank of A-holes!!!
San Francisco resident Matthew Shinnick tried to sell a pair of mountain bikes on Craigslist late last year. He attracted a buyer, received a check in the mail — and ended up handcuffed by police in a downtown Bank of America branch and jailed for almost 12 hours.
BofA calls the bizarre episode “an unfortunate series of events.”
Shinnick… stopped by a BofA branch near Union Square in early January. He said he asked a teller if sufficient funds existed in the BofA business account to cover the check.
“She said it was a valid account and that there were funds to cover it,” Shinnick recalled. “I said, ‘Great,’ and asked to cash the check.”
“A few minutes later, four SFPD officers came into the bank. They didn’t say a thing. They just kicked my legs apart and handcuffed me behind my back.”
In July, a San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled that Shinnick was innocent by “findings of fact” — a decision that essentially erases all record of the case.
But by this time, Shinnick said, he’d spent about $14,000 clearing his name. He wanted that money back and he felt BofA should pay it.
BofA felt otherwise. Earlier this month, a bank vice president, William Minnes, wrote to Shinnick’s lawyer to say that “Bank of America can certainly understand that your client is angry at the bank.”
However, he said, BofA has no legal liability in the case because of [a] 2004 Supreme Court ruling. Minnes warned that “litigation would not prove financially beneficial.”
Consumer talk show maven Clark Howard got interested in the case and is urging people to protest Bank of America’s indifference to Shinnick’s plight by taking their money out of BOA. “All he [Shinnick] and Clark asked was that BOA cover Matthew’s legal fees but BOA has refused…. Please remove any money you have with BOA and e-mail us the amount you’ve withdrawn.” He’s even got a “BOA Money Loss Meter” on his site you can check out. Gotta love Clark!
Once the bank reported to him that check was good, and was drawn on an active account with suffucient funds, there is no way in the world a jury would -or COULD- convict this guy of any wrongdoing
The check was never “drawn”, i.e., deposited or cashed.
The check was phony.
The account had been flagged.
The only thing the bank (allegedly) told him was that “it was a valid account and that there were funds to cover it”, but this was most likely just stalling, while waiting for the police to arrive.
My bank just got bought out by Bank of A-holemerica a couple of years ago. Since then the customer service has suffered, and they always come off like a bunch of idiots. Any day now, I’m gonna pull my teeny checking account outta there, and put it in the local Credit Union, where it belongs.
I had two favorite accounts with Fleet and MBNA bank.
They offered excellent customer service, reward programs and APR rates.
Both were acquired by BofA.
Service became humiliating. My interest increased on one account. Fees sky-rocketed. All of a sudden, I was one of millions and not a cherished customer.
I closed both accounts and I recommend you do the same.
Most annoying post awared (in my opinion) goes to Roc Rizzo who says that “any day now” he will pull his “teeny checking account” from Bank of America and put it “in the local Credit Union, where it belongs”.
Yes, thank you for your support Mr. Any Day Now. Glad to see that you’ve taken active steps to close your account over the last “couple of years” since your bank was bought by BOA and the quality of customer service dropped.
People who keep saying they are going to do something in protest and never actually do it are sooooo annoying.
Just my opinion. Either do it, or shut up.
This is insane, I’m going to find a good local bank next week.
Cigar Events Los Angeles
A similar incident happened to me some years ago. I received a check from a company which was in some financial difficulty at the time. I rushed to their bank, asked the same question, “was it good”, received the same answer, “yes, it’s a valid account with sufficient funds” and tried to cashed the check. Fifteen minutes later I’m still standing there while the clerk talks to several other people, all the while giving me surreptitious looks. They finally did cash the check. Long story short, I didn’t go there to scam the bank. I went there to make sure the check was good. If the bank had told me that it was not, I could have gone back to the people who gave it to me and gotten them to give me cash or a certified check. It turns out that a few hours later, the owner came in and closed the account (I had a felling that was going to happen, does that make my actions “like” a criminal). If I would have deposited it into my account I would have been SOL. I would have been responsible for the fees involved for depositing a bounced check as well as for all the checks that I might have bounced. My point being, there are all kinds of reasons people try to cash checks, I suspect most of them are legitimate.
Mr H. Fusion : at what point in the article does it say the cops didn’t follow protocol? ALl I read was the guy asked if there were sufficient funds, bank said yes, he tried to cash, and the bank called the cops on him for trying to cash a check from an account with insufficient funds. Even though he did the right thing and asked first, he didn’t try and cash it first. If anything BofA should realize they have yet another imbecilic policy that requires changing.
I left BofA a long time ago thanks to getting screwed over as a student. It was my sophomore year at the U of Texas, I was working as a cashier at a local grocery store, paid for rent, school and other stuff. Some company was trying to cash a check for $20. Best part, it was a check number zero, which is nonexistant. I never authorized any such check, and other than rent, tuition, books and credit card bills, I never wrote checks. And, all of those things were nowhere near the $20 zone.
I called the bank the first timeI saw the transaction on my online banking. I was transferred to the fraud dept, and I asked them to stop accepting transactions from that person and to give me back my $20 (the equivalent of $1000 at the time). They said they would research the issue and stop accepting that check, but no refund until after the investigation was complete.
Then over the next two weeks, over $500 worth of those checks were allowed through. I spent two weeks calling in sick to work, just so I could stay on hold with fraud to take care of it. In the meantime, legitimate checks I wrote were bouncing b/c of insufficient funds. Then there were the $35 times every bounced checks… all in all, I was out over $1000 by this point.
In the end, BofA refunded me $400 worth of the check #0s… but they refused to refund the insufficient funds fees b/c they felt it wasn’t their fault…even though their own records showed me calling them within 24 hours of the first check posting to my account asking them to stop payment on that and all future checks to that particular individual.
To this day I have never received my refund. It finally got to the point where I would lose more than $600 if I kept calling in sick to work, so I gave up…. had to pay tuition somehow.
I hope I live to see the day when someone pulls a “Fight Club” incident on BofA.
Guy: Took a cheque for goods, from stranger = fool or liar
Police: Arrested without reading rights = bad cops
Bank: all this bad P.R. over 14k = somebodys getting sacked
bad consumer, bad! u sit in jail and get stuck with giant legal fees and think about what youve done. trying to take money out of a bank instead of putting it in. that will teach ya!
seriously though, 14,000 dollars for his defense? his lawyer is laughing all the way to………..BOA!! but only if its after 10am and before 4pm. and not on the weekend.
I hate BoA too; but they did just the right thing and should not be held liable.
If a person carrying a phony check steps into a bank, calling the police is *just* what they should do. Sometiems phony chekcs ar given to a third person; but sometimes, the counterfeiter tries to cash on himself – so this guy was reasonably a suspect; if you don’t like the police treatment of suspects, deal with the police.
And on the public policy side, if a bank were made to pay $14K when they reported a $2K fraudelant check, then the bank, being good at math, would simply NOT call the police in similar fraudolant cases – which is just the opposite of what we as society want to see happen.
I had a BoA credit card (my first), and I finally closed it recently because BoA’s customer service was awful.
One time I scheduled an online payment to my credit card from my bank account. The payment bounced (I was a starving student), and I got charged $25. Ok, fine. But then a few hours later BoA tried to run the same payment through again and I got jacked another $25. I walked into the BoA down the street from my house, and the teller made me use a phone to call customer service. Customer service refused to refund my $25, even though I repeatedly told them that I had NOT authorized them to try charging me again. All to no avail. Oh, and this payment was scheduled before the due date, so I could have easily transferred some money and re-authorized the payment in time.
Now I have a credit card through my credit union, and I couldn’t be happier!
Since the article says nothong really. How about this senerio.
The bike seller was in what looks like the classic buy back scam. (Paid 2000 and asked to retun the change for a check that will not clear.) The seller goes to his bank to cash the check. The teller seeing the obvious scam can’t talk him out of cashing the check off his own account. The teller calls the police to try to explain the scam. The cop overreacts. The seller over reacts. BoA doesn’t feel like admiting liability. That is what it sounds like to me.
Easy solution – if you sell something, insist on cash or money order.
BofA likes to hide behind the fact that it is a ‘national’ bank. The key to getting at BofA is to file suit in federal court, not state courts. The states have no say over what the big banks do.
BofA used to be an upstanding bank, now it’s a shadow of itself since being bought out by North Carolina based Nations Bank.
Mr H. Fusion : at what point in the article does it say the cops didn’t follow protocol? ALl I read was the guy asked if there were sufficient funds, bank said yes, he tried to cash, and the bank called the cops on him for trying to cash a check from an account with insufficient funds. Even though he did the right thing and asked first, he didn’t try and cash it first. If anything BofA should realize they have yet another imbecilic policy that requires changing.
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Comment by M. Pancha — 9/22/2006 @ 7:53 pm
Maybe you should read the article first
“I saw him talking on the phone and staring at me,” Shinnick said. “A few minutes later, four SFPD officers came into the bank. They didn’t say a thing. They just kicked my legs apart and handcuffed me behind my back.”
The police report for Shinnick’s arrest says he was taken into custody “for the safety of the bank employees as well as the bank customers.”
Shinnick said he was never read his rights. He said he was instructed by one of the cops to keep his mouth shut and not say anything. Shinnick said he remained handcuffed in the bank lobby for about 45 minutes while the police spoke with BofA workers.
The Constitution of the United States of America,
Amendment IV.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
To this add the Miranda Warning as stipulated by the Supreme Court in 1966.
So, if you don’t get it, The Bank notified police which they are legally entitled to do. The Police arrested him without any evidence he had committed a crime. They did not read him his Miranda Rights. They did not allow him access to a lawyer. They did not follow protocol.
I’m sorry B of A shit on you. That is why Small Claims Court exists. If you want to roll over and allow the bank to rip you off, then go for it, but don’t blame others because you gave up so easily.
Somone being overpaid for an item and being asked to “send the difference back” to the check issuer is a common and well known scam. It has been happening on eBay for some time. As for going to the issuing institution to cash a check as opposed to ones own financial institution, nothing wrong there at all, and it is quite common because if your financial institution does not have prior cleared transactions on file from that check issuer, they will often hold the check to clear, depending on whom you are dealing with, between 5 to 14 business days. Would YOU want to wait that long to get your money? You want your payment NOW, go to the source. I cash the checks from my employer at his bank as opposed to my own all the time to avoid this inconvinience, and certainly no one has arrested me.
I had a BOA account a few years ago when they jipped me out of about $34 over a stop payment. I had about $11 in the bank when I checked my account and saw a transation from texas well being that I lived in NC at the time I called and asked about it. They told me they could do a stop payment on it and so I toldthem to do so. They failed to tell me that there was a $15 fee for doing so. So they stop payment charged me the $15 which put me in the hole $4 and then they charge me an overdraft of $30.
Yea now I owe them $34 instead of having the $11 I needed for gas in the first place. Got to love big banks.
I’ve just been screwed by BofA too. I deposited a check for $9000, which they put an “extended hold” on, meaning I get half my money after one week, and the other half a week later.
Yes, that is legal. But here are my two beefs.
1) The bank was drawn on a major money center bank (Chase Manhattan). These banks are connected well enough to verify the check immediately and shouldn’t require a hold. The teller told me as much, saying the funds cleared but for some reason the hold didn’t and that I should call customer service.
2) As you might expect, calling customer service was a nightmare. Rude, unhelpful droids that can do nothing but tell you information thats available on their online banking site. I had to resort to social engineering tactics to actually get at someone at Corporate in NC before things started moving. By the end of the Fiasco, I had senior people at Chase telling senior people at Bank of America that yes, the check is good, you can release the funds. You’d think that would be enough, right? Wrong. Although they did move a little (shortening the hold by one business day), I got a nice little lecture on how much they had gone out of the way for me and not to expect it again.
I havent gone ballistic on anyone there, yet, since I’m still waiting for the money, but I plan on devoting considerable resources to making their lives at least a little more painful once Im able to close out the account.
Along the way, I was given misinformation and outright lies. I had a senior person in the executive customer service department tell me that they are REQUIRED by the FDIC to hold the money for that duration of time. This is a bald-faced lie – the FDIC publishes MAXIMUM durations, of which bank of america chooses the largests, then refuses to budge, blindly quoting policy even when the original reason for the hold is resolved.
So, count me in. I had been a customer for about a decade, including a run in the late 90s when I got lucky with an IPO that made it, and kept obscene amounts of money with them. Once I’m closed out, I’ll give you the numbers, including a conservative forecast of what they will have lost by losing me, a number that I’m sure would be treated with much more respect by BofA execs than the condescention and rudeness I received.
As I read some of these posts I feel sorry for the state of America. So many people are missing the point.
So here goes…Guy gets check, guy presents check to BoA asking what he thinks are the right questions. Bank of America calls customer to find out if they issued a check to one Matthew Shinnick. Upon finding out that the check is a forgery the bank manager calls police who proceed to handcuff Mr. Shinnick. To this point there is no problem in my view other than the police could have handled some of this in a back room to avoid embarrassment to Mr. Shinnick.
At this point everything could have been cleared up and maybe the forgers could have been caught by a little good investigative work on the part of SFPD. Unfortunately, they are apparently incapable of investigative work.
The real point at issue though is that the “overzealous” bank manager pressed charges. That apparently is the point that most people are missing. If he had not done that, Mr. Shinnick wouldn’t have had to spend $14,000 in legal fees and we wouldn’t know the story. That is where the bank went wrong and should feel compelled morally to compensate Shinnick.
Is Matthew Shinnick gullible? Probably. Is that a crime that should cost him $14,000. I don’t think so. Bank of America is acting shamelessly by hiding behind case law instead of standing up for what’s right. Not to mention this is a public relations nightmare that has already cost them more than $14,000. I feel no sympathy for the bank. If you have an account there please close it.
I think B of A’s action prove how truly removed from reality really big corporations are, and one poster in particular is right- there is no more “goodwill” in business. I’m going to find a nice little local bank where they still employ people and not automatons.
Incidentally, for those of you claiming B of A has no responsibility, that they were just following protocol, that’s just a wimpy cop-out. It was the manager of the branch that pressed charges, and why didn’t the idiot teller do more to find out where the guy got the check, instead of inviting him to commit a felony by signing the back. Shame on Bank of America!
OK Guys, Can any one tell what Mr. Shinnik would have done differently to avoid this fiasco. Lets not question why he accepted a cheque for 2000 for a sale of 600. Assume for now that the sale was for $2000 and you needed the money immediately. You have a valid state issue ID you went to issuing bank. Again can any one suggest(no guess please) what should you do every time you go to a bank to cash a cheque to make sure you are able to return to your work and not to police custody.
Receiving a bad cheque is not a crime, its a victim of crime. Lets hear from others in this. Clark said Mr Shinnik did exactly as he would have done. That means every time you cash a cheque, you are at the risk of going JAIL. Ridiculous.
To those who say the bank didn’t do anything wrong, and the police are at fault:
The police arrested Shinnick based on information supplied by BOA. Shinnick was handcuffed for 45 minutes in the bank. During this time the police must have been talking to the bank about the facts. BOA influenced the arrest with faulty facts. You can’t blame the police for recieving faulty information from BOA. BANK OF AMERICA IS AT FAULT!!!
Personally, I think the bank should be nailed for setting this guy up; they LIED to him. Who is going to hold them to account for that one? I cancelled my card, will never do business with them, and never liked their card policies, anyway. I think tehy are less than honest in their promotions there, also.
There is probably not a blank immunity on the part of BoA — but you never know since these laws were written for and by these banks anyway. I would expect that an entity reporting possible crime should still pass a minimum test to make sure it’s not malicious prosecution, or wantant abuse. As reported, doesn’t the SFO police have some liability too?
Someone said that the “recourse is not against the Bank. They only did what they should have done. The wrong was done by Police who arrested him without cause.” This person is wrong…SFPD was only doing their job-who called them in the first place? It’s so very easy to blame the police, isn’t it?
I think too many people out there are watching CSI…So you expect the police (SFPD who deals with murders and rapes on a daily basis) to do, “a little good investigative work?” They rely on the bank employee’s for that. Wake up…there are more serious crimes out there that need to be dealt with. And for those who are not familiar with the penal code, guess what? the police HAVE to accept a citizen’s arrest…otherwise they are charged with a misdemeanor.
im somewhat in the same situation i received a check in the mail and i didnt have my liscense on me so my friend and i sighned it the told me they had to hold it for 9 days to verify it so they did and on the 9th day we withdrew it it cleared well a few weeks later they threw us both in jail i got bailed out but she is still in there i think that bank should be partially responsible for clearing it now were lookin at some serious charges
Here is my view on things:
Asking the teller if there is enough funds in the acct is different than asking if the check is valid.
According to the papers the man first went in asked the teller if there was enough funds in the account to cover a $2,000.00 check. Teller said “yes”
The man then handed over the check, the teller ran the check through the system an alert came up at that time that there was fraud on the acct. Concerned about that the teller did her job. She called the company to see if they wrote this check to the man in front of her (if they did he gets the money) They say no. That means it is not a valid check but fraud.
So the teller goes to manager, tells the manager what just took place. In the best interest of their customer (the company who owned the acct) the manager reports this to the police.
BOA did their job. End of Story!!!
Where the issue arises (again according to the papers)
Was when the police became involved.
The police never read the man his rights. They left him handcuffed in the front lobby in front of BOA customers for 45 mins while they took the report from the BOA staff. (this was the police doings not BOA)
The police should have put them man in the police car, took the names of the BOA employees and told them they needed to come down to the station to file a report against the man.
So if he is upset over the embarrassment he experienced, it would be at the fault of the criminal who wrote him the check and how the police chose to handle the situation upon their arrival, not the banks fault.
Also per the papers he admits to seeing red flags when receiving the check and saw it was $1.400.00 more than originally agreed upon, however he chose to cash it instead of asking the teller to verify if it was a good check.
Come on..who is going to pay you an extra $1,400.00 from a company acct for used bikes. Just for your time and niceness.
It kills me how the general public just doesn’t have common sense anymore (don’t know why we call it common sense, since no one really has it, its not so common any more..lol)
And no one wants to take responsibility for their own actions and continue to place the blame on others.
Well thank you for letting me voice my view on things. Gotta love America were we all are able to disagree with each other.
Oh on one last note:
As a victim of fraud on her own acct, I applaud BOA for doing a job well done. I wish my bank would have done the same and prevented my car, insurance and mortgage payments from being returned due to nsf since some fraud check cleared my acct and left me with nothing. It took 6 months for me to clear up with my bank it was fraud not me and to recover from all fees assessed from the fees for the bounce checks (from the companies who i wrote them to, the bank after i proved it was fraud refund all they assessed)
Here goes…
1. Matthew Shinnick = Idiot. Check for $2000 for $600 item? Give me a break!
2. SFPD = Poor procedure. Upon arrest for this crime (a felony which requires law enforcement to make a custodial arrest, read handcuffs and off to jail) defendant should be read his Mirand Warnings. (NOT Mirand RIGHTS) Telling him to “shut his mouth” is plain stupid. Let the defendant say whatever he wants AFTER Mirands. These statements are admissable in court as “Spontaneous Utterances” and can (and 99% of the time will) be used against a defendant.
3. BOA = Piss Poor Manager. The Law Enforcement Officers in question did what they were REQUIRED to do by law. The BOA manager could have averted the whole fiasco by simply talking to the defendant and making a judgement call at the time. To make matters worse he preferred (pressed) charges (and I suspect) knowing he was on shaky ground at best.
4. BOA public relations just took a MAJOR HIT. This has already cost them far beyond the $14k they could have made it go away for. They are now in a pissing contest and the more they piss in the wind the wetter they get.
Some of the comments on this board are terrible. It appears many of you didn’t even read the article. First. Bank of America answered the questions “Is it a valid account , Is there money in it to cover the check” truthfully .
2. The person was not a customer of the bank and had no account there. He was presenting the check on demand not asking to deposit it.
3. Passing a bad check is a crime. Once the facts were revealed the bank had nothing to do with it. “Did he try to pass a fraudulent check? yes. Do they know who he is? No. Did the bank protect their customer. Yes.
4, the alternative to taking him in to custody was to let him walk out of the bank with the evidence (check) and have no investigation at all unless the guy wants to cooperate with the police and the police want to turn thw whole thing and him over to the fraud department.
5. Shinnick claims he doesn’t even know who he was communicating with to sell the bikes. Is he covering something up?
6. The bank did not arrest him. The bank did not detain him and the bank had no obligation or right to detain, investigate or interogate him. Only the police could do that.
7. There is obviously much missing from what happened after Shinnick left the bank. That there was such a high bail and that he was booked instead of becoming an aid to the investigation makes one speculate but we only have Shinnicks story.
8 all this stuff about pressing charges and good will to the customer (which he was not) are not even germane to the story.
He was knowingly or unknowingly committing a crime. That was not for Bof A to determine. They did their job correctly.