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 Please remove any money you have with BOA and e-mail us the amount you’ve withdrawn.”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!