What happens if Bank Of America goes under?

[Karloff]

Thanks for the list. The ones in my area are mostly very small, with only a couple of locations (none really that close to my house). Ironically, I have a BOA branch literally across the street from me, but the service there has always been mediocre at best, and deplorable most of the times, with extremely long waiting times and rude employees.

I'm not sure about using a credit union in the sense that they do not seem to offer all the web conveniences that the big banks offer (perhaps I am wrong there... I'm going "by the looks of it" alone). Most of their web interfaces are extremely rudimentary, in fact. That is why I like TD Bank: they are not really big and not really small, but have a nice package of features and convenience, plus they open 7 days a week, and up til 8PM 3 times a week. Plus, if you travel to Canada (like I do often) you get free ATM access since they are owned by TD Canada Trust. But I'd love to hear from folks here who perhaps are familiar with them before making a final decision.

Also, anybody else here feel uncomfortable with how the whole web outage was handled by BOA and are thinking of switching somewhere else?

 

[Texas Proud]

I meant if the "s... hits the fan" for BOA and they go under, require a bailout, or something similar happens and the government nor the FDIC are able to cover the deposits in a timely manner (which they wouldn't, since they estimate that BOF has about $1 Trillion in deposits). I do have some cash in the house for emergencies plus about 200 ounces of precious metals in the form of coins (mostly silver) for the rest. But I do not feel comfortable with six figures worth of cash "under the mattress", so to speak.

I think that you are worried about nothing.... there are a lot of assets that back up BofA and it is not a loss of $1 trillion....

WAMU had almost $200 billion and it was handled easily... not to say that it would be that easy for BofA, just that I do not think that getting access to your money would be a problem... IOW, your checks would not bounce and you could get money out of the ATM etc...


But, I do agree that I would not want to have a lot of money in a large bank like this only because of their low interest...


Also, TD is in the FDIC, so if they can't handle a BofA and the rest start to fall, you are still in the same pickle....

 

[Texas Proud]

Thanks for the list. The ones in my are are mostly very small, with only a couple of locations (none really that close to my house). Ironically, I have a BOA branch literally across the street from me, but the service there has always been mediocre at best, and deplorable most of the times, with extremely long waiting times and rude employees.

I'm not sure about using a credit union in the sense that they do not seem to offer all the web conveniences that the big banks offer (perhaps I am wrong there... I'm going "by the looks of it" alone). Most of their web interfaces are extremely rudimentary, in fact. That is why I like TD Bank: they are not really big and not really small, but have a nice package of features and convenience, plus they open 7 days a week, and up til 8PM 3 times a week. Plus, if you travel to Canada (like I do often) you get free ATM access since they are owned by TD Canada Trust. But I'd love to hear from folks here who perhaps are familiar with them before making a final decision.

Also, anybody else here feel uncomfortable with how the whole web outage was handled by BOA and are thinking of switching somewhere else?

I did not hear about the outage, but if my bank was out for 5 days I would be looking to move to another one... even if it were not in trouble...

 

[Karloff]

I did not hear about the outage, but if my bank was out for 5 days I would be looking to move to another one... even if it were not in trouble...

Google "BOA site down" for October 2011. Lots of theories abound (from a hacker attack to heavy web traffic due to people cancelling accounts after the new fees went into effect), but no clear answers from their officials.

 

[Surfdaddy]

If B of A goes under, we'd have one less huge corrupt corporation floating around.

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

I have used TD Canada Trust for about ten years, when I was working in Canada. I found them quite satisfactory. The Canadian operation has a nice personal web access with many functions, including bill paying and tax paying. I do not know what the US operation has.

 

[l2ridehd]

In Florida I would consider BB&T. Doing some research into banks with less exposure to overseas debt and has decent reserves with what seem to be lower fees, they come out fairly well. They have coverage through out the South East up through Maryland. So far it looks like a well run mid size bank with a good balance sheet. One downside is they charge for ATM use at a different bank. But I have a Schwab cash card as well so I don't get hit there.

 

[rescueme]

I do not know what the US operation has.

24-hour phone support from Regis Philbin?

 

[Katsmeow]

We did recently close our BOA account. When we had a mortgage with BOA we had free checking. When we sold that house, we closed some accounts at BOA and switched to a lower services account that supposedly had free checking with a $3000 balance. We moved most of our money that we keep in the bank to Chase. (We also have an account at a credit union).

After a couple of months, we recently had BOA charge us a $25 monthly account service fee on the $3000 balance account. This was with no warning whatsoever (yes, I checked all the statements I had received). My husband went in to ask them to reverse the charge and to change the account to a $1500 required balance, no interest account which would have no monthly service fee. To his surprise, they refused to reverse the charge. Their position was that the fee should have been charged for the last 3 months and that the person who had said there would be no service fee for a $3000 minimum balance had been wrong and that they didn't have to tell us in advance there would be a fee charged. They said that lots of people hadn't been properly charged fees and were all being charged and basically we should be happy that we received two months of free checking (never mind the fact that we wouldn't have had the account at any point had we thought it would have a $25 a month fee!). The customer service on this was so awful that DH closed the account on the spot.

For the OP -- I don't know anything about the specific bank you are asking about. I guess if I had the concerns that you have I would make sure I don't go over the FDIC limit and would attempt to find a bank that wasn't a huge bank so if it failed the FDIC would have no difficulty dealing with the problem.

For me, I don't like to keep 6 figures in a bank so it isn't that big a concern, but I do split the cash between Chase and a credit union.

 

[Dawg52]

Google "BOA site down" for October 2011. Lots of theories abound (from a hacker attack to heavy web traffic due to people cancelling accounts after the new fees went into effect), but no clear answers from their officials.

Breaking news..............BOA just hired Peggy. Good times are coming.

Peggy - Customer Service - Bobby Bowden - YouTube

 

[Helen]

What happens if Bank Of America goes under?

An angel will get its wings.

 

[obgyn65]

If BoA goes under, I do nothing since none of my savings are with them (I only have a checking account + credit card with BoA). However, if Edward Jones goes under, that's a different story in my case...

If you have an account with BOA, what are YOU thinking of doing?

 

[clifp]

An angel will get its wings.

 

[jerome len]

Last week DW visited our B of A branch and felt good about leaving our money at the bank. Here's why: 1st of all we're a gold account and if you have a 6 figure account with them you should be too.......no debit charges. Secondly, your money should be equally insured, confirm it with them. Third, with a minimum balance you'll still have free checking.......that's nice as well. So.......all said and done, no reason for us to switch. On the other hand, if you have very little in the bank, you'll probably pay increased charges wherever you do branch, in person banking. Probably better deals with internet banking but we still need our safe deposit box, notary services, etc so we're as happy with B of A as we have ever been.

 

[Texas Proud]

Last week DW visited our B of A branch and felt good about leaving our money at the bank. Here's why: 1st of all we're a gold account and if you have a 6 figure account with them you should be too.......no debit charges. Secondly, your money should be equally insured, confirm it with them. Third, with a minimum balance you'll still have free checking.......that's nice as well. So.......all said and done, no reason for us to switch. On the other hand, if you have very little in the bank, you'll probably pay increased charges wherever you do branch, in person banking. Probably better deals with internet banking but we still need our safe deposit box, notary services, etc so we're as happy with B of A as we have ever been.

Why would I ever want to leave a 6 figure balance at any bank


All money under the limit is insured no matter the bank, so that means nothing.

The minimum balance for free checking is still high.... and does that mean free debit I really don't know.

But, if my bank started to charge me these kind of fees I would be leaving them. And if they made me tie up my money, I would be leaving them. To many options to be held hostage by a bank.