Bank of America Gestapo Tactics

I just had an incredibly distasteful experience at Bank of America (go figure). I attempted to cash a $200 check from the city, a BoA account, and was told I had to pay a $6 fee “unless I wanted to open an account”. That bit of extortion was galling enough, but I was in a rush so I reluctantly agreed.

The real trouble started when the teller pulled out an ink pad and demanded a fingerprint. I drew the line here, and frankly I’m horrified this has slipped under the radar. An ostensibly private financial conglomerate with unknown motives and a questionable security history is being allowed to collect fingerprints from U.S. citizens? Unacceptable. Perhaps if they were facilitating a transaction between a pair of third parties - but they were refusing to cash one of their own checks, written by a municipal client, no less.

Resolution: I refused to be fingerprinted, they refused to honor their check, I walked out. I will deposit my check in my bank instead, and Bank of America will never see a dime of my future business. Perhaps I’ve lost here, but I refuse to relent to what amounts to corporate extortion and invasion of privacy by an embarrasment of a bank that is now a ward of the state.