By Cliff Montgomery – May 30th, 2012
For the right price, corporate lobbyists provide their clients with a political power only dreamed about by theaverage American. Bank of America (BoA) knows this all too well. Since 2007, Charlotte’s biggest bank hasspent about $ 4 million a year on federal lobbying efforts.
Now we probably don’t have to tell our readers what lobbying is really all about – even The Washington Post hasflatly referred to the practice as “influence peddling.” And surely no one is too surprised to read that BoA isworking to increase its political sway in the nation’s capitol during these unsure financial times.
But what’s not well known is that a number of BoA’s efforts have quietly concentrated on influencingimpending debt collection and privacy legislation, in ways that may be of great concern for the bank’scustomers.
BoA lobbyists are working to provide the bank with a real say on such bills as the Limiting Investor andowner Loss in Foreclosure Act of 2010 and the Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights Act of 2011, which ismeant “to establish a regulatory framework for the comprehensive protection of personal data for individualsunder the aegis of the Federal Trade Commission,” according to govtrack.us, a site which reports onCongressional actions and lawmakers.
Why has BoA become so interested in such legal matters? We can’t say for sure…but it may have somethingto do with the fact that in recent years, the bank may well have been acting in violation of current debtcollection and privacy laws – and thus won’t be too keen on seeing even tougher rules passed.
For instance, earlier this year a bankruptcy judge sent a clear message to BoA: “When your debtors go intobankruptcy, quit trying to get money out of them or you’ll be the one who ends up paying,” stated TheHuffington Post.
It turns out that Bank of America continued to call a certain debtor “an additional 38 times to ask about…outstanding payments” even “after the debtor filed for bankruptcy protection,” pointed out the news source.
It seems that the debtor “went into bankruptcy, then filed what’s known as a debtor’s discharge,” added TheHuffington Post. That filing is a legal injunction which protects the debtor from such collection actions as phonecalls and letters demanding payment to the creditor.
“The point of a debtor’s discharge is to offer a grace period while the debtor gets their finances in order,”continued the news source. But Charlotte’s biggest bank is not too keen on those ‘grace periods’. In March,the judge ordered BoA to pay $12,500 to the offended party.
And why is BoA worried about more privacy legislation? It may have something to do with the fact that in 2007,Bank of America had to shell out $14 million to settle a “class-action lawsuit involving alleged privacyviolations,” according to The San Francisco Chronicle.
“The case involves allegations that, for years, BoA made customers’ confidential info available to marketersand other third parties without letting people know and in violation of the bank’s own privacy policies,” statedthe Chronicle in 2007.
“Specifically, the lawsuit charged that BoA customers’ Social Security numbers, account numbers and othersensitive data were disclosed to ‘telemarketers, direct-mail marketers and other vendors’ in return for millions ofdollars in fees and commissions,” added the paper.
Now it’s impossible to know precisely what BoA lobbyists have said to members of Congress behind closeddoors. Lobbyist reports only reveal the most general issues under discussion with lawmakers.
But if a Big Bank indeed does make tidy sums of money from such illegal activities, it surely would work toweaken – and perhaps even eliminate – any further ‘burdensome legislation’ on those matters…and do awaywith many of the laws already on the books, too.
Such laws and legislation may be ‘burdensome’ for the bank – but for BoA customers, they appear to beessential legal protections. It seems many of them have already discovered that fact.
