FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Nov. 4, 2011
CONTACT: Davina Lynch (858) 880-8343
Protesters to Converge on Gaslamp Bank of America for “National Move Your Money Day”
SAN DIEGO—Several groups, including MoveOn.org, Veterans for Peace, the Gray Panthers, and Occupy San Diego will be holding a “Death of the American Dream” mock funeral outside of Gaslamp Bank of America, 455 Island Ave. at noon.
The rally is part of the national bank transfer day (www.banktransferday.org), in which customers are urged to move their money out of banks and into community credit unions.
“In part because of its 115 offshore tax havens, Bank of America paid no federal taxes for 2009, in spite of making $4.4 billion in profit, and they even got cash back from the government,” states protest organizer Davina Lynch. “That helped them to spend $11 million in campaign contributions and $24 million on lobbying. They will lay off 30,000 employees this year.”
Occupy San Diego protesters will begin marching from the Civic Center at 10:30am to converge with the Bank of America Protest as well.
“JPMorgan Chase bank admitted to overcharging 4,000 military families, and to erroneously foreclosing on others, though only after a marine sued them and NBC exposed their activities. Bank of America exhibited similar behavior,” states Lynch.
The protesters hope to encourage large numbers of people nationwide to transfer their money out of the big banks and into community credit unions so their money is invested back in their communities rather than going to executive salaries and bonuses.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Just like B of A charging for the debit transactions, Chase took away free checking accounts last year. So, I switched to Union Bank which still had free checking accounts…and promised me they would not start charging. Well, last week, they took away free checking accounts too. We all know that all banks will start charging to use your debit cards too. I refuse to pay money to use my own money!!!! I have been planning to start using a credit union, but they are not as geographically available and that makes me think twice.
The credit unions I’ve checked into have some partnership with 7-Elevens so you can use the ATMs at any of their stores with no charge. I recently opened an account with Cabrillo Credit Union because they advertise an option for EZ-Deposit where you can scan and deposit your checks through online banking (sort of like Chase does will with SmartPhone deposit). I usually only need to actually go to the bank once of month to deposit a few checks so I thought this might be the perfect solution for me.
I logged on to my “EBranch” kind of excited to do my first EZDeposit and was informed that my “account does not qualify at this time.” Okay, well, it’s a very new account so I called the phone number to see what’s up… Now they tell me it’s because I don’t have direct deposit… No word of that when I opened the account, I even spoke to them extensively about their online services and EZDeposit, and there is no mention of that requirement in any of the documentation. I will have a conversation with the branch manager tomorrow.
Patty, thanks for the info. And that’s the reason why I have to keep leaving banks….my job does NOT do direct deposit, otherwise I wouldn’t have to pay for a checking account…we all hardly write checks anymore anyways! But I still have to send one to my landlord..and a couple of others here and there.
I actually opened my credit union account WITHOUT getting any checks. I’m going to see how this works out for me because I pay all my bills online, even ones that want a check. Most online bill-pay set-ups will cut a check and send it for you.
And I too pay 98% of my bills online, have for years. But again…there are a few checks I still have to write, but not much. Will always have to send the landlord one..and there is just one or two like every other month. But again, a free checking account doesn’t care whether you write checks or not. If you don’t maintain a certain balance, which I’m unable to do, or don’t do direct deposit, which my work doesn’t…then I am getting charged to just basically KEEP my money in there so I can use a debit card!
I hear ya on all counts! I have a hard enough time maintaining any balance let alone a certain balance.
As far as I have read “most” credit unions offer free checking without direct deposit or a minimum balance, and others offer free checking with e-statements (which I get anyway, don’t need anymore paper to deal with). Point Loma credit union offers free checking with e-statements.
Thanks again Patty. I’m going to look into the Pt. Loma Credit Union.