Announcing "A Month Without VISA"

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Our protest against Bank of America continues as we reach more and more people and educate them about the prudence of withdrawing their money from this abusive bank. I can't thank those of you who have participated in the Bank of America protest enough. You should all pat yourselves on the back for doing a great job!

So, while the Bank of America protest wages on, we're going to take on the next evil giant, VISA USA. For the month of July, we're putting away our VISA cards - in drawers, in safes and safety deposit boxes, under our mattresses, or buried in the back yard if necessary. Some VISA victims may choose to cut their cards into little pieces. Go ahead! Good work!

So why are we cutting the cord to VISA for the month? Well, let's look at VISA's history. To start with, VISA is the demon-spawn of Bank of America. VISA was born in 1958 as the BankAmericard. By the mid-60's BofA began licensing the BankAmericard to banks outside of the BofA network, distributing over 100 million unsolicited cards to bank customers and non-customers alike and creating economic and civic havoc - which they did apologize for. The Feds put a stop to the distribution of unsolicited credit cards as a result. In 1970, BofA relinquished control of the BankAmericard and the issuing banks created their own independent financial corporation around the card. This independent corporation was a closed-door operation. It had no investors from the public sector, and it was not traded on the stock market. This would give BankAmericard additional power by making them untouchable.

In 1975, the various and sundry BankAmericard brands (which included Chargex, Barclaycard, and Carte Bleue) were united under the new name VISA. In ensuing years, the VISA Corporation, like its unholy parent Bank of America, would adopt aggressive advertising and marketing schemes to build its business to be the largest in the world, and then turn around and start stabbing its merchant base in the back. In 1996 VISA was sued by Wal-Mart, Sears, Safeway, Circuit City, and The Limited for market manipulation and conspiring with MasterCard to violate US antitrust laws. The case dragged on until 2003 when VISA and MasterCard settled out of court. Immediately after, VISA cut a deal with all major banks West of the Mississippi to drop MasterCard products and carry only VISA. In exchange for doing this, VISA would provide enough plastic to give every checking account holder in the West a free (read: unsolicited) Debit Card - with the VISA logo on it. For a period of a few years, it was impossible for Americans in the Western US to acquire a MasterCard through their local banks.

There they go, raising that specter of antitrust again. Won't they ever learn?

Also during this period immediately following the class action settlement, VISA redlined the internet, declaring certain classes of internet merchants as "high risk" - regardless of whether individual sites had demonstrated a chargeback risk or not - and giving them 30 days to fork over in excess of $700 per each domain (and another $375 each year thereafter in addition to transaction fees) to maintain the VISA service for which they had been paying nothing up to then. This was clearly a move to strong-arm the small internet business owner into shelling out even more of his profits in order to defray VISA's own penalty for abusive behavior. VISA cards were being used in roughly 70% of all online transactions and VISA knew they could muscle the extra money out of these online merchants who would be afraid of losing significant revenue if they dumped VISA.

And how do you show your contrition for your abusive behavior? Well, by abusing the next sucker you can find, that's how - at least according to the Book of VISA. Messing with the big retail corporations backfired because they have big legal departments. Not so with the little guy. He's much easier to push around. And push is exactly what VISA did so that it wouldn't have to look itself in the mirror and face its own corruption.

Next VISA USA exercised more of its muscle by mandating that their logo and the VISA name could not be displayed on such sites (even in the payment area), and that excessive chargebacks would result in termination of the paid service (the exact number of chargebacks which would define "excessive" was never disclosed to the merchants even when asked point blank). VISA then ruled that merchants are forbidden to add a surcharge onto VISA transactions to offset the cost of the service, and any language that is used on the site that VISA determines unkind to the corporation will result in immediate termination of the service. Furthermore, the credit card giant also gave itself power to control content on the sites that used the VISA service, again using racketeering practices to force webmasters to edit and censor their own material or face termination.

And you thought they were just a credit card agency. Ha! They also fancy themselves as a censorship bureau and moral police too.

In the last few years, banks have been slowly re-introducing the MasterCard brand to their credit card offerings, perhaps to avoid charges of collusion and antitrust with the Demon of Debt, VISA. But once again, as in the earliest days of the BankAmericard, the saturation of the market with VISA cards and the willingness of the banks to put VISA branded cards into the hands of anyone with a checking account has taken its toll on the economy. Now, issuing banks, backed up by the weight and power of the VISA Corporation, are raping the people they hooked on their "plastic heroin" - charging ever increasing interest rates to their customers regardless of re-payment record, lowering purchasing limits, destroying credit scores, and bullying the very people that gave them the power to begin with. Sound familiar?

VISA is a loan shark. A mobster. A racketeer. A monopolizer. A manipulator. And a charlatan. For every time they throw a little money (YOUR money, may I remind you) toward the Olympics, or planting a tree in a city park, or other such unnecessary but nice gestures, they con a whole new set of people into believing that they are indeed the Good Guys. The "winning team." And who doesn't want to be associated with the winning team? But it's all just a paper smile pasted over the face of Satan. Membership may have its rewards, but they go mostly to a select few at the top of the VISA dungheap. Meanwhile you pay dearly.

A Month Without VISA is a protest designed not only to reduce the flow of money to the "too big to care" company, but also to help wean you off of the VISA addiction they have instilled in you. We will help you break your dependence on plastic while reminding you that ANY company that punishes you for doing business with it, whether you are the consumer or the merchant, isn't worthy of your loyalty or your money.

There are alternatives to VISA. There are other credit cards, obviously, and they can pretty much all be used as widely as VISA. And there's my favorite VISA replacement: CA$H. Cold hard cash. If it was good enough for my grandparents it's good enough for me. And merchants will appreciate your giving them cash. They don't have to pay someone else a fee to accept it so it creates a higher margin of profit for the owners of your favorite stores.

My barber has a sign in his shop: "Credit Makes Enemies. Let's Be Friends". Good words to live by. Start being friendlier on July 1, and put your VISA cards away. Continue to pay off your debt to VISA, but don't incur any further debt on your VISA card for the entire month. You'll feel good about yourself once you see how easy it is... and I should know. I stopped the co-dependency ride with VISA years ago (when the banks colluded with VISA and ditched MasterCard) and I couldn't be happier. It's time our nation learns it can be emancipated from the wretched clutches of the VISA Corporation. Like the banks, it only has the power of our money if WE give it to them. So let's don't.

Join the protest, "A Month Without VISA" and tell everybody you know to join too. Chances are everybody you know has a VISA card. Chances also are they can learn to live as happy a life without it. I have!

VISA is a four-letter word

Protesters Give Bank of America Exec What He Deserves

Over the weekend, a group of approximately 500 NPA and SEIU protesters, armed with signs and bullhorns, converged on the front lawn of Bank of America lobbyist Greg Baer and demonstrated their anger toward the giant evil bank. And, it has been reported that DC police actually escorted the busloads of protesters to Mr. Baer's address. Brilliant!

Apparently, Baer's teenage son was the only one home at the time, and the peaceful protesting frightened the poor little rich kid so much that he barricaded himself in the bathroom and phoned his daddy to rescue him from the demonstrators. Of course, the kid could have opened a window or the door and told the gatherers that the target of their protest was not home, and asked them to leave. But he didn't. Poor little gutless child of privilege...!

The protest has incited the voices of the more conservative among us, who are likening the event to some sort of union terrorism. One of these voices, Greg Hedgepath, states, "Here you have thug unions that have no interest in the people they represent at all. They are only interested state maintained pensions. A bailout is what they are after. " What Hedgepath fails to acknowledge is that the banks that these unions are protesting have done exactly what he's accusing the so-called "thug unions" of having just done. The banks have demonstrated no interest in the very customers who have made them ungodly rich; they are only interested in the multi-million dollar bonuses they can give themselves; and they GOT a bailout (which did nothing to help or benefit the taxpaying public as a result).

Well, as they say, payback is a bitch. Perhaps the conservative bloggers who are vocalizing their opposition to groups of citizens gathering on the lawns of the very same people who caused the economy to tank, who are responsible for doling out bad loans and then collecting on them through foreclosure, and who, like Greg Baer, have taken our money to go to Capitol Hill and prevent legislation that would benefit the general public, are doing so because they are afraid of the backlash that may be heading their way. I don't think that a backlash against Wall Street is unwarranted. In fact, I think it's well-deserved.

Unlike in Greece, where unions have reacted violently against the targets of their anger, the NPA/SEIU protesters were peaceful (albeit perhaps loud). They wore t-shirts with the message "Put People First / Take Back Our Democracy" and brandished hand-painted signs with slogans like "Reclaim America" and "Hold Banks Accountable". They chanted "Bank of America, Bad for America" and shared their personal stories of the bank's abuses via a bullhorn. Far as I can tell, nobody set fire to anything, broke windows, held the banker's candy-ass kid hostage, bombed the Baer's house, tried to enter the domicile, or did anything remotely violent. And they returned to their caravan after Baer returned home to coddle his Little Lord Fauntleroy and asked the protesters to leave. Even so, Hedgepath and his right-wing blogging cronies are accusing the demonstrators of being thugs. THUGS! Do they even know what that word means?

According to the dictionary, a "thug" is:

1) A cutthroat or ruffian; a hoodlum. A tough and violent man, esp a criminal. A violent, brutal person

or

2) One of a band of professional assassins formerly active in northern India who worshiped Kali and offered their victims to her. (Historical Terms) (sometimes capital) (formerly) a member of an organization of robbers and assassins in India who typically strangled their victims.

Sorry Mr. Hedgepath and others of your ilk, but the 'thug' shoe doesn't fit here.

What I think is most important is that the voices of the right wing are conveniently neglecting that the banks have pushed hard-working Americans right to the brink, and now those with their backs against the wall are fighting back - by taking their money away from the banks that have abused them, and by protesting. So far, protests at the banks have yielded imperceptible results. Is it surprising that the protesters are taking their battle to the front yards of the enemy? Not to me. I think it's not only about time, it's completely appropriate. We SHOULD protest these goons where they live. We SHOULD publicly humiliate them. We SHOULD be vocal about our unrest. Their selfish and greedy actions have harmed an unprecedented number of families and ruined the economies of many countries. Did they expect there would be no backlash? Did they think we would not fight back?

If protesting them at the office does not result in the change of practice the public demands; if the lawmakers are unable to resist the bribes people like (alleged 'lifelong Democrat') Greg Baer offer them; and if Wall Street continues brushing aside the requests of the President, the People have no choice but to protest - loudly, and in the front lawns of the perpetrators. Wall Street has only itself to blame for the crushing anxiety that grips this nation. Not only for causing it, but also for perpetuating it. So many Americans are desperately trying to pay for the overpriced homes they bought before it all crashed down, yet the banksters are enjoying a million-dollar property boom in their playland of the Hamptons - fueled by the enormous bonuses they received last year (LA Times article, 5-22-10: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hamptons-bonuses-20100522,0,1217672.story), despite President Obama's request that such bonuses be reeled in. Clearly, while the country crumbles around them as a direct result of the things they have done, the Wall Street racketeers are continuing to revel in the spoils of their - er, I mean OUR - money.

Greg Baer and his fellow goons need to remember this: Actions have consequences. What they do runs completely against what is best for the masses. There is a strong penalty to be paid, not only by the mob bosses on Wall Street, but also by those like lifelong Democrat Greg Baer who prostitute themselves to said mob bosses and schmooze Congress in order to block bank reform. The People are angry. Banks should count their blessings that we are not violent. I for one do not promote, nor do I condone, violence. And if it were within my power I would free the world of all of our violent actions. But I cannot do that, and I cannot predict the future. However I do understand the nature of people, and if injustices persist to the point no option is left, people do eventually resort to violence as they historically always have. If the financial industry wants to prevent the kind of retaliatory anarchy that has gripped Greece in recent times it needs to change NOW while the American people are still willing to demonstrate peacefully.

In the mean time, I think we SHOULD continue to gather and protest - in front of the banks AND in the executives' front lawns. Public humiliation needs a renaissance. Keep organizing, my friends. Keep pulling your money out of the banks, keep sending your letters and making your phone calls, keep distributing the Proclamation Of Required Change, keep encouraging your friends, families, and co-workers to participate in these protests, and above all, keep a sense of humor about this. Use your anger to drive your efforts to effect change, but don't lose sight of the humorous side of sticking the knife into the banks and their prostitutes (figuratively speaking, of course) and turning it.

Peace and bullhorns,

JQA

No More Mr. Nice Guy

Bank Of America Fails in Adopting PROC-7. Customers Are Urged To Close Accounts.

That’s right folks. After 90 days of our attempts to coerce Bank of America to change its policy from one of greed to one of gratitude, the bank has failed to take action of any sort. In short, Bank of America has now clearly told us through its inaction that it does not care about its customers, our wishes, or our individual or collective well being.

All we have asked the bank to do is end its predatory practices and give back to the community it has robbed, especially now as we all try to work our way through the hard economic times that Bank of America had a significant role in creating. They have shown no remorse for their recklessness, nor for their greed-fueled practices. The billions upon billions of dollars they have wrested from our accounts are apparently not sufficient to them, as they continue to exploit us for our money. And to add insult to injury, Bank of America has produced a new line of television commercials filled with partial truths in order that they may try to win over a new crop of suckers. I call these commercials “TOC’s” as they are nothing more than Truckloads Of Crap.

Q) So what now?

A) Well, I do not believe PROC-7 to be a failed endeavor. I believe we did not reach enough people in time for the 90 day deadline, which I originally thought would provide sufficient time for us to rally the support we needed. Apparently not. But that’s OK. The Proclamation is out there, and there’s no reason we need to extend the deadline. Bank of America knows it exists. The time period for Bank of America to comply is now passed. They failed to meet us even part way by the deadline. There is no grace period, therefore we bail.

You see, we do have to be people of our word. The original Proclamation allowed that, should Bank of America do the right thing and start adopting the demands in PROC-7 within the 90 day period, we would reward them by returning our business and our money to them, otherwise we would take our financial support elsewhere. They did not, and thus we are no longer obliged to return our funds to them.

Bye-bye BofA! You had your chance and you blew it.

Over the last 3 months a few people told me they thought that it was too much work to dangle our cash in front of them like carrots to get them to change their evil ways. (too much work???) Instead they said they would rather pull their money out of BofA’s vaults and be done with the corrupt institution once and for all. Well, that may or may not have worked against our movement. I don't know. But now that Bank of America has clearly confirmed that they do not have any intention of changing their abusive policies, we who have been holding small sums of money in the bank pending the outcome of this experiment may now close our accounts.

Please do this right away. And please also continue to spread the word that the thieves running Bank of America have no desire to make banking with them a pleasurable and mutually beneficial experience. Please implore all of your friends, relatives, and acquaintances to close their accounts. And, please also encourage them to deliver copies of the new proclamation when they close those accounts. PROC-7 is not dead. We’re just going to have to play hardball with it. A revised version of PROC-7 will be posted shortly, which will contain more demands without any further deadlines. It will also be more generic so that you and your acquaintances may use it with any bank, not just Bank of America.

The banks as a whole, including all of Wall Street, must learn to respect us. They must learn that there is great value in respecting us, even if it means that their respect for us is borne of the fear that we can destroy their industry if we get angry enough. We have only begun to tap our collective power here. I fully believe that an ongoing campaign to withdraw our money from the corporate banks will eventually have a positive outcome for us all. For those of you who have been sitting on the sidelines and haven’t pulled your support from Bank of America, I must ask… how much more proof do you need that the bank is a corrupt organization hell bent on bleeding you dry? Are you seriously OK with supporting the obscenely lush lifestyles of your bank’s execs and investors while they would rather you have to eat mac ‘n cheese from now until you die? Would you really rather be in debt to these people for the rest of your natural life? Or would you rather have more of your earned money in your pockets so that you could enjoy the things and experiences YOU want in your life? The power to change things lies squarely in your hands. Go from being victim to victor. We’re here to help you. Close your Bank of America account today so we all can share a more prosperous future tomorrow.

Oh, and when you do get around to closing your BofA accounts, please give them the new Proclamation if the spirit moves you. Repetition is, after all, the mother of learning.

Something to think about. Wall Street vs Wall Pee

While I was writing a reply to Jim, a commenter to my last post, a thought occurred to me. We had been discussing the real John Quincy Adams' favoring of a national bank that regulated the currency. In my reply I mentioned that I believe what I am doing within this protest is helping each visitor reintroduce himself and herself to our forgotten power. By doing this I hope that our culture can become more aware and diligent against those who prey on others, and self-reliant enough to do away with the need for another government botched agency.

And that's when it hit me... the realization that sexual predators (including but not limited to the crimes of rape, sexual assault, child molestation, looking at naked pictures, taking pictures of your children naked in the bath, and urinating in public) are sentenced for the crime, do their prison or home imprisonment time and community service, and then are forced to register and be restricted for life. This was running in my head alongside the simultaneous realization:

Financial predators are pardoned, forgiven, and rewarded.

We have a problem here.

First of all, have the banks not symbolically raped the general public repeatedly and relentlessly? Has this not had a corrosive and damaging effect on our society? Have they not preyed on those with less advantage, and created the means to trip the customer up and rape him some more?

Wall Street executives are every bit as dangerous to our society as - at the very least - the guy who is serving a lifetime sentence as a sexual offender because he got caught peeing on a wall. Yes, the profiteers in the whole economic meltdown are every bit as dangerous and criminal as the wall-pee-guy. Honestly, I think more so.

Wall Pee. That's funny.

So think about it. As states like Illinois prepare to pass even more over-reaching, restrictive and debasing laws to punish those labeled as sex offenders, should we perhaps call for the same iron clad punishment for the greedy financial predators on Wall Pee... er, I mean Wall Street?

If I can find a way to set up a poll on here I'll ask you to vote on this.

When you need a little chuckle in your day, remember: Wall pee.

Congress Fails Us Again!

My Fellow Americans, Congress has once again let us down by not passing the bank reform bill. No surprises there. Haven't I been telling you all along that Congress is so heavily influenced by Wall Street that they would be incapable of standing up against the banks and legislating in our favor?

THIS IS WHY WE MUST ACT IMMEDIATELY and stop expecting politicians to do what is necessary for us. OUR PLAN CANNOT FAIL if we act together. Money - OUR MONEY - is our only voice against Wall Street. Money is the only language those people understand. Therefore we must take our money away from the banks until they VOLUNTARILY change the criminal policies that caused our economy to tank. Because of PROC-7 they now know what they can do to win our confidence back. If they fail because of their own greed and stubbornness, then they fail. Boo hoo.

As a result of Congress stalling its bank reform bill (which is rather tame compared to the bill I would have written), the banks will still continue with "business as usual." Congress COULD have imposed a stop-gap measure that would have restricted banks from engaging in their riskiest behaviors until they could work out the finer points, but they didn't. The House and Senate have failed us once again. And the banks remain untouched, still able to continue poisoning our economy with bad deals, and still able to rape our pocketbooks for as long as it takes Congress to get over itself and get the job done. I don't see that day coming any time soon.

With each passing day the bank CEO's will get richer and We, the bank's customers, will get poorer. Let's show Congress how useless they are to us, and how real Americans get things done. Let's show the banks and Congress that WE MEAN BUSINESS. It's OUR money and we demand the banks use it in accordance with OUR rules, not theirs.

Now get out there and yank your funds from Bank of America. And don't forget the Proclamation...

Three Words That Equal Resolution

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have three words that can very quickly help you reach resolution with Bank of America:

Better Business Bureau

I wrote to the Better Business Bureau over the weekend and filed a complaint with them against Bank Of America Corporate Headquarters in North Carolina. The complaint was regarding the excessive fees the bank had assessed me, and which since August of last year I had been requesting the bank return to me after discovering that the bank's associates had lied to me about provisions in my account that would have allowed me the waiver of one fee. It was the refusal to waive their newest nuisance fee (called the extended overdraft fee) that ultimately turned an $11.13 overdraft into almost $200 on NSF fees. And it is this situation and the immense difficulty I was experiencing in getting the reversal of these fees that started me on the mission to change the way the banks in this country operate.

It is now three days following my complaint with the BBB, and this morning I received a phone call from the executive level. It seems that in reviewing my account the bank finally determined that the bank had indeed made an error, and - long story short - refunded all of the fees back to my account.

Wow. That only took 7 months.

The BBB gives Bank of America an A+ rating. I sure as hell couldn't see why (I told the BBB I give them an "F" - and you know what that stands for). After all, B of A had been anything BUT willing to refund any of the fees it collected, and I was mishandled and treated rudely in the process. Now it seems that Bank of America is very protective of their A+ rating (also understand that it pays the BBB dues to maintain this rating). So when all other attempts at resolving your problems with Bank of America fail, go to the BBB.

I thank Bank of America for FINALLY revealing that it does have a customer service department, albeit it is ensconced high up in the corporation where the average Joe (and even branch managers) don't easily have access. And I thank them for FINALLY doing the right thing. However this does not mean that I am shutting this movement down. Nooooo.... not at all.

The return of my fees does not change the fact that the bank is still a predatory operation lorded over by some of the greediest and heartless people in the financial world. It does not change the fact that the bank operates on the principle that your money is their money and that they have the right to pick-pocket you at every available opportunity. In other words, I may have won a battle but we have not yet won the war.

So please, use the BBB as your ally in winning your own battles, but please continue to stand firm on demanding the banks adopt our PROC-7 policies. The time is ripe for change, and we are leading the movement to make that change happen!

Power to the People!!!

* A couple of further observations: I cannot guarantee that filing a complaint with the BBB will yield the same results as I received. Your particular issue with the bank will color what they are willing to do for you. But, the BBB is a great place to start if you want to grab the attention of those high up in Bank of America's ivory tower.

Also, it may help if your account shows that you, like me, have cleared out the bulk of your money from your bank account (remember, I left a total of $1.00 in my account after withdrawing the rest of my money). When they review your account and see that they have all but lost your business they may be more willing to mend fences with you. Be sure to withdraw as much from your account as you can without incurring such nuisance fees as minimum balance fees, and make sure that all of your pending charges have cleared and that you shut off any and all automatic payments. Tie up the loose ends and take your money and run.

It's a sad thing to learn that your money speaks more loudly to the bank than your own voice of discontent. Just remember that YOU have the upper hand here, even if the banks aren't ready to acknowledge that little fact yet. And the Better Business Bureau will help you remind them.

SPANK YOUR BANK!

Please distribute these posters, suitable for printing!
The black and white one can be printed on any copier and distributed at supermarkets, coffee houses, schools, and any public venue with a bulletin board!