That’s a pretty cute headline I saw in the lobby at my local Bank of America the other day. “Buy Pizza, Get Dough.” Get it? Don’t worry, not many other people do, either.

Tabletop poster with flier, at a Bank of America branch
It made me think of some less cute headlines that have been in the news lately:
- BofA to Get $20B More From TARP, Plus Backstop on $118B
- TARP Will Likely Be A Money Loser For Taxpayers: Fortune
- Bank of America Gives Bailout Money to ACORN
- CEO Lewis Under Fire As Bank of America Probe Grows Personal
Is it too much to ask BofA to be less jovial about their schemes to stockpile more of our money — especially when they’re back-dooring fee increases on things like safe-deposit boxes and giving Merrill Lynch executives huge bonuses?
A few BofA headlines I’d like to see…
- “We got $138 billion in bailout funds. You get .05% interest on your savings.”
- “We used your bailout ‘dough’ to buy Merrill Lynch!”
- “Home loans now available for just a silly little percentage point above the national average!”
- “Talk with one of our ‘vice-presidents‘ today — none of whom makes 1/100th of what our CEO makes!”
- “Use your BofA debit card to buy more pizza — we’ll reward you with peanuts!”
- “For just $15 a month, we’ll let you bank here!”
- “According to RateItAll.com, we satisfy 3 out of 10 customers!”
- “We handle deposits — but not complaints!”
- “May as well read some of our promotional material. You’ll be waiting in line for quite a while.”
Maybe you can recommend a line or two?
“At BOA, it’s ok if you’re one day late on card payment–
We get rich on bumping you up to 30% apr and a $35 late fee.
Isn’t collusion illegal? ALL these banks are doing this. Time to reduce my corporate footprint…Dee
And I just heard a nasty story about Amex. Seems they are not giving you ANY grace period for a simple late payment. Which really kind of negates the benefits of my Delta Sky Miles Amex card…
Note: I was recently in Washington DC. The same goofy poster was in the bank there. So BofA is coast-to-coast with this silliness.