How Could Bank of America Sell Our Accounts???

We knew that Bank of America was evil and that we should have left them long ago, but, by inertia, we stayed with it. After all, it was convenient not to do anything and also to have a bank that had branches and ATM most everywhere around the country. But now, it sold our accounts and there's nothing we can do about our bank account of nearly 19 years!! :-(

When we arrived in this country back in 1996 and we rented our first apartment, there was a Bank of Boston in our corner and we gladly opened an account there. Shortly thereafter, BayBank & Bank of Boston merged and it became BankBoston. 1999, Fleet Bank acquired it and the name changed. Lastly, in 2004, right around the time our youngest son was born, Fleet became part of the mammoth Bank of America and we just continued with them. (the Wikipedia entry has all that info, but I remembered most of the dates from our own experience)

A few days ago we received a big envelope in the mail welcoming us (and my brother-in-law) to a local bank and we were... "WHAT in the world???"

Yesterday, our debit cards arrived and today my husband called the bank and got the explanation that our local branches were sold to a local bank (WHAT? We opened our account years and years ago in Massachusetts). We're still working on processing the information and all that this unwelcome change entails, having to throw out all our checkbooks, having to change our bank deposit information with the employers and with all our electronic accounts!

I'm just FLABBERGASTED! This is too much of a hassle and the bank never bothered to send us a letter to warn us of this upcoming change?!

These things are annoying and problematic, but they have a solution. HOWEVER, my brother-in-law who moved to Egypt and changed his mailing address to our house had also had his account transferred and he cannot come here do do anything about that! My mother-in-law also has an account with BofA, but we don't know if her address is here, maybe she didn't change it, because we didn't receive a letter from the local bank on her name.

I've never ever felt more powerless in my life as a banking customer!! Being handed over to a tiny local bank that will charge me for everything without even bothering to let me know!!

Worst company in America, seriously! :-( I wish I were a bigger blogger & had a bigger presence on twitter so I could be heard by them. As if they cared about customers like us. Now we need to either stay with this local bank or go shop around for another bank. I like the convenience of a larger national bank because we travel a lot.

Sigh... As if we weren't bush enough, right?