Bank of America

Police are looking for a light-skinned Hispanic man in his 40s for a holdup at the Bank of America branch, 29 Corinth St., around 1:45 p.m. The man was about 6' and wore what appeared to be prescription glasses and a gray sweatshirt. He fled on foot.

Rapper and City Life/La Vida Urbana activist Antonio "Twice Thou" Ennis takes on BoA:

Since 2009, instead of negotiating a loan modification with principal reduction to allow Ennis to stay in his home, Bank of America (servicer) has been trying to foreclose although he can afford his home at the current real value. After receiving several dissatisfying loan modifications, one of which increased his monthly payment by $1,000 he turned to his passion and profession of producing hip-hop music to shame the banks for their predatory business practices.

The Boston Business Journal reports the welcome news that the former FAO Schwarz space is going to become a Bank of America branch, bringing relief to long suffering residents and workers on the South Endish side of Boylston who will no longer have to go an entire block down and across the street to bank with Bank of America.

The Boston Business Journal reports that Secretary of State Bill Galvin will ask for legislation requiring state agencies to withdraw all their money from banks that continue to try to find new ways to charge residents for access to their own money, such, as oh, Bank of America.

On march through Downtown Crossing. Photo by Jeff Tamagini. More.

Occupy Boston almost had its first arrests Wednesday. Marchers moved out from Dewey Square and surrounded the Bank of America headquarters on Federal Street (where 24 had been arrested in a different protest on Friday). They began to lock hands around the entrances. Police called in prisoner transport wagons. And then, they broke for a bite to eat. Protesters also demonstrated outside Goldman Sachs offices on High Street:

The Suffolk County District Attorney's office today dropped misdemeanor trespassing charges against 24 people who tried to stage a sit-in at Bank of America's Massachusetts headquarters as a protest against its lending and foreclosure policies on Friday.

"The Commonwealth makes this recommendation based on the peaceful nature of the protest and the non-confrontational manner of their interactions with police," Assistant District Attorney Susan Terrey said in Boston Municipal Court today.

The change, accepted by the protesters, ranging in age from 19 to 68, means none will face a criminal record as a result of the protest, organized by Take Back Boston, a coalition of local and national groups that also staged a weekend protest in Dorchester.

BPD Supt. William Evans made one of the first arrests.

The protesters were taken away from the bank's Federal Street building when they attempted a sit-in as a protest against the bank's lending and foreclosure policies.

The six who I saw arrested at the bank's front entrance went peacefully when police asked them to stand and hag plastic restraints put on. The six had taken up position in groups of two at the doors. Boston Police Superintendent William Evans made the first arrest.

Some 1,500 people participated in the protest, organizers of Take Back Boston say.

Mystery Pill took this video:

As the Occupy Boston forces gear up to occupy the space in front of South Station on Friday, participants in another protest will be marching around the Financial District - before settling down for a sit-in at Bank of America's Massachusetts headquarters on Federal Street.

Take Back Boston says it will have as many as 1,000 people in a march that starts at 3:30 p.m. at the Parkman Bandstand on the Common. The protest march will visit Verizon, embroiled in a contract dispute with workers, Hyatt, which fired those 100 workers, NStar and Fidelity before arriving at Federal Street, where 40 of the protesters - many people from Dorchester who have lost their homes to foreclosure - will stage a sit-in. In a statement, organizers say:

Malden Patch reports foreclosure protesters gathered up trash from a foreclosed Malden house they say Bank of America has let go to hell, then took it over to the Beacon Hill home of the president of the bank's Massachusetts division and dumped it there.

Max Silver reports:

Scary - all Bank of America systems in Boston area are down. No account management possible.

"We won't pay for your crisis"

If you have $3 in your wallet, you have more money than Bank of America paid in corporate taxes last year. On Saturday, USuncut took peaceful action against the Bank of America branch in Harvard Square by protesting the unfair tax code and drawing attention to that fact this ginourmous Bank of America happily profits from taxpayer-funded bailouts and banking business but avoids paying almost anything in Federal taxes.

Christine provides some.

Guy taking macro shots of tulips in front of a Bank of America branch downtown is ordered to stop by a bank rent-a-cop.

Paul Levy reports on the tsouris he is having thanks to a Bank of America ATM in Newton Centre that ate both his ATM card and the checks he was attempting to deposit.

He follows up with a post on his travails with a Bank of America rep who contacted him via Twitter.

Word reaches us that Bank of America has told Stillman's Farms it can't use the bank parking lot off Centre Street for its farmer's markets this year:

... So, we are searching for a new location to have our market as well as our CSA drop. This year we have some Hmong farmers joining the market, as well as some local bakers. We are holding out a little hope that the community of JP can persuade the bank to allow us to return. We encourage anyone who feels like it, to politely ask the bank to reconsider. We have always felt they were very generous in the past, so we are not sure what changed after all these years. Meanwhile, we will look for another location nearby. If you have any connections, or thoughts, please get back to us as soon as possible. Let's try to solve this together. ...

The market had taken place there for more than 10 years - dating back to Bank of Boston days.

Steve S. gets that real secure feeling when he notices the armed security guard asleep at the Bank of America kiosk - and he explains why, in the end, he decided not to knock over the bank.

No, there's no punchline:

... But by 10 a.m., dozens of police had surrounded the bank and were waiting for equipment to cut through the chains and the bicycle lock looped through the door and around one protester's neck. ...

The story also raises that perennial question: Is Copley Square part of downtown?

Milan Kohut had been charged with peddling without a license when police objected to him standing outside a Financial District branch of the Bank of America with a pile of nooses and a sign reading "Nooses on sale."

On Friday, a Boston Municipal Court judge dismissed the charges, the Dig reports. Kohut had argued he was making a political comment about the mortgage crisis, not actually trying to sell downtown workers a way to hang themselves. He's now asking for his nooses back.

This deserves exactly what the photo says it deserves!

Boston Police report arresting a woman yesterday afternoon for scrawling graffiti inside a Bank of America ATM on Tremont Street in Roxbury. No, not Pixnit - this woman was 60. Alas, BPDNews did not report what she wrote with her red marker.

Meanwhile, police also report that somebody tried holding up the Dunkin' Donuts at 510 Southampton St. last night by threatening to inject the clerk with an HIV-filled needle. The clerk refused and the alleged perp fled in a dark-colored vehicle. And over in Charlestown yesterday afternoon, a woman kicked and bit another woman in an effort to convince her to hand over her cell phone and cigarettes. The gambit worked, but the toothy terror was arrested after a brief foot chase.

On Soho the Dog, Matthew does some back-of-envelope calculations and concludes the bank pulled its $600,000 annual donation not out of any sense of tough love for the series (bank officials talked of forcing the series to broaden its base of support) but because it simply gets more of a marketing bang out of similar donations to the MFA and BSO. And it will only get worse, he writes:

... As corporations get bigger and bigger, and are frequently operating far away from their own home base, corporate visibility and brand promotion will become the main goal of all non-operational activity; the personal relationships and local civic pride that support smaller, less splashy causes will become more and more abstract until they disappear completely. And if visibility is the key, let's face it: music is not the most visible of art forms. It would appear that the transitory, elusive nature of music has a real-world financial cost, at least in a society where the free market reigns, and philanthropy is just another front in the war for eyeballs. ...

Joel Brown discusses Bank of America's decision to stop funding the Celebrity Series, started by predecessor FleetBank:

...Both sides make nice with quotes about how important it is for givers and getters to diversify and blah blah. But basically this is the now out-of-town bank yanking major support from an arts series that has been a mainstay. ...

It's another reason to patronize a locally owned bank, Leslie Turek writes.

Josh Ourisman begins to compile a list of banks to consider now that he's leaving the clutches of Bank of America. Jason Legg offers some additional alternatives.

Imagine you've just added $11,000 to the $9,000 you already had in your account, then checking your balance and seeing the bank thinks you have a balance of -$6,000. You might not be very happy. Even after they figure out what happened and fix it.

A Parkway Transcript article makes you go "Hmm, wonder how long before they file a lawsuit?"

Seems police arrested two Rozzie guys, one 22, one 15, for a botched hold-up attempt at the Bank of America branch in Roslindale Square after a bank security officer fingered the pair.

Police, however, quickly released the two after noticing they looked absolutely nothing like the two Virgil Starkwells on the tape and learning that the security guard was not even in the bank at the time of the failed holdup.