Bizarre News
B of A rewards illegals with credit cards
By Stone Martindale Feb 13, 2007, 15:17 GMT
Bank of America has begun offering credit cards to customers without Social Security numbers, typically illegal immigrants, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
Illegal aliens can get credit cards in the United States of America thanks to Bank of America.
The Bank of America Corp. began offering credit cards to customers without Social Security numbers, mainly illegal immigrants, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
Banks are always looking for revenue streams to exploit, and checking accounts and home mortgages have been offered to the nation's undocumented immigrants, most of whom are Hispanic, the paper said, adding these immigrants generally have not been able to get major credit cards. No longer.
The new Bank of America card is open to people who lack both a Social Security number and a credit history, as long as they have held a checking account with the bank for three months without an overdraft, the Journal said.
Bank of America tested the program last year at five branches in Los Angeles, and last week expanded it to 51 branches in Los Angeles County, home to the largest concentration of illegal immigrants in the U.S., the Journal said.
The bank hopes to roll out the program nationally later this year, the WSJ said.
A Bank of America spokesman was not immediately available to comment to teh WSJ.
Tell us what you think about this news, talk back and let us know if you agree or disagree with B of A's stance on rewarding illegals with credit.
COMMENT
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Older Talkback
page: 1
Once again, I am a Dummy for following the rules, obeying the law, keeping a job, paying taxes, making sure my family has insurance and paying my bills on time over a period of years in order to get a godd credit score. How nice it must be to get to circumvent the law, not have to pay for health insurance, steal a child's social security number and use it to get a state drivers license, commit crimes and then just move to another community and do it again;now you can even get credit after just 3 months. Our young service men and women cant get credit because they are 18 or 19 with no credit history! Someday we will all regret punishing those that follow the rules and rewarding those that break the rules. I guess every great empire has to fall sometime, not from a military loss, but from within, a little at a time......
Aren't illegal aliens breaking Federal Law?
Doesn't that make them felons?
Isn't providing them with credit cards and home loans helping them?
Sounds to me like Bank of Amerika is knowingly aiding people engaging in felony activity.
Here I am, another dummy who follows the rules. Maybe I should go down to the local BOA office and try to open an account without a SSN. Yeah right like they'll let me MrWhitebread do that.
I guess if something is not specifically against the law, however unethical it may be, it's ok. Especially if it is profitable.
First of all Gaby, they are illegal aliens, not immigrants. Immigrants are here legally. Second of all, they shouldn't be here to begin with so why are we rewarding them with credit cards?
Boycott! Boycott! Boycott!
All the relatavistas continue to beleive that it is OK to break our laws and flaunt our system. I think it is time to try our congress and senators for treason when they will not enforce our laws. I urge everyone that has ever been turned down for credit BA to sue for discrimination and withdraw any money that they currently have with BA. I is high time those of us who work hard and play by the rules start to kick a__ and take names. The time has come.
I have a Bank of America credit card. I plan to cancel it VERY soon.
I had to go through a thorough credit check to get it. How do Illegals get a credit check? How the heck do they buy property in the USA?
Bank of America should be condemned,condemned,condemned for placing
profits over citizenship. They are as guilty as
criminal employers engaged in a darwinian race to the bottom
to find the cheapist illegal immigrant workers forcing employers
who follow the rules out of business.
The king is dead (democracy). Long live the king (capitalism).
Unbelievable! I will be cancelling my BA card first thing tomorrow. BA has another plan they have been trying to get off the ground for years. Their plan would allow illegal aliens who bank with them to transfer their funds to an account in Mexico for a much smaller fee than what Western Union charges. BA has done extensive research on this matter and I'm guessing this step today is one step towards implementing their plan. BA realizes that the Mexican population doesn't have any confidence in the Mexican banking system but they figure if they can earn their confidence by relaxing their policies they will eventually convince them that they can trust this service that BA wants to implement.
I'd like to see a prosecuter somewhere file money laundering charges against BA.
Since they're allowing illegal immegrants to
My wife was a LEGAL alien (now a citizen)who had to wait two years to get a visa to work here. I am going to urge her (she handles the money) to move our account to nearby Wachovia Bank.
But let's not forget its Bush and congress that has allowed us to be overrun by these foreign criminals. This is not the 1800's, we do not need these people. How crowded do the highways have to get before Americans wake up?
Times are tough. Before you judge another man take a look how it feels to not move freely. Citizenship means thinking beyond the laws of a potentially stupid contemporary governing congress. I made a molecule for my own body and was defined criminal with 11 years subtracted despite obeying the Constitution which my dead judge didn't. I respect all people. Immigration isn't a black and white issue as is being declared here. Competition from others entering our workforce should be seen as a complement and an asset to spurring our work skill set. Grow with the flow. Young or old your obligation is to always reinvent to survive. Generally the harder you don't like something the more it will haunt you until you grow to understand its complete relevance to the shared existence in a global define.
I've never gotten credit and use only a debit card. I'm old fashioned. I view credit like a heroin addiction. And I've had migrant strawberry workers steal a good share of my stored belonging in CA. But I never judged another based upon my karma profile. I say relax immigration policy for the mentioned reasons.
BA does this the other banks will follow,driven by greed.I for one will cancel all accounts and credit cards that promote breaking Federal Laws.This BA option could possible include terrorrist inside our country,not a good idea.These people broke the law entering illegally,what makes anyone think they will pay the credit card debts?
It's a shame that anyone would do business with an illegal alien especially a well established American institution like BOA. I actually cancelled my card and closed out my account and moved to another bank on Tuesday when I first heard.
This is absolutely rediculous. They dont belong here. Who the hell is BA in the first place to be allowed to do this? Anyone with accounts there should close them immediatly. We should be sending them home, not giving them money.
These sound like secured credit cards.
I'm sure that they are required to have sufficient money in their checking account to cover the amounts which they use on their credit cards.
Also, there is form W-9 (Backup withholding) issued by the IRS which entitles the banks to withhold a certain amount of the money in the accounts if the accountholders have no social security number.
As for the moral side of this debate, remember this. Even though corporations are actually considered to be citizens of the United States with all rights therein (per the Supreme Court), they really are not people. They are profit making entities without a conscience. There are also a certain amount of successful corporate executives that are sociopaths without a conscious or concern about others. Their only responsibilities are to the shareholders (in theory) so if this move will maximize corporate wealth, then it is within the corporate reasoning to make this move.
Lack of concern towards the populace and even making business decisions that harm and break up communities is not a criminal offense. If it is a good business decision it does not matter. However, with all the bad publicity, then perhaps this will impact the profitability of that move. Remember, profits are the only concerns of business.
The Bank of America behavior is just typical of every service we count on going to foreigners. Try calling a company without being routed to India or Mexico. I can't even get anything at Bank of America unless I have 2 forms of ID. Yea this is very apalling to me as being a white american born here. No pun intended. In the words of Keith Oberman Good Night and Good Luck...
By the way, closing your B of A accts won't help. Other banks will be doing the same thing. Remember Stupid is As Stupid Does? Goodnight & Good Luck
to become a Mexican citizen, cross the border and sneak back across and go ahead and legally rape the USA.
I canceled my account today, it took under 5 minutes. Ill open another account at a different bank on Monday.
Would you say 'BOA' is an unethical bank?
Would you classify this act as 'Money Laundering'?
BofA are not the only bank to offer illegal 'aliens a credit card/mortgage there is a bank in Chicagothat does also and it is backed up in this by your own IRS btw the bank concerned say's that the illegals are better at paying of their debt than the locals.
Don't be ridiculous people. Credit cards are not a privilege they are a responsibility. First of all, it is not the bank's responsibility to determine who is here legally or not. People have been able to get savings and checkings accounts for YEARS without a SS#. All you need is something proving your identity (including the Mexican consular id). If you don't want people to come into this country illegally, then you should be lobbying for loosening the ridiculously low immigration quotas. Let more unskilled people in legally, then. There is obviously a huge demand for unskilled labor in construction, hospitality, farming, etc. Some of these industries simply cannot function without immigrant labor. THIS IS AN UNDISPUTED FACT. Yet, we choose not to allow people to come in legally, so they have to choose less favorable options to do so. We are artifically lowering the 'LEGAL' supply of immigrants when the demand is SO HIGH. I agree people shouldn't come here illegally, that is why I support increasing the quotas to allow enough people to come in to fill our needs (its called the law of supply and demand). If you support more restrictions on legal immigration then you ARE THE PROBLEM, not the illegals. These are just people who are trying to save their families from death, starvation and destitution. This country has functioned since even before independence on the inexpensive labor of immigrants, yet people have always complained about them. Even Ben Franklin complained about all the recent German immigrants speaking German all the time. Immigration is the only reason we are the best country in the world. Other countries WISH they had an immigration 'problem' like us. If you decide to lower the speed limit in this country to 10 mph, do you think people will suddently stop driving 50 on the freeways? It isn't practical and it isn't just (for us and for the migrants). So get off your high horse and stop being so simplistic about this. You can't complain about the consequences of something that xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments actually helped create.
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GabyFeb 13th, 2007 - 15:48:20
illegal immigrant have as much right to credit as a legal immigrant! they work and pay there bills just like anyone, they get taxed taken from there checks and never even get to claim them! having credit is not a reward, its a privilage that most people dont take care of or take for granted. I bet illegal immigrant would have a better credit score than half the legal population!
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