B of A Gets PR BassAckwards

By John Ballard

The Twitter feed kept spitting out little info-bits about Bank of America buying up Internet domain names by the score. I didn't pay much attention until I finally went to this WSJ link and found out what was going on. 

In recent days, at least 439 Internet domain names that are critical of the bank�s top officials were taken off the market. The registrations of the domain names, which include imaginative swipes at the bank�s CEO, such as BrianMoynihanBlows.com and BrianTMoynihanSucks.net, effectively stop BofA-haters from slamming the bank�s top executives and directors �- or at least blocks any slams using a couple of very specific pejoratives.

Companies have made it a practice to scoop up negative Web addresses that might be used by disgruntled customers, as The Wall Street Journal has reported. Such defensive Web strategies are particularly important at a time when a corporate reputation can be sullied by a few clicks of the mouse. For example, a satiric Twitter account set up after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill became a hub for criticism about BP.

Ah, yes. Now that's the best way to deal with public relations failures, right?

The bigger they are the harder they fall. Poor Bank of America is learning the hard way what bloggers and message board participants have known since the advent of newsgroups. Trolls are cyber versions of rhinovirus, the common cold. And like the common cold, they come in thousands of different versions.

Back in the day when I was a message board addict my screen name was Hootsbuddy. I was really proud of that name because no one else had anything close to it. Even after I screwed up by forgetting a password, and had to change the spelling to hootsbuddie I still had the satisfactions of something that sounded unique. Then one day someone posted something using the screen name "hootsbudie" (with one "d"). It was easy to confuse with mine, so I got sucked into a pissing contest with the newcomer.  Fortunately I had already come across the right approach how best to deal with trolls and counterfeit copycats. I learned from a young woman soldier blogging from Kosovo.

Got my first Troll!
You know you're doing something right when a Troll takes the time to bash you on your own website. I won't bother erasing their message, it's rather flattering...Honestly, what do people expect to gain by going to opposing websites and posting stupid remarks?...Why to these assholes even bother?

That was only five and a half years ago but it seems like a lifetime in cyber-time.

This Bank of America approach to public relations failures illustrates better than any commentary from me how far away from reality the banking industry has drifted. Apparently the suits have no memory (if ever they had one) of a time in their past when they were simply ordinary people doing ordinary stuff... shopping for groceries, taking kids somewhere or picking up the phone and having to interrupt a sales pitch from a stranger. What the hell kind of life do they live anyway?

Whoever came up with this breathtakingly inane response to public relations failures -- and make no mistake about it, that is exactly what it is when some individual or group of individuals gets exercised enough to put up an attack website -- needs to get back to basics.
Ever hear of picking up the phone and speaking to someone in person?
How about an actual face-to-face appointment?
If your time is too valuable to take time for a customer, perhaps you are being paid more than you are worth. Hmmm?

Atlanta's Clark Howard is one of the country's best and most outspoken consumer advocates. His tirades against "giant monster mega-banks" are works of journalistic art. This is what he said about Bank of America (and by association all others in the same category) when Wikileaks was rumored ready to dump a load of incriminating internal communications about them.

This is a bank that's either run by buffoons or crooks. Or it could be both! Bank of America stock is down 16% over the last 90 days. [Dec 1]

At the same time, the Securities and Exchange Commission allegedly went soft on Bank of America when it came to a series of fraudulent activities and things that may have touched on criminal behavior. The SEC was so worried about destroying the bank and requiring another taxpayer bailout from the American people.

It's disgusting that we have a behemoth that is such an embarrassment, already having required $168 billion in bailout money just to keep its doors open. Now the latest confirmed news reports show that Bank of America is messing up left and right on mortgages with bad paperwork.

My answer is to destroy Bank of America and other "systemically important" Too Big To Fail banks. Bust them up into regional entities so that no one institution can hold the American government and people hostage again.

There's so much smoke right now with the WikiLeaks story that it's unclear how much fire will actually be exposed, and how much dirt will be swept under the rug.

The reality is this Bank of America is a disaster, it is an abomination. I've taken call after call about Bank of America problems on my show. The bank has broken spirit. It is the walking dead that only exists because of taxpayer kindness. Did you remember getting a call from Presidents Bush or Obama asking if you thought it was a good idea to use your tax dollars to prop Bank of America up? I sure don't.

In reality, all giant monster mega-banks are inexcusable entities. Never should we be in a position where we reward failure and dishonesty; capitalism deserves better. The corruption started back in 1998 when Congress allowed banks to become far larger and more complex institutions. They allowed banks to grow to a size where they could represent 10% of market share, when 2% should have been the cap.

Yo, Bank of America!
Ya'll got bigger problems than domain names.
Clark Howard is a major media voice these days and you need to do something to get him off the case.
How about the Alan Grayson GOP solution\ -- You're sick. Go ahead and die.