It started simply enough: I ordered two sets of checks from Bank of America. This isn't the kind of thing you expect is going to send you on an adventure for six months, but it was. The first order of checks arrived without incidence. I really didn't think about the second order of checks for a while--Christmas was coming up and other things were on my mind.

I deposited my paycheck into my checking account and attempted to withdraw money when the ATM told me that I had insufficient funds. Now, this was a new one on me. I still had some money in the bank, and BofA never disallowed me to take out money in advance of my check being cashed, so I figured something must be up. I went into the branch, and after waiting an eternity (it was a payday after all), I got to speak to a teller who was able to tell me that I was nearly $1200 overdrawn.

I was completely stunned. How had this managed to happen. And this after my paycheck had been deposited. I was a college student working a poorly paying job at the time, and $1,200 was a hell of a lot of money, not to mention the fact that I now not only didn't have any money in my account, I didn't have my paycheck either. Not only was my account drained, but my meager student Visa card, also from BofA was linked to the account for overdraft protection, meaning that it was now cleared out and overdrawn as well. I asked the teller if she could tell me if there were any withdrawals or checks cashed recently, and she started listing them off--in amounts I never wrote checks for, outside of rent.

The teller then ran completely out of usefulness and directed me to their phone help line. In the mid-90s, actual people were being phased out in favor of robots and pools of people in some telephone-banked sweat shop as banks' tried to eke every penny that they could. Sitting on the phone waiting for some humanoid, I realized that it had to have been the second box of checks that had gone missing that had been the instrument of my bank account's destruction.

The lady on the other end was completely useless to me. Bank of America had no provisions in place for handling something of this magnitude. I must have been the very first person this ever happened to or something. There was no way to stop more than one check at a time, and I would have to refute each check individually in blocks of ten or so.

The check-refuting process was also painful: I had to wait for each check to clear, wait for a copy of the check to be archived (three or four days after posting), request a copy of the archived check (taking another week), send the copy and the form back into BofA, and wait up to 60 days for it to be reviewed. I had to get to work, and apparently the bank was unable to do anything for me anyways at that time, so I left.

It wasn't until I was at work that I realized that whoever had my checks was probably still out there cashing them. As soon as I could, I got down to the local branch and explained to the manager my situation. She assured me that since I'd been a customer in good standing there for some time (at this point, six\ years), that my "home" bank where I'd started the account would probably extend me the credit on the account required to take it out of overdraft while the check appeals were underway so that I could close out the account.

She placed the call to my home bank and was given the runaround for some time before she came back to tell me that they refused to extend me the $1,200 or close the account. I thought it so weird that this remote regional entity, at the discretion of one person, would make such a decision in this day and age.

I played the waiting game required to get my money back. My checks went on a spending spree: out to Harbor Freight Tools, Toys-R-Us, Harley Davidson, JC Pennys, Circuit City and several others. Someone was going to have a good Christmas, it certainly wasn't me. Eight checks were written for a total of around four thousand dollars--several months salary for me at that point. The checks all had driver's license numbers written on them; either someone had gone through the incredible amount of bother to get a fake ID made with my name on it, or there were some dumb-assed clerks in this town. In the case of Circuit City, there had been not one but TWO signatures on the check.

I made the daily ritual of calling my bank to see what had been posted and request check-fraud forms and copies of the checks. The common phone person was never able to satisfy my request and ended up transferring me to check fraud every single time. After a while, I began asking for fraud myself, but always seemed to get a lot of static for doing so. Like I said, I was treated as if I was the only person in the world who had to deal with this.

The worst part was that Bank of America just didn't give a fuck. Oh, they certainly made it sound like they did when they courted the graduating seniors from my high school; but they cared as much about their customers as any large corporation--not very much. I was pissed. I resigned myself to the fucking I was getting by their process, but took umbrage at the fact that my bank let me hang myself this much and then refused to help me back out.

I fired off two nasty letters: one to BofA and one to Circuit City, both with copies sent to the Better Business Bureau. Circuit City's corporate office did the absolute right thing: they kissed ass big-time. They knew that they were in something of a sticky situation. I'd gone in and asked a manager at the store where they'd taken the doubly-signed check and asked what the deal was: why a signature that was not mine (nor a forgery of my signature, or something that might pass as a signature someone with my name might make) had been taken on a check that didn't have any other names on it. The manager was rude and abusive, as if I were the one trying to defraud their store. The nice woman said all the right things--how she was honestly sorry and would hate to think that they'd lost a customer, and that she'd personally be looking into the whole situation. Bullshit or not, it proved quite calming.

Bank of America's return call from my letter, however, was less than satisfying. It was the manager from my home branch. Essentially, I was in a catch-22: If I'd been a worse customer, I wouldn't have been so overdrawn and they would have closed out my account. Except they wouldn't have closed out my account, since I wouldn't have been such a good customer. Around and around we went, with her adding things like "well, that's just the way all banks are". I could not connect with her on a human level at all. She wouldn't even agree that the situation was screwed up. Her prime concern, it seemed, was the fact that her superiors would see this as a black mark against her bank and that I therefore was being the unreasonable one.

Fughetaboutit. I finally got enough money refunded to regain a zero-balance and close out the account some five weeks later. They asked if I wanted to start a new account, but apparently I couldn't do so and retain any of my good standing with the bank, which was the absolute last straw. I cut out of there, dropped my Visa account, and never looked back. The whole ordeal was an absolute nightmare--if I hadn't had another account at another bank, I would not have had a way to pay my bills or some place to deposit my checks. I would have been left high and dry for five weeks while all this had been sorted out.