Any bank that keeps money for the County of Hudson should also have a clear set of practices it employs with the county’s individual residents, the Hudson County Board of Freeholders has said at recent meetings.
Unable to get a public accounting of consumer practices by banks holding the county’s cash, they hope to establish a Minimum Consumer Protection in Banking Initiative.
This would involve developing a freeholder committee. “The purpose of the committee is to set minimum consumer protections within banks that do business with Hudson County,” said Freeholder Bill O’Dea, who has been pressing to have representatives of Bank of America come to a public session to talk about some of the complaints residents have had with some of its consumer services.
“Large banks tend to be less consumer friendly.” – Bill O’Dea
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O’Dea said the issue isn’t with the local managers, but often the policies set into place by the corporate offices.
Issue with Bank of America
The move comes after representatives of Bank of America declined the request to appear at a public meeting to talk about the policies.
County Administrator Abe Antun said representatives from Bank of America said they would meet with the freeholders, but not in a public forum.
While some banks that serve as depositories for county funds do offer minimum standards to people doing business with them, Bank of America appears not to, and O’Dea said the county needs to steer its business to banks that do.
Freeholder Jeff Dublin said he and others have had problems with basic safety and rapid correction of banking errors at local banks. Dublin said in one case, he did not get his situation corrected for months, tying up his funds. O’Dea said other people have complained about lack of services that other banks offer, such as a monitoring for unusual ATM or other activities that could suggest a theft of an access code or ATM card.
In some cases, Dublin said, clients are treated rudely or with bureaucratic coolness.
“One elderly woman waited a long time on one line and when she got to the clerk, she was told she was on the wrong line and sent to stand on another long line,” Dublin said.
“Large banks tend to be less consumer friendly,” O’Dea said. “In some cases, people have to wait six months to get their money back if there is a mistake.”
The new rules the committee hopes to implement would include such anti-fraud protection measures as restrictions and limitations on the issuance of temporary debit cards, early notification requirements of unusual activity in savings and checking accounts to customers and consumers, and expedited investigations of account fraud with full disclosure of findings to victims.
Although the county has moved some money out of Bank of America into Capital One, as of January, the county still had about $9 million in Bank of America.
Anton said he would like to work out the problems with Bank of America through the county executive’s office.
“I do not disagree with the substance of your arguments,” Anton told the freeholders at one of the January meetings. “But I think we can find a practical way to address this.”
O’Dea, however, said the Freeholder Board will form an Ad-Hoc Committee consisting of three of its own members, the County Administrator, the Finance Director, a representative of the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office and the County Sheriff.
The committee will investigate “best practices” currently used in the banking and credit card industries to protect consumers against account theft and fraud, and to thoroughly investigate breaches and take appropriate actions.
“The committee will also meet with all the banks that the county currently has accounts with and will discuss what their current practices and procedures to protect retail customers are,” O’Dea said.
A report will be issued outlining minimum standards that the county will require banks that are county depositories to adopt unless they can demonstrate that their policies exceed those minimum standards.
O’Dea also said the county will withdraw (within a reasonable time) all of its funds from any bank that does not comply with at least the minimum consumer fraud prevention standards.