Ramblemuse Touch Points

In his 30 August column in the S.F. Chronicle (Check from a scammer bounces victim into jail), David Lazarus brought to light that Bank of America neither has a reasonable policy for dealing with bogus checks nor is willing to be accountable for lack of such a policy. For those of us who frequent the Internet and blog, such scams are far from new. Even service personnel such as massage therapists receive scam emails wanting to “prearrange” service for a group tour by check. While the Supreme court can protect banks from legal liability, they can not create protection from consumer accountability.

In writing on trust for Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge Newsletter, Stever Robbins noted that “At its heart, being trustworthy means being consistent in motives and accountable for actions. … Losing trust is outrageously easy. Just let someone down once and kaboom, years of trust go down the drain.” Putting customers through what Matthew Shinnick experienced and not accepting responsibility is well on the way down such a drain. In our digital age, word spreads quickly.

As a comparative side-note, back in the early 1980’s Johnson and Johnson set the standard for corporate responsibility with their handling of the Tylenol tampering crisis. Bank of America blew it in showing customer disregard. Responsibility does not hinge on a judge’s orders but on a larger social sense.