Going to my Bank of America outlet in Chicago at Roosevelt Road and Canal Street requires a 7-hour drive—3 and ½ hours up and 3 and ½ hours back. Why don’t we have a Bank of America outlet in the Quad Cities?
I don’t know. Do you?
I went through a “verification” process similar to that described by Pope Leo (Installment #2) and it ended with me making a trip in, in person, to meet with a representative (supposed to be Caesar Hernandez, but I got Felipe) on Saturday, June 13th. I took the 2 forms of ID, although, when I was told I needed my Social Security card (a passport would not do), I think I responded that I had not seen my Social Security card since I was sixteen. It did cause me to search for it, however, and—voila!—I found it! (Will wonders never cease?)
However, since the entire goal of “verification” seems to be to make things as obtuse and as computer-dependent as possible, I was told that the employees could not get to my page unless I gave them the specific amounts and dates of deposits from Amazon. Since I lost access to my Amazon account about the same time as I last saw my Social Security card, this turned out to be an impossible task. After the trouble with advertising “BEE GONE” and the directive that my cover had to be “changed,” things descended into the Stephen Colbert Canyon of Censorship. There didn’t seem to be much urgency about cracking the code on how to get back into my Amazon account to “write long”, once I tip-toed over to blogging full-time on WeeklyWilson.com and resumed reviewing movies on www.TheMovieBlog.com, I’ve been reviewing non-stop since 1970. Since Rex Reed and Gene Shalit recently shuffled off this mortal coil, I can try to lay claim to being the longest continuously-reviewing film critic in the U.S. (whether it’s true or not…and it might be.)
SOLUTION?
I don’t know the head of the Bank of America, so I didn’t have the route that Pope Leo took to get things fixed and updated in my literary account, where a REAL LIVE HUMAN might assist me in “fixing” and updating things without me having to drive 14 (fourteen) hours. (I know I said 7 hours, earlier, but this story goes on in installments, remember. This third installment only takes us through the first in-person meeting at the Roosevelt Road and Canal Street with Felipe. There is more).
FELIPE
Felipe was the one bright spot in the Bank of America verification process. Felipe is good. I will excuse him for asking if my granddaughter was “in the room” to help me during a recent phone call. No, Felipe, the granddaughters are in Texas. I’m in Illinois, talking to a bot most of the time. For hours. Becoming very aggravated. Wondering why I never got any reports on my literary account for over 7 years.
Felipe got stuck with me when Caesar got stuck with somebody else. There were lines of people queuing up at the cashier’s window at noon that Saturday (June13). They close at 2 p.m. I can vouch for the fact that it took all of the 2 hours to figure out how to recover my literary account. I still don’t know why I did not receive any “reports” or updates on that account since 2019. I received paper reports on my personal account, but my literary account seemed to reside only in my head and in the form of the checks I have that are supposed to allow me to use it. Both seem to be in limbo.
On June 13th my personal account seemed to be chugging along okay, paying bills via auto-pay. However, that may have changed, as “suspicious” activity was noted because I went to the cashier’s cage, on June 13th, IN PERSON, and moved cash from my personal account to the literary account. Let me repeat that: I did this IN PERSON, IN THE BANK. Yet this caused my account to have difficulties noted as suspicious thereafter. (This story isn’t over—yet.) My teacher’s pension is deposited in this account (a princely sum, as you can imagine, since I did not hit the Magic 20 number one must reach in order to actually be able to live on that money in retirement).
For years (and years and years) one-half of all Social Security payments made to government employees (i.e., teachers and firemen, etc.) was taken from us because we were public employees. It was patently unfair and resulted in years of legal wrangling until, quite recently, that one-half was restored. However, Social Security is not deposited into this account. It goes into the TBK less-well-known bank in the Quad Cities which has not yet made me come in twice in person to “fix” errors which cause bots to try to send verification codes to land lines and take over 6 weeks to “fix.” (Yes, I still have a land line. Deal with it.)
I always got PAPER reports on my personal account, although I did not get them for my literary account. As far as I am aware, I did not get e-mail reports, either, although I admit to moving from Einnoc10@Aol.com to Einnoc9876@gmail.com some years back. For almost 10 years, the state of Illinois has hovered over my literary account, eagerly suggesting it was “abandoned” and only too willing to take whatever pittance might reside in it. “Seized” is the chief goal of the state of Illinois with failing authors’ accounts, apparently. (I actually have a close friend who says she once worked on the “seize abandoned accounts” team in the state of Minnesota. Sheesh.)
A still from Seized by Sharon Liese, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Jackson Montemayor.
Each of the three times I received written notices that the state of Illinois was hovering once again, hoping to “seize”my money, I wrote and explained that it was NOT an “abandoned” account. I was merely an unsuccessful (monetarily-speaking) author who didn’t have masses of eager fans gobbling up her books. The account, via Amazon, had its moments. Most of those moments can be laid at the feet of “Ghostly Tales of Route 66,” so kudos to Bruce Carlson for figuring out that ghosts were a guaranteed best-seller.
I did not intend to write only ghost books for my entire literary life. I wrote what interested me at that moment in time, whether politics, children’s books, horror stories, movie and television reviews—short and long—or one random book containing previously published columns and poetry. One can’t accuse me of not taking on a range of topics. Or, as one snarky guest writer at a QC Writers’ events once said, “You’ve ruined your platform.” (And then he went on ad nauseum to talk about writers’ platforms, ignoring the variety of things that a Stephen King, for example, might write about, aside from things that go bump in the night).
So, on June 13th, I thought Felipe had “updated” all of the phone numbers (etc.) in my two BoA accounts. I even bit on the new Bank of America credit card, which sounded like a pretty good deal. I think Felipe was Top-Notch and whatever is now happening, to prevent me from being able to authenticate that credit card, is probably not his fault. It’s probably an inherent flaw in the BoA system and I’ve been victimized by it to the tune of a 14-hour driving trip. CEO of BoA: take note.
Me applying for a brand new BoA credit card was where things ended after my FIRST 7-hour “in person” trip to the Bank of America with everything “fixed”—or so I thought.
But, of course, things were not settled at all.
The bot was not finished with me.