Black Bart Bank.

So Linda goes in to Bank of America and pays off the Home Equity Loan in full.

Actually, it turns out, she overpaid.

So there was a balance of about around 600.00 left, that they owed US. Despite her asking to pay off the entire loan, in full, everything.

So we get a statement, and they're charging us an 86.00 "finance charge" because we still have a balance.

You know, a POSITIVE BALANCE!! They owe us money, so they charge us for still having an account with them!! After asking them how much we owe them, IN FULL.

When we first went in to get our Home Equity Loan, we wanted about half of what we ended up getting. We wanted a fixed loan. And so on. We got talked into a loan limit twice what we really wanted --"Because we'll waive the fees--" the guy says.

And it turned into an Interest Only loan for five years.

O.K. My bad. I didn't walk out when I had the impulse. I just told myself that I would hold back the half we didn't need, and pay off the loan early. We also made hefty payments over the last four years, and had it about half paid off. The interest rate was really low.

But I remember specifically telling the loan officer -- Countrywide, before all the news came out about this mortgage company and before B of A took them over -- "We WILL be paying this off early, and we don't want any charges for that."

So it turns out, the over-600.00 they held was, in fact, early payment fees.

Linda challenged them on that, and they backed down, which I suspect means that in fact we weren't supposed to be charged early payment fees.

They still managed to screw us for 86.00.

Wow.

We'll see if we get the balance back. Or whether they'll continue to cause us grief. And whether they'll wait long enough to continue to charge us a finance fee:

For owing US money....

Incredible.