Closing Bank of America for Business
From our kick ass RAN NYC organizer Sam
Bank of America customers were hard pressed to find a working atm in midtown manhattan yesterday when a group of volunteers took to the streets with little more than fliers and caution tape.
How do you shut down 10 banking centers in just 2 hours? It’s easier than you’d think and you don’t need locks and chains and dozens of arrests to do it. A group activists participated in a little culture jamming experiment by playing with people’s expectations and ended up disrupting business as usual all over midtown.
Our goal was to shut down 37 Bank of America atm’s at 10 locations. Our tools: caution tape, fliers, and a little creativity. People pretty consistently do what they’re told especially if the instructions are colorful or in writing. Red means “stop”, green means “go”, “out of order” means “tough luck, take your business elsewhere”, right? So at 9am two teams quietly posted “closed” signs over dozens of atm’s and blocked their little cubbies with “global warming crime scene” tape.
The results were instantaneous and amazing! sometimes potential customes would be standing right next to someone taping up an atm, see the sign, and simply get discouraged and leave. Several of these atm’s were located inside larger banking centers, but more often than not employees didn’t take it upon themselves to investigate, possibly figuring “hey, the signs look pretty official, and no one would just randomly start taping up atm’s so they must be legit”. However, if they’d looked a little more closely they might have wondered why the flyers would be sporting the dirtymoney.com website and how the workings of a kiosk would have anything to do with “divesting from the dirty coal industry”. Many of the atm’s remained “closed” long after we’d left.
This is a really fun and easy action to reproduce anywhere and you don’t need a lot of money or people to make any Bank of America “closed for business”.
check out photos at RAN flickr
and e-mail me at srcorbin@gmail.com if you’d like to get involved with RAN in New York
cheers,
Sam
10 Responses to “Closing Bank of America for Business”
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October 27th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
This is the coolest thing ever. After reading this post, I’m seriously considering holding a similar event at my local Bank of America - maybe for the November action day!
October 28th, 2007 at 10:13 am
Sam, this is great! As I try to get folks involved in the day of action against coal finance, I keep showing them these photos! Great job on the materials. Keep it up!
October 28th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
I agree, this is pretty much the coolest thing ever.
November 6th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
So, standing and yelling at people “divest from dirty coal” etc. seems to make people want to defend their actions. Getting creative, really creating art, is totally different. Coolest ever for sure.
November 6th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
[...] action telling Bank of America and Citi - NO MORE COAL! From flyering in front of the banks, to sending the message up to the sky, to creative street theater, to non-violent direct action like today- get involved in your town or [...]
November 6th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Wow, this is a great action. Good work guys, can’t wait to try this in my town!
November 6th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
where can i get some of that tape? the opportunities are endless… (Great idea btw!!)
December 22nd, 2007 at 4:10 am
You people are stupid criminals. But that’s ok.
You sleep somewhere. You have bank accounts somewhere.
And you eat food and use the world just like everyone
else. What about people who needed to get to their funds
to do the business of their lives? You arrogant stupid
children will someday be the victim of even bigger assholes
than you are being now, and that will doubtless be your
payback for the stupid, criminal stunts you are now
pulling. I sincerely hope that someone shuts *you* down
- soon, and with prejudice.
The last time some assholes shutdown midtown NYC, I think
it was with a couple of hijacked aircraft. They knocked
down a couple of buildings, as I recall. You people are
in fine company, as your actions differ from theirs, only
by degree.
December 23rd, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Since you are bringing up “terrorism” maybe you should look into the “terrorism” in Appalachia that Bank of America is funding. Criminal companies like Massey Energy, Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources (all funded by Bank of America) are waging a bombing campaign on the people and mountains of that region. While scared little people like you are sitting in your homes writing about the inconvenience of having your ATM get an “out of order” sign on it, people in West Virginia and other states have their entire communities and landscapes put “out of order” by the coal industry and the greedy bankers that love them. 500 hundred mountains decapitated, over 1200 rivers and streams buried by mountaintop removal debris, thousands displaced, homes destroyed, groundwater poisoned and environmental and community activists targeted and harassed by coal industry thugs.
Next time your ATM is put “out of order,” go across the street and use another one instead of wasting your time whining on the internet.
July 5th, 2008 at 9:18 am
I want you to know that you should pay attention to the Bank of America and its derogatory treatment of disabled customers that recieve Social Security Benefits. You may also want to know that they are fleecing college students’ into “free checking” accounts offering unsecured lines of credit of which their customer service department has negligent training and predatory practices , upto and including chicanery by branch managers’ and employees’, ignoring their customers’ not following the FDCPA and laws concerning the regulation of collections..
Disabled Amereicans’ and college students’ should not be singeled out by this bank. I have lost all faith in commerical banks’ because of the way Kenneth Lewis treats customers’. Its like the, “bear sh*t in the buckwheat!”
Harrasement is inexcuseable by any average citizen why should Kenneth Lewis and his staff be excused?
EAT SHIT AND DIE BANK OF AMERICA!