With all of the banks in America doing so badly in this recession, you'd think they would try to limit the amount of mistakes they make as to not draw unwanted attention to themselves. Oddly enough, I've come across many stories around the web about banks doing really dumb things.

Just this past Janurary, Citibank sent out around 600,000 envelopes to customers that had their Social Security Numbers printed on the outside of them. They said they were sorry, but tried to make it sound like it wasn't that big of a deal by claiming the SSN wasn't easy to spot because it was part of a larger string of digits.

Bank of America has been trying to one up Citibank by possessing homes that aren't even theirs to begin with. Sure, any company can make an honest mistake, but what should be done when it keeps happening over and over? It seems like BofA has a tendancy to just foreclose random houses. The worst part of this whole thing is that BofA keeps on claiming it isn't their fault when it happens.

I wouldn't doubt it if BofA had their hand in demolishing the wrong house.

For some reason, I've never liked AT&T. Maybe it's because they have horrible customer service or because they don't deliver what they promise. Who knows?

Because of my distain for AT&T, I laughed when I read this article about how AT&T is talking about trying to find ways to offer customers incentives to limit data usage on cell phones.

Considering that AT&T has arguably the best smart phone, don't you think they would understand that they would need to have a network that could handle the load? I don't understand why a company like AT&T would even talk about trying to give incentives to users to not use as much data. Here's an idea, how about you put money into your network to beef it up and make it more reliable?

AT&T tried to sue Verizon for their "There's a map for that" commercials and then they made their own commercials to fight against Verizon. How much money did they spend on the lawsuit and the commercials when they could have just expanded their 3G coverage and made their network more reliable?

I can't wait to see what other /facepalms AT&T will make

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This story is stunning in it's ridiculousness.

Steve Valdez, a man born without arms, is told he cannot cash a check at a Bank of America in Tampa without providing a thumbprint. Maybe they don't understand basic anatomy, but it usually follows that if you don't have any arms, you probably don't have any thumbs, either. 

Great adventures in human error...someone in Atlanta, Georgia goofed while entering in a promotion for a hotel stay at the Crowne Plaza about 15 miles from Venice, Italy.  The hotel stands to lose about $130,000. 

Click here for the full article.

Kudos to the hotel for honoring the reservations, and more kudos to the quick bargain-finders that were able to capitalize on the error.  No kudos to the bum who's probably looking for a new job in data entry.  1 kudo to me for finding this and subsequently writing about it.

I find it funny when failing companies try to stay afloat with rebranding themselves to make people think they are different in some way. Every time I've heard of a company doing this, it has never gone well for them and you'd think they would learn from past mistakes, but they don't. Just like KFC's failed attempt at rebranding , Radio Shack is also trying to rebrand themselves.

Let's face it. Ever since the Internet has taken the middle man out of shopping, it has been the top competitor for brick and mortar businesses. Who wants to physically go to a store and deal with obnoxious sales reps just to pay more than it's being offered for online. I'm not saying every brick and mortar store should just give up trying to beat the Internet, but maybe it's time for them to change their business model and embrace technology.

Ever since I can remember, Radio Shack (now trying to call themselves "The Shack") has pretty much been a useless store. They have NEVER had good prices; most of them are located in malls; they have those obnoxious sales reps I was talking about; and they don't even offer good products. I can't recall one time I've gone to a Radio Shack and walked out finding what I needed.

Apart from all the problems Radio Shack faces to stay afloat, I just don't get the whole idea of expecting that changing your name will help you get more customers or money. The worst part of this particular rebranding is that they don't even have enough assets to change the signs on their stores to say "The Shack". Instead, they are asking the few customers that actually come to their store to change their name for them.

This is probably the worst rebranding /facepalm I've seen.