Gosh, this is a toughie.. I would probably let the bank print the retraction but I would want to proofread the copy first (since they've already screwed up once). And then I'd err on the side of doing nothing at this point, and letting your long held reputation speak for itself. In general, I believe that the people who read those are probably small-minded individuals who enjoy other's misery. Who cares about them, right?

I don't the retraction means as much as making sure your credit reports aren't marred by this. Have you checked those?

I would want to proof the retraction. I don't think many would look at this in paper but it would clear up issue with those who did.

We can go on our county assessor office site and see who has paid and who has not. It is public record.

On similar subject. A local county decided to go after dead beat dads. The simply pulled every guy in CA with my DHs name and sent wage withholding notices to their employers and the IRS. We did not discover this mess until our tax refund was withheld. The agency head was so rude. After notifying our county supervisor and also the attorney general we did get all fixed. WE had to clear this loser guy off OUR credit, and have to check every 6 mo for last 8 yrs or so. I eventually demanded a letter on county leaderhead stating specifically what happened and that it was completely the county fault and even outlined specifically what they did wrong and specifically that they had wrong guy emphasizing that the only match was the first and last name, nothing else was even close. I made them state they maliciously harmed us. The agency head was furious but had to comply. We have that letter safely stored.

As far as your name being in the paper, Bestyears said it very well, "In general, I believe that the people who read those are probably small-minded individuals who enjoy other's misery. Who cares about them, right?" Don't stew too much over it. I understand your distress, but really, as Best said, if people want to scan the paper for such info, that's a little sick.

Open your business, hold your head high, & do the great job you always do. Good people will recognize & appreciate a job well done. Focus on that now.

Thanks best. They still need to send me the retraction and we will proof it.
I sent this to our contact on Sat:
We also would like from BOA a statement in writing that in the event our credit reports list a tax lien due to BOA's late payment of of our property taxes, BOA will be liable, responsible and pay for all costs for clearing all our credit reports of this matter.
idee, I ran my report a few weeks ago and still need to run dh, but since mine was clear I am assuming his is too, but you know what they say about assuming....

deedee - as a longtime small business owner - my advice is:

- Do not bring additional attention to your name in the paper as a retraction. It will only serve to confuse people who will read it and only see one name - your name. The list of delinquent tax payers probably included many others and your name was just one of many. Makes you wonder how many of those names were in the same situation as you. Keep a letter of the bank's apology and wrong doing in your files, should you ever need it - which I doubt.

-Change banks - and keep your "personal banking" and "business banking" separate -Different banks is better.

-Toughen up :) - the "gov't" agencies that handle filings, taxes, payments, licenses, etc - make many mistakes, and really do not understand, or care if you, as a business owner, has been humiliated, because of an error -yours or theirs. Just my experience in 30 years of conducting business. It is not for the faint of heart.

It is humiliating to see your name on a list like that, but you did what you could by filing a complaint. I would move on and not draw anymore attention to the fact, erroneous as it may be. Use your energy in a positive way, and concentrate on promoting your good name and establishing your business.
I see nothing gained in pursuing and promoting this negative event.

Good luck in your business.

I completely agree w/magothyrivergirl. Let it go and don't mention it unless it comes up. Yours was just one of a million mistakes. Like they say, "It's not personal, it's business." If it gets personal, you have proof to the contrary that you were right. Let it go.

It may just be small-minded people who read it when published in the newspaper, but check whether internet search engines picked it up from on-line versions of the paper. Go to google.com and type in your name(s) exactly as they appeared in the newspaper.

The only real reason I would be concerned about it being posted in the newspaper is that a lot of fraud vultures are out there and they use that data to build lists of people they can contact about their "services" to help fix financial situations. Most of which are scams.

I wouldn't have the retraction printed. As stated before the type of people who read that garbage aren't worth putting your name in the paper again for.

As to the whole don't bank where your business is...that's actually not always the best idea. Banks bank on relationships and having your relationship (with a new business or small business) centered with one bank and a known business banker is a positive thing, not a negative one. (Especially with a bank like BofA).

That said, once your business grows, spreading the relationship in small ways to other financial institutions is a good idea. But I'm talking about when you're doing a few million or more a year. Even then, you should try to center your personal and business relationships with your primary bank. It will increase your value to the bank and lead to better service overall.

I say this as an ex business banker, commercial lender and private banker. In any of those positions you could have come to me with your problem and I'd have taken over getting it fixed for you, leaving you without the struggle you went through alone and never allowing you to hear someone at the bank speak rudely to you.

Do all bankers do this? No, but if you have a strong relationship with one you will find that many if not most of the experienced ones do. How do you find those folks? Establish and work the realtionship :)

Sigh...BofA used to be a good bank. They trained me to be a good banker...then they sold and well....I'm sorry you were treated badly but not suprised. That said, they beat the heck out of WellsFargo!!!

I'm so glad you reported your issue to the OCC!!! Even if you'd had a banker help you out (obviously they treated you like crap) this issue needed to be shared with the bank's regulators and so few clients ever do this! I ended my career in compliance and saw more than one horror story or learned about it in training seminars. Too many people don't report this stuff. Kuddos to you for that!

Don't bother with the retraction as someone said it would draw more attention. Get the apology letter stating what/who the error was attributed to so that if/when it shows on credit reports you can send it to bureau(s) to support your dispute and get that taken off. Have bank pay for credit reports later this year (assuming you've already got your free ones) and check one bureau every 3-4 months to see if it's there, keep checking each year. Finally, demand that they cease escrowing for taxes, refund any $ they are holding for next installment, make sure they didn't use *your* $ to pay penalty. Tell tax collector you will be paying your own taxes from now on.

This actually happened to me when I paid my taxes via my online banking.

It was caught when I received a letter from my bank telling me they were crediting my account for X dollars due to the check being returned.

My issue was caused by me loading an incorrect address into the bill pay and the check was returned. I had a copy of the original submission date from my bill pay and a copy of the letter from the bank and the county reversed my delinquency fee.

We never got to the point where I was printed in the paper, but if it had gotten that far I can completely understand your horror in seeing your name in print. But, I agree with the others that having a retraction printed would only bring it up to other's eyes and I'm sure people are not sitting around thinking your a tax slacker.

I would just let this go, keep your documentation, and if anyone should ask about it, explain the situation then.

I admit to scanning those listings looking mostly to make sure my name isn't there, but by no means careful enough to actually search for anyone I might know. We're talking itsy teeny weeny print and many pages - way too much effort!

Thanks for the responses everyone. Running around with dd and could not get back to the computer all day.

We felt pretty much like most of you. Didn't want the retraction printed as we were opening the new business. Any association about us and our business and a financial problem is not the type of marketing we are after!
But... at the same time wanted to make sure anyone who saw it knows it was incorrect. We pay our bills darn it!

I honestly expected nothing when I filed with the OCC. I simply wanted to know I did what I could to right a wrong and let it go. Never expected a case to be opened or the bank to contact me. The bank messed up our homeowners insurance last year and I thought nothing of it. A few phone calls and all was well. I think the snide BOA women who laughed put me over the edge.

I appreciate the advice regarding not using the same bank for the business banking as personal banking and we don't.
Igloo, I am all for business relationships but had to follow the savings...local bank really could care less if they had our mortgage business after we have banked with them for 20 years. I don't get it. Their interest was much higher than BOA and they would not go lower.

Full disclosuree: I have a smart, sweet sil who has worked for BOA for almost 30 years. If I had asked she would of helped but I felt it would have been rather obnoxious of me. After all the turmoil at BOA, she did not need to deal with a relative's issues.

asjama and idee, thanks for the credit report heads up. I only ran 1 of the 3 free ones for myself and was going to run the other 2 every few months as you suggested . They did not use our money for the penalty. Will talk to hubby about taking care of our own taxes.

shermann thanks for the input. I'll let it go when we get everything in writing. Most of it is so far but the contact balked the whole way through. She didn't want to put anything in writing and do everything via phone. That didn't work to well for us when we talked to people who said they would pay the taxes the next day and it took them over 2 weeks to get it done.

carol, I feel your pain. How darn hard is it to pay your customers taxes?

Shannon, my husband would have went ballistic if that had happened to him!

magothyrivergirl, You're right. Promoting a negative event is not the way to go. I'm sure I'll toughen my skin as I go, but at my age it's pretty tough already. I simply refused to take really crappy treatment and followed some simple procedures to make it right.

lukk, I will watch for the vultures. We had a couple of the real ones land in our yard the other day. Had no idea they were THAT ugly close up!

Thank you stinky and best. Why do they publish peoples names anyway?

Since we are looking for a new Supreme court judge, they may want to consider someone from GW. You guys are awesome. Thank you

Will let the hub know what you all said. Thanks again

Conclusion after talking to dh

Retraction copy for us, no printing in paper.

Assurance in writing that bank will pay for and take care of any credit report issues if they arise.

Run our free credit reports every few months.

Look into not having an escrow account for taxes and handling the tax payments ourselves (which probably be a big PITA working with the bank to accomplish)

Get everything in writing.

Let it go......

And thank GW members for their responses one more time.