Bank of America actively blocking WP from mobile website?

[neo158]

re:

Well you have two options, switch banks or switch platforms.

I know which I would rather do, switch banks as if a bank goes out of it's way to penalize it's customers & hide behind it's TOS &/or prohibit service then it does not bode well at all.

That is precisely what I am doing - switching to Natwest (unrelated matter :grincry as they have a decent app and the chances of them supporting mobile payments for windows phone is greater compared to some other banks.

In most, if not all, cases switching banks is far cheaper than switching platforms.

Barclays are supposedly very good as well and have been the only bank to show active support for WP by being the first to have a Mobile banking app, they also have a PingIt app for WP as well. I'll be switching to Barclays from HSBC seeing as the rumoured HSBC app has failed to appear.

 

[tgp]

re:

Exactly, they have the money.

You missed my point. If it was worth it, they would spend the money. If you could spend $5,000 and develop an app and turn a profit, you would get the money. The situation of having the money in your account or not doesn't matter. You'll get it.

You know, I could have a similar argument against Bank of America. I live in a rural community, but it's very heavily populated. I also live about 1.5 miles (2 km) outside a fairly good size town. BoA does not have a branch in my town. If they built one, they would have probably 100,000 potential customers within a 10 minute drive. Should I be upset because they don't have a physical bank near me?

Why is the O'Hare airport in Chicago instead of down the road from my house? I'd love the convenience.

The point it, businesses go where the customers are. Do you realize that BoA could take the resources they would put into a WP app and use it to optimize their Android app with a potentially better return? If they would optimize the Android app so it would result in 5% more customers, it would be more than 100% of WP customers.

Either way, I stated my opinion. Take it or leave it. It's a free country. BoA is free to accommodate or not accommodate WP users, whichever they please.

 

[TechFreak1]

re:

In most, if not all, cases switching banks is far cheaper than switching platforms.

Barclays are supposedly very good as well and have been the only bank to show active support for WP by being the first to have a Mobile banking app, they also have a PingIt app for WP as well. I'll be switching to Barclays from HSBC seeing as the rumoured HSBC app has failed to appear.

1) That is true
2) As much as I want to switch to Barclays, have seen issues with their buisness e-banking first hand which made me reconsider. However you do raise a good point with PingIt. As they could evolve it to support NFC and Wallet on windows phone.

 

[neo158]

re:

1) That is true
2) As much as I want to switch to Barclays, have seen issues with their buisness e-banking first which made me reconsider. However you do raise a good point with PingIt. As they could evolve it to support NFC and Wallet on windows phone.

Yeah, I understand that issues with business e-banking would be a major problem. You are right about PingIt as it could be evolved into an NFC payment method.

 

[RumoredNow]

re:

tgp... You are misconstruing the point.

A bank is not in the business of making money from an App. How do they make money from an iOS or Android App? By attracting and retaining customers. By building goodwill. The App still cost them to develop and maintain. In and of itself, a banking App does not generate income. There is no mystical ROI figure to be looked at. A banking App on any platform is a loss leader. Period. You are applying an inappropriate accounting terminology and only muddying the waters.

BoA and Chase had Apps. These Apps were perfectly functional and there is no reason that they would stop functioning in March, 2015 and needed to be pulled. This is an active declaration of withdrawing support.

I read many of the threads on this topic. Most users are saying they are fed up and are thinking of switching banks or have switched based on this declaration of, "We, your bank, no longer choose to support you in the manner we support all other customers. We no longer value you equally alongside iOS and Android users."

No one affected cares about the bank trimming costs by slapping us in the gob. We care about the stinging sensation in our gob where it has been slapped vigorously. You can talk about pragmatism on the bank's part all you want. It is completely and utterly tangential to the conversation.

You keep posting about how people speaking out and moving their accounts will not bring the Apps back. Who that has moved their account would want to switch back at this point? I'd guess not very many at all...

Your reasoned arguments about bank pragmatism may be well thought out and presented, but they ignore what is going on in these threads.

It's about community. It's about rallying round to protest. The bank's considerations really are just immaterial to the callous and slipshod implementation that is almost guaranteeing customers go from feeling valued to discounted.

It is one thing to not have a Windows Phone App. It is another to have further updates cancelled. It is a declaration of, "We don't want your business" to actively deny internet capabilities to a whole segment of your customer base. Why should anyone put up with being treated that way? Why are you advocating Windows Phone users should just quietly take their lumps?

Your efforts in this conversation are completely off target.

 

[tgp]

re:

RumoredNow, please don't misunderstand me. I totally see where you're coming from. For the most part, all this support dropping for WP doesn't affect me as I use an Android as my primary device. It does actually affect me long term though; I'm waiting until the support I need for WP is there to make the switch (for the 3rd time!). When things like this happen, it extends the time until parity is achieved.

What I don't understand is how you know what you stated in the post above. I think you are surmising every bit as much as I am. Other than Snapchat, I don't think we have very clear answers from the businesses that are dropping support. Yeah, they say lack of users, but that's a canned response. They are certainly not out to lose customers. There is a reason they are dropping support for WP, and continuing support for iOS and Android. We can analyze and surmise all we want, but at the end of the day the opinion of anyone here is as valid as anyone else's.

 

[z8er]

re:

tgp... You are misconstruing the point.

A bank is not in the business of making money from an App. How do they make money from an iOS or Android App? By attracting and retaining customers. By building goodwill. The App still cost them to develop and maintain. In and of itself, a banking App does not generate income. There is no mystical ROI figure to be looked at. A banking App on any platform is a loss leader. Period. You are applying an inappropriate accounting terminology and only muddying the waters.

BoA and Chase had Apps. These Apps were perfectly functional and there is no reason that they would stop functioning in March, 2015 and needed to be pulled. This is an active declaration of withdrawing support.

I read many of the threads on this topic. Most users are saying they are fed up and are thinking of switching banks or have switched based on this declaration of, "We, your bank, no longer choose to support you in the manner we support all other customers. We no longer value you equally alongside iOS and Android users."

No one affected cares about the bank trimming costs by slapping us in the gob. We care about the stinging sensation in our gob where it has been slapped vigorously. You can talk about pragmatism on the bank's part all you want. It is completely and utterly tangential to the conversation.

You keep posting about how people speaking out and moving their accounts will not bring the Apps back. Who that has moved their account would want to switch back at this point? I'd guess not very many at all...

Your reasoned arguments about bank pragmatism may be well thought out and presented, but they ignore what is going on in these threads.

It's about community. It's about rallying round to protest. The bank's considerations really are just immaterial to the callous and slipshod implementation that is almost guaranteeing customers go from feeling valued to discounted.

It is one thing to not have a Windows Phone App. It is another to have further updates cancelled. It is a declaration of, "We don't want your business" to actively deny internet capabilities to a whole segment of your customer base. Why should anyone put up with being treated that way? Why are you advocating Windows Phone users should just quietly take their lumps?

Your efforts in this conversation are completely off target.

Amazingly well said.

 

[colinkiama]

Why don't you guys just login using the desktop view on ie or by using uc browser and changing the user agent?

 

[jlzimmerman]

re:

When it was first announced that they were pulling their app, the mobile site still worked. Actively blocking what already exist for mobile users is google-level hate.

 

[colinkiama]

re:

When it was first announced that they were pulling their app, the mobile site still worked. Actively blocking what already exist for mobile users is google-level hate.

Or its because the windows phone 8.1.1 (GDR1 update) broke some websites that were made for WP

 

[colinkiama]

re:

When it was first announced that they were pulling their app, the mobile site still worked. Actively blocking what already exist for mobile users is google-level hate.

If you think about it its Microsoft's fault since the website is not working on internet explorer

 

[RumoredNow]

re:

Or its because the windows phone 8.1.1 (GDR1 update) broke some websites that were made for WP

If you think about it its Microsoft's fault since the website is not working on internet explorer

Hmmm...

I just spoke to a rep and she confirmed that as of 3/10 the discontinue mobile web access for Windows Phone. So yes, they are blocking WP users.
She elevated an issue for me, but you know how that goes. I think I am off to Ally, all 5 accounts.

 

[rhapdog]

re:

Either way, I stated my opinion. Take it or leave it. It's a free country. BoA is free to accommodate or not accommodate WP users, whichever they please.

Yep. That's right. Free Country. And customers are free to boycott BoA while advertising to everyone their dirty-handed tactics of blocking the WP user agent to prevent them from even accessing the web site! It is one thing to drop support for an app or to refuse to make an app, it is entirely a different matter to block access for a particular user agent to make sure the phone ecosystem you have decided not to support cannot even access the website in the same way as everyone else on the planet with a browser. If Google blocked access to their website for WP, they would be hit with an anti-trust lawsuit really fast, but that's because they are a direct competitor with WP. A bank does it and it's not "anti-trust" unless we can prove they have large investments with Google or Apple. Hmm... has anyone checked on that?

Why don't you guys just login using the desktop view on ie or by using uc browser and changing the user agent?

HAHA! Desktop view doesn't work when the user agent is being actively blocked. Changing the user agent back and forth all the time is a real pain. It's easier to just tell them where to go and why, then take your money elsewhere.

I took my $12.8 Million US out of their bank a couple of weeks ago, and told them why. Wait.. no, I never had that much. Come to think of it, I didn't even have a BoA account. That's my wife's account. Well, I WOULD HAVE if I had it. So there!

 

[neo158]

re:

If you think about it its Microsoft's fault since the website is not working on internet explorer

So a bank denying its services to customers via a website simply because they use WP is Microsoft's fault now, is it?

 

[Hakeem Greeen]

re:

If you think about it its Microsoft's fault since the website is not working on internet explorer

Haha no it worked before, BOA decided to block the app spitefully so BOA is to blame.

 

[Alain_A]

re:

So one can accent the mobile banking via a browser of android/apple but not from a windows phone???????

what about while using a computer? does one can accent BOA for banking???

I must be missing something!

 

[T Moore]

re:

Doesn't anyone read the windowscentral news? Yesterdays news.

The BOA said customers can continue to use the mobile web site. However it appears that Bank of America's mobile website does not work with Internet Explorer 11 on Windows Phones.
Bank of America ends support for its Windows Phone and Windows apps | Windows Central

 

[wpfan86]

re:

If you think about it its Microsoft's fault since the website is not working on internet explorer

Actually, if you think about it, your post makes no sense. The BoA mobile site had worked on IE11 for windows phone until recently. BoA is the one who chose to change it so it did not work. And no, the site ceasing to work did not coincide with the 8.1.1 update, so you can stop using that as an excuse.

This situation was of BoA's choosing.

 

[tgp]

re:

Yep. That's right. Free Country. And customers are free to boycott BoA while advertising to everyone their dirty-handed tactics of blocking the WP user agent to prevent them from even accessing the web site!

Exactly! This is capitalism at its finest! Both BoA and we as customers are free to choose who we wish to serve and who we wish to patronize.

The thing about taking actions such as switching bank and/or boycotting is that I'm sure they knew ahead of time that this would happen and went ahead in spite of it. It's a carefully calculated decision. That's why I question the value of taking such extreme measures. I mean, if you can switch without much trouble that's one thing, but in some cases switching is more for making a statement than anything. You get way more hassle into switching than not having an app will ever cost you. That's where I wonder if it's worth it.

So what happens down the road when the bank you switch to decides to drop support? In fact, this happened when Chase announced that they were dropping support, so some users switched to BoA (or maybe it was the other way around; I don't remember for sure). A few days later BoA announced that they were doing the same thing.

Watch, Wells Fargo could be next. Then what? Pretty soon you'll be putting your cash in a can and burying it in the back yard.

We keep talking about these "greedy businesses who hold a grudge against WP and and don't care about its users." But how long does it go before we start looking somewhere else for the reason?

 

[wpfan2be]

re:

Just switch to USAA. It is not only for the Armed Forces. Anyone can open an account, no fees, excellent Windows Phone App also. Been using them for years.