I unfortunately hold both a checking account and a Visa credit card account with Bank of America. I've been a good, monthly-paying customer for over seven years, paying my account on-time each month. I also had an auto loan with B of A, which I never missed a single payment on, and paid off in February.

I logged into my Bank of America checking account yesterday, to check my balance before making a purchase at Home Depot. I was expecting to find about $1200 there, though I wouldn't have been surprised if I were off by $100 or so. Instead, I was horrified to see that my balance was a mere $216 and change. Needless to say, I put off my trip to Home Depot.

I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I've recently fallen a couple of months behind in making payments on my credit cards. So apparently Bank of America took it upon themselves to just take what they considered theirs. Without my knowledge or my authorization, they deducted nearly $800 from my checking account to put towards my credit card debt. And away goes my December rent ... poof! Thanks guys. I guess that will teach me to deposit my money with you. I'm glad you're so grateful for the taxpayer bailout dollars you've been raking in, that you're thanking us by literally stealing from under our noses.

You may think I'm a low-life or a scum-bag for missing my credit card payments for a few months. But the reality is that I haven't had a full-time job since I graduated from law school in May, and my loans ran out in August. I'm scraping by, but forced to choose between eating and paying rent, or paying credit card bills, I've made the obvious choice of paying for food and shelter. Desperate times and all that.

I consider what Bank of America has done to be theft. If a person defaults on a loan or line of credit, there are legal procedures the lender must use to collect on the debt. And if the person hasn't the money to pay, he or she then files for bankruptcy (although even that has become rather difficult), where they gain at least a modicum of protection from their lenders. At any rate, the lender never has the right to self-help, to actually steal what is owed them from the borrower. Theft is still a crime, and it is not justified or excused by nonpayment of debt.

Bank of America doesn't want their customers going into bankruptcy, because it means they probably won't get paid. So instead of following the law, or showing some mercy on years-long customers in an unrelenting recession, they apparently just take what's owed from the unsuspecting cardholder's bank deposits, guaranteeing the bank some return.

Of course, I can only imagine that I've "agreed" to this maneuver in one of the hundreds of revisions of adhesion contracts that define the terms of my credit agreement. But these contracts are a complete farce. There is no bargained-for exchange in the fine-print adhesion contracts thrust upon us by banks, no opportunity for negotiation, no meeting of the minds, and thus no contract. And even if there were, the standard for adhesion contracts is whether the parties would reasonably expect the term to exist in the agreement. I don't think anyone would ever reasonably expect for the bank to take money at will from his checking account to pay a credit card bill. Preposterous!

No, Bank of America has just stolen from me. They will lose me as a customer over it, and hopefully many of you will join me and follow suit. And while you're at it, why not join me in calling on your congressional representatives to reign in the banks. They're the ones that created this recession, they're the ones that are prolonging it, and they are outright preying on good honest Americans. It's time to fight back!