Bank Of America Manager Offers Whoppers As A Sales Incentive

To spur sales during a week in June, a manager at a Bank of America call center in Nevada tantalized employees with the Whopper Jr.

A flier provided by a former employee of the call center, which takes only incoming calls, says that if "each person on your team gets 2 Sales, everyone on the team will get to choose 1 item from the Dollar Menu at Burger King and receive next day."

Burger-eligible sales include savings accounts, checking accounts, Certificates of Deposit, and Privacy Assist referrals. Privacy Assist is Bank of America's credit monitoring service.

In February, a California man filed a federal lawsuit seeking class-action status claiming that Bank of America drained his account after foisting the service on him. In January, Francis Timothy Coleman, a 40-year-old unemployed man in Bethlehem, Pa., lost his nerve after discovering a Privacy Assist charge he considered unfair. He was thrown in jail after making "terroristic threats" against his local Bank of America branch. (The bank refunded the charges.)

If everyone on the "team" makes three sales, each person gets a full meal from New York Chinese Restaurant in Las Vegas. If each team member makes one sale, everyone gets a snack.

"It was tragically funny," said the former employee, who claimed he was fired for protesting having to sell Privacy Assist to customers regardless of the reason they were calling in.

The Whopper incentive is not a company-wide policy, just the scheme of a single enterprising manager. It only lasted from June 15 through June 18.