I have had my Master Card since 1979 with MBNA, always paid my bill on time and have had substantially high balances that have been completely paid off repeatedly. When Bank of America took over MBNA the interest rate was running around 6% that they upped and after many conversations over a year finally they gave me a 9.9% rate and I had to fight for that. Recently I paid off a substantially amount again and was notified that my rate was going up to 14.9% plus prime tec. I called today to discuss it, was told there was NO, NO negotiating and that my many years of being a faithful user and payer on time were worth nothing. Then asked to speak with a Manager and was told the same thing, “It is an overall business decision and we cannot help you, I asked about the Billions they just got from the government and why I was being penalized for having paid my bills for 30 years and they just told there was nothing they could do. They were in a crunch; I replied you will be in an even bigger crunch because I was getting ready to use the card again for a substantial amount but would not. They offered to refinance my home. So much for those of us who have paid our bills and have good credit, they are using us to fill their coffers.

I’m writing you because you represent my voice and that of my fellow Americans in government when we feel we are being wronged. At this time, Americans are struggling mightily to make ends meet. Your efforts to fix predatory lending practices (especially in sub prime lending) have been noticed and appreciated.



To that end, I feel that another predatory practice by Bank of America needs to be discussed in a public forum and addressed soon thereafter. B of A currently charges fees of $35 per charge when one tries to charge more than one has in his or her bank account. At face value, it may seem that this is a fair practice. I can understand the practice if someone is passing bad checks and a fee has to be assessed. But with today’s debit technology, an automatic decline should be easy and free to the public.



When one digs deeper, one realizes that this is a practice purely designed to unfairly gouge the American public through deceit and obfuscation.



So, here’s the policy…A $35 fee for each time a charge over your funds is ATTEMPTED. As an example, recently I unknowingly was making charges on my debit card when I didn’t have the money to cover it. The charges were numerous but only totaled $23. That’s $23. One charge was for $.27 cents…for which I was charged $35. B of A charged me over $400.00 in overdraft fees for that $23 overage. I called Bank of America to try to find some relief for these charges and was told no. Seems counter to the “flexibility” and understanding for families that the new administration is trying to get in return for billions in bailout dollars.



Look a little deeper and the practice is even more disturbing:



1. You can’t actually just get an option for a decline on your charge without the $35 fee. So, even if you don’t have overdraft coverage, you will still be charged $35. Since technology has allowed banks to simply decline a charge, I don’t understand how BofA can justify charging a $35 fee for each charge versus just declining it for FREE.

2. BofA says the only way to protect against this is to link a BofA credit card or a savings account to your overdraft checking. So, an over-limit charge is charged to your BofA card or deducted from you savings account. In both cases, BofA makes money….either through interest on your credit card or from service fees on the savings account that you are required to have. And, by the way, the overdraft service also has another fee associated with it.

3. As if that weren’t enough, BofA recently increased the allowable number of charges per day from 5 to 8. That a $105.00 per day increase, per cardholder.



The bottom line is that I don’t want my money back from BofA (though they should have at least treated me better considering I hold six accounts with them). I, like the many Americans flooding blogs with similar stories, want justice. I would like this issue explored fully and for Bank of America to be called to answer for this unfair practice. The fact that American taxpayers in the US now own a $50B TARP stake in BofA (which only has a market cap of $40B, by the way), only makes our voices that much more relevant in this matter.



Lastly, I will say that I firmly support Obama’s call for Americans to be more responsible with their money. I was less than responsible for letting my account go overdrawn by $23. Thankfully, my wife and I make decent money and can cover this amount. Just think how American’s with lesser incomes would struggle with this. Then realize that this a core profit center for BofA.

April 8 2009 my husband had 4 overdrafts post at the same time...first off we never had this problem with any bank before the economy went to the pits..then on the 9th i put $1000.00 in the account and paid the fees which put us at $700... 2 days later guess what i had $35 dollars left. All of a sudden after I put money in all of these charges appeared. Most were a week or more old. We still owe them money and they will have to wait until I am good and ready to pay them...Radio Talk show host Clark Howard has a spot on his website that talks about BoA so we are not alone... They know how to steal money from us so that the fat cat CEO can fly on his Jet and live in his manson... EVERYONE WHO HAS ANY ACCOUNTS WITH BANK OF AMERICA CLOSE THEM NOW BEFORE THE GET TO RICH AND TAKE OVER EVERYOTHER BANK IN THE WORLD...

I have been banking with Bank of America for over ten years. Last week I closed my account because Bank of America had somehow removed overdraft protection from my account & charged me $175.00 for 4 overdrafts. The largest charge to my account was for less than $25.00; the smallest was $1.29 for a cup of coffee. After you tack on the overdraft fee off $35.00; that was the most expensive cup of coffee I have/will ever have. With thousands of dollars in our savings account the branch manager informed me that it was impossible that I had overdraft protection on my checking account because it did not currently show up in her system; even though I had initially set it up when I established the savings account.

So let me get this straight, B of A is giving out over $100.00 to new customers, but can't afford to drop my overdraft fees for their own mistake?
All the branch manager had to do was remove the charges & make it right. I will tell everyone I ever run across to stay away from B of A.

The offer was 0% APR for 12 months on balance transfers and the banker sold it as saving money on high interest cards. But she didn't mention the 3% transfer fee. It was mentioned in the agreement, but buried among the penalties for late payment etc. And in not so plain English. Well the 3% transfer fee up on the full balance is more than the interest I'd pay in a year. And Bank of America wouldn't cancel the balance transfers when I caught on, even though they hadn't yet made the electronic funds transfers. Oh, I can transfer the money back to B of A (Bunch of Assh...?), but that would end up costing me even more.

What really pisses me off is that they do this to a customer who has been banking with them for years, violating my trust in my bank to look out for me, rather than just trying to suck all the fees they can.

I'm looking for a new bank...