Reader Tara has a checking account with Bank of America that’s supposed to be “free” if she meets 1 of 3 balance requirements. She meets one of them, but Bank of America keeps charging her $20 — and they don’t intend to stop.
My husband and I have 4 accounts with Bank of America – equity line of credit, checking, savings and a credit card. To qualify for free checking, you have to meet 1 of 3 requirements. 1st is to have a minimum of $5,000 in your checking account, the 2nd is to have $5,000 in your savings and the 3rd is to have a line of credit over a certain amount. Well, our equity loan is over that 3rd limit.
However, for the last couple of months, we continue to get the $20 account maintenance fee on our checking account. The first time we called, the associate waived the fee. The second time the associate waived the fee but told us we will have to continue to call to have it waived EVERY TIME after it was charged.
We were not sure why, so this last time my husband and I were very angry. He went in to our local branch and wanted a complete explanation of why we were continuing to get the charges and when they were going to stop.
They told him that though you only had to meet 1 of 3 requirements, that only one the computer checked every month was the $5,000 limit in your checking (which for most average Americans is the only requirement that is most likely the hardest to meet, especially during these economic times).
Even if our savings met the limit we would still get the $20 fee. My husband asked if he was really going to have to monitor our account every month for it, and the only way to have it not charged to us is to call after the fact EVERY MONTH? She said he was correct! So, Bank of America is more than willing to rip you off with the hopes that you don’t keep up with your accounts, even though you meet the requirements for fee-free banking! We have banked with them for 8 years and have 4 accounts, and the answer we got was that we would have to call monthly, sit on hold and speak to someone different every time to make sure the bank wasn’t taking the money they shouldn’t be taking in the first place. Ridiculous! Needless to say, as soon as our house sells (it’s on the market now), we are closing all accounts and moving elsewhere.
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Tara C. from Nashville, TN
Sounds like a good plan to us. Anyone else have this problem with Bank of America?
(Photo: epicharmus )
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@twophrasebark:
oh snap
I have BoA MyAccess Checking–free with direct deposit. They’re currently running a promo which waives the direct deposit requirement. No need to pay.
@johnva: You’re lucky. Seriously. There are too many horror stories about BofA, including the one above, to believe that the company is not either in the business of taking advantage of its customers, or else astonishingly inept. Either way, it’s worth thinking about, isn’t it?
In all honesty, I’M lucky that I haven’t had the problems other people have described about WaMu, since I switched to them — but I have every intention of moving elsewhere as soon as possible, simply based on what I know about others’ experiences. I wholeheartedly recommend you do the same with BofA. They may not have gotten around to screwing you and/or screwing up something in your account, but I went years and years with them before they did it to me. Get out before they do it to you, too.
I can’t believe nobody has suggested they call up and ask about their interest rate.
Really, you people are slipping.
This usually happens if all your account are NOT on the same profile. It is especially common if you have account on different platforms (accounts opened in CA are one platform, WA/ID is another, accounts opened under “military bank” are another, and finally all other states are one). If you have accounts on different platforms, I don’t think they can be on the same profile, and the manual call each month is necessary. If you have opened all your accounts under the same profile, you should call and make sure to ask them if ALL your accounts are on one profile. If not, the associate you are speaking with needs to do a “customer combine”. This SHOULD solve the problem, emphasis on SHOULD.
ClankBoomSteam: but I went years and years with them before they did it to me. Get out before they do it to you, too.
My personal opinion is that all banks suck. So I have accounts with 4 different institutions.
BofA for billpay and ATM access
ING for CDs and money market
E-Trade for stock
and a local credit union
The problem here is not really Bank of America’s banking policies per se, it’s just their notoriously misinformed reps and problematic IT systems. They need to make sure your profile is properly coded so that you do not receive the fees, but the reps that helped you either didn’t know that, or were too lazy to get that taken care of. Which sucks.
Switch banks. hah.
Bank of America has been good with me and my credit card, it does sound like their computer system was a bad purchase tho…
Bank of America … is there anything they haven’t effed up?
Newsflash! They don’t want your business. Oblige them by leaving. Since they started running into the (Federal, I think) market-share limits they’re trying to cull less-profitable customers.
The alternative is to consume a lot of their time for sport.
We’ve never had this problem.
@HIV 2 Elway: I keep around $3k in my checking account. Why? Because if I keep over $2500, I get all my atm fees (both foreign and PNC) refunded. For me that can be anywhere from $4-$15. That is more than if I kept that money in any savings account.
And I am sure there are other companies that refund SOME of the atm fees but so far, PNC has been too good of a bank to just walk away from.
“Bank of America: Higher Fees”
I STILL haven’t figured out why ANYONE banks there. Oh yea, they’re stupid. Now I know
@freejazz38: Learn to internet.