Bank of America accused of ripping off consumers

Posted Jun 30th 2009 5:40PM by Zac Bissonnette
Filed under: Bank of America (BAC)

We all know that Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) is a lousy, incompetently run outhouse of a financial institution. All you have to do is look at the welfare it's received, its stock price, and the fact that its CEO still has a job that doesn't involve cleaning out public bathrooms in mental hospitals.

But now there are new allegations -- on top of many similar old allegations -- that in addition to losing money for its investors, Bank of America also rips off consumers.

Reuters reports on a new campaign being spearheaded by Service Employees International Union, the National Association of Consumer Advocates, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. According to Reuters, "People, who said they were former Bank of America employees, alleged that their supervisors drove them to burden consumers with needless debt and fees, to fatten the bank's earnings and the paychecks of senior executives, and threatened to retaliate if they complained. Some complained their salaries had been too low and that they had to hit quotas to earn needed bonuses."

Bank of America of course says that all these allegations are false and that it's committed to "transparent and predictable" fees for its consumers.

Let's do a quick poll: How many of you have ever been on the receiving end of an unexpected Bank of America fee?

Tags: BAC, Bank of America, BankOfAmerica

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Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)

9-06-2009 @ 7:22PM

n976s24t1 said...

B of A just told me my card # was Comprimised and they shut me out of the bank if this happened to u let me know they said they sent out a letter but i never got it so now when i try to use my card it will not work If you think they should try to hold on to there customers please tell me cause i am gone. i need to know what u all think cause i am not going to do this anymore.

8-13-2009 @ 11:50AM

Stephan said...

Well 8 transactions brign me into a 53$ ofverdraft until payday, which is tomorrow and 7 out of those are 1.xx $ transactions.
For each of those Im charged a 35$ overdrafting fee.
Makes on 50$ overdraft for less then 24 hours 560% apr for 24hrs?(im not on enoguh caffeine yet).

So yea, you can yell at me and tell me its my fault for not lookign close, but:
7 transactiosn (below 2$) from tuesday, were up as pending and still up as such on wednesday by 8pm.
One transaction that came in too early of 65$, around 7pm on wednesday was kind of immediately processed, then the other transactiosn had been executed.
So, yes they supposedly run transactions by the dollar overnight, but in this case it seemed liek they waited for that one that might bring me down overnight, to be then able to charge me for those mini transactions.
So a stamp for a letter was in the end 35,45$.

If timewise that'd fit somewhat together i had no reason to complain, but as it appears, when youre low, BoA maintains patience to get a bigger catch.

Policies etc and fee agreement forward and backward , fine, but that has somethgin of criminal energy.

I wanna see a loan institute that asks 560% apr for 24 hours for a 50$ loan...doing that legally.