BOFA to charge $5 a month for check card use

[SlowLX]

Navy Fed CU here...way better than any major bank I've ever had dealings with.

[Broncojohnny]

Here is a golden story, Congress writes up some new legislation that interferes with banking and then blames the banks when they have to charge customers rather than merchants to make their debit card service profitable. I wonder if Derbin even thought about "people voting with their feet" before participating in the crafting of the Dodd-Frank legislation? It is such a free market concept that I doubt he did, he was probably too busy trying to figure out a way to get votes.

Fucking moron.



Sen. Durbin Blasts Bank Of America On $5 Debit-Card Fee >BAC

Oct 3, 2011 15:55:56 (ET)


By Alan Zibel
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES


WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--A top Senate lawmaker on Monday sharply criticized Bank of America Corp. (BAC)'s decision to charge customers a $5 monthly fee for making debit-card purchases.

Sen. Richard Durbin (D., Ill.) took to the Senate floor to denounce the Charlotte, N.C.- based bank, which said last week it plans to start collecting the fees. Durbin urged Bank of America's customers to "vote with your feet. Get the heck out of that bank."

The fees, scheduled to start next year, are designed to make up revenue lost due to new federal limits on so-called "swipe fees." Those limits were mandated by a provision authored by Durbin that was incorporated in last year's Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law.

Bank of America customers should find "a bank or credit union that won't gouge for five dollars a month and still will give you a debit card that you can use every single day," Durbin said.

The new caps affect fees merchants pay when a customer uses a debit card at their stores. In June, the Federal Reserve Board finalized rules capping such fees at 24 cents a transaction, compared with a current average of 44 cents.

However, Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) called the debit-card fee "the first of many consequences" of new regulations imposed by the Dodd-Frank law. He decried the debit-card fee regulations as an unnecessary government intrusion into the market. "Unfortunately consumers across our country are going to be paying the price," Corker said.

The fee will apply to many customers during any month they use their debit card to make a purchase. It won't apply to customers who don't use their debit card to make a purchase or who use it only for ATM transactions.

Industrywide, the caps, which apply to banks with $10 billion and more in assets, could wipe out $6.6 billion in annual revenue for banks, according to an August report from Javelin Strategy and Research.

-By Alan Zibel, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9263; alan.zibel@dowjones.com

[Bassics]

You should all consider that a lot of predatory fees were completely shut down with the CCA.

Overall i think the consumer got a little protection. In the end, like all regulation, it will present its challenges and shifts in the corporate paradigm.

This particular issue is due to a part of the infrastructure that is being shifted to the consumer. That will change eventually as it becomes a new way of undercutting competition, by absorbing the infrastructure costs and reducing them simultaneously.

It will eventually lead to much more convenient use of unused technology. The ability to implant a microchip in someone, and immediately apply their government ration of grocery subsidies, unemployment and underemployment subsidies, inability to work because you are too lazy subsidies and everything else will be real-time, and when you go to get a pack of government smokes you will just wave your hand in front of the scanner and your account will be billed, no fees!

The future looks so bright we should all be wearing blindfolds...

[slow06]

If anything it will help me. I will use my credit card for all purchases. This doesn't apply with bill pay though, or does it?

If you are talking about paying through B of A's online bill pay I don't think it would since that wouldn't involve your Debit Card. If you are paying a bill on AT&T's website with your Debit Card, I would say you would be charged.

Just a guess from a fellow B of A customer, I have no direct knowledge.

[Binky]

If you are talking about paying through B of A's online bill pay I don't think it would since that wouldn't involve your Debit Card. If you are paying a bill on AT&T's website with your Debit Card, I would say you would be charged.

Just a guess from a fellow B of A customer, I have no direct knowledge.

Example - if I use bill pay to cut a check to someone, no charge.

If you use your card to buy online or have it set for an auto draft (like TollTag) then you would be charged.

If at anytime the card number is being used for anything other than an ATM charge, you get a monthly charge.

[Sgt Beavis]

It amazes me that anyone uses banks anymore. The vast majority of them are screwing their customers at every turn. USAA bank is the only one I know of that treats their people well.

I'm using InTouch CU (formerly EDS CU). My Credit Card rate is 5.75%. Their current auto loan rate is 2.24%.

[Sean88gt]

Here is a golden story, Congress writes up some new legislation that interferes with banking and then blames the banks when they have to charge customers rather than merchants to make their debit card service profitable. I wonder if Derbin even thought about "people voting with their feet" before participating in the crafting of the Dodd-Frank legislation? It is such a free market concept that I doubt he did, he was probably too busy trying to figure out a way to get votes.

Fucking moron.

R. Lee Ermey "Well...No shit"

Not sure what they expected...action, reaction, rinse wash repeat.

[Denny]

I wonder how willing they will be to work off a lower pay-off for a BofA or Countrywide loan about now.

[Broncojohnny]

I wonder how willing they will be to work off a lower pay-off for a BofA or Countrywide loan about now.

I think you are confusing their stock price with their actual performance as a bank.

[Bassics]

I love it when people bitch about the banks charging over draft fees. It's their own damn fault. My sister works at a bank and says some people will pay hundreds of dollars a month in over draft fees. They are that bad managing their money.

If she told you that in the last 18 months or so she is exaggerating considerably.

Or else her bank is about to have some serious problems with the SEC, and they work on volume of the catch, not the size of the fish...

edit: I just thought of a scenario where that could be the case, and you are correct, it would take someone REALLY crappy at finance to end up in this situation.

[EW]

You should all consider that a lot of predatory fees were completely shut down with the CCA.

Overall i think the consumer got a little protection. In the end, like all regulation, it will present its challenges and shifts in the corporate paradigm.

This particular issue is due to a part of the infrastructure that is being shifted to the consumer. That will change eventually as it becomes a new way of undercutting competition, by absorbing the infrastructure costs and reducing them simultaneously.

It will eventually lead to much more convenient use of unused technology. The ability to implant a microchip in someone, and immediately apply their government ration of grocery subsidies, unemployment and underemployment subsidies, inability to work because you are too lazy subsidies and everything else will be real-time, and when you go to get a pack of government smokes you will just wave your hand in front of the scanner and your account will be billed, no fees!

The future looks so bright we should all be wearing blindfolds...

You mean predatory like when you pay late they add a fee that you agreed to when you signed up for the card? Fees should be paid by customers not merchants. Reward programs should be paid by the bank offering them not the merchants. Customers that pay on time and as agreed should have lower fees and rates than people who do not pay as agreed.

[Denny]

I think you are confusing their stock price with their actual performance as a bank.

More like the talk of many people pulling their accounts and closing out their BofA CCs.

[Bassics]

You mean predatory like when you pay late they add a fee that you agreed to when you signed up for the card? Fees should be paid by customers not merchants. Reward programs should be paid by the bank offering them not the merchants. Customers that pay on time and as agreed should have lower fees and rates than people who do not pay as agreed.

Some of that was fixed in the consumers' favor. One trick that was very prevalent was to get a customer all set up for monthly payment right before the end of the billing period, and then change their due date to an earlier date, and immediately rape them with fees and interest. Not today.

BUt absolutely some people bitch about a fee just because they didn't think to look and see that that fee has been deducted every month since they opened the card, or they exceeded an introductory period, or whatever. Yes, this is a shift of costs, and like you I agree the fees for account maintenace are either a customer's responsibility to meet or else the bank's responsibility to waive as a promotional offer. Merchants should not be saddled with collecting fees for something that they have no control over.

[Broncojohnny]

More like the talk of many people pulling their accounts and closing out their BofA CCs.

I don't know a single person outside of people on the internet blogs doing that. Even then it is people talking a big game. Even if they do, that is how it is supposed to work in a free market. If enough people leave then B of A will have to do away with the fee or reduce it and accept lower profits.

[mstng86]

Interesting thing going on with the website. It has had issues almost immediately after this was announced.

I have to think something is up.