Bank of America is certainly an unethical company. My question is whether or not it is actually generating illegal charges. Whether or not one is a responsible consumer is not the point.
On more than one occasion, I have overdrawn my account by cutting it too close. I know this is my fault. I do not object to paying the fees, usurious or not, that result. Nonetheless, the practices of the bank are governed by certain federal regulations. Incurring overdraft fees is irresponsible, sure. But this does not absolve the bank from its legal obligations on what it may or may not charge consequent to those activities.
For instance, Bank of America may only charge up to 5 overdraft fees per day, regardless of the number of overdrafts incurred.
As an example of how BofA manipulates your money to maximize the fees charged, let me set out an example. Say I make a mistake on Monday and forget to register a point of sale (debit card) transaction at a merchant. I look online, and within a day or so, I see it listed first as a pending transaction, and then a day or two later, it is listed as a posted transaction. At this point my account is still positive. Several other debits are also listed as "posted." Some before and some after the date of the forgotten transaction.
Eventually, the mistake causes the account to go negative.
Instead of simply charging me one debit, BofA seems to be going BACK IN TIME and re-arranging debits that posted days before in order to maximize the amount of fees it can collect. In some cases, this has led to up to 10 charges. Since the bank can only charge this in 5 fee increments daily, the transactions are conveniently posted 5 per day.
Sure, merchants take varying times to post transactions. But is it LEGAL for the bank to take a transaction that has already posted on, say, the 13th, and say that it has actually posted on the 19th, (when the account was negative?) And then to have 4 more on the same day, and the rest listed on the next day in order to maximize the fees?
This is not the only complaint about BofA - I don't typically bounce checks with them, but it's happened to me several times recently.
On one of these occasions - the reason the checks bounced truly was bank of america's fault. I got a call from my blackberry / cell phone company stating that Bank of America's billpay never arrived, so I paid them again by check. Meanwhile, they cashed the Bank of America billpay check - so I had in effect paid twice. I called BofA to stop payment on the check (no small amount at 388.00) and the agent told me it was guaranteed. They charged my account 30 for the stop payment fee.
Two days later, the check went through and caused another 3 smaller debits to overdraw, and the representatives refused to refund any resulting (escalating) fees. The rep acted like she was doing me a great favor in returning the 30 dollar stop payment fee (when the bank cashed (then bounced) the check anyway!
Bank of America is certainly an unethical company, but I'm curious if any lawyers or experts on here would be willing to investigate the practices of their fee system - it can't be legal to retroactively move debits around in order to max the number of fee instances.
I may be irresponsible with my account, but I think Bank of America is criminal in the way they handle my funds. Thankfully I will be moving my money to a credit union (and also turning over a new leaf on the overdrafts).
Any advise or insight is appreciated - comments about my fiscal responsibility are not.
Thanks.
Faye
washington, District of Columbia
U.S.A.