Bank Of America Policy designed to generate excessive NSF fees Ripoff Nation Wide Nationwide

BofA posts items in the following order:
-ANY credits
-automatic transfers
-on us cashed checks
-online bill payments
-phone transfer withdrawals
-wires
-atm withdrawals
-automatic payment drafts
-check card transactions
-paper drafts
-presented checks
-on-us check deposited
-bank fees

Items in this order are posted in dollar amount order to protect customers with the understanding that larger items are more important to be paid (ie rent checks, payments, etc). This is all in your account disclosures given to you at the time any checking or savings account is opened. BofA will also only assess 5 OD or NSF fees in 1 day, even if you have 20 items that OD or NSF the account. This is not the case at most banks. Some things to keep in mind before making the claims you have...

If I make a deposit in an ATM after 2pm- it is not credited until the following day. BoA could just as easily credit checks from the smallest to the largest thereby minimizing the number of NSF charges. Oh yeah- I know the tired argument that you jerks at BofA make. "Our customers have told us that their largest payments are their most important payments" Blah, blah, blah. I bet lots of your customers tell you that they don't want $33 nsf charges on $10 & $15 purchases.

If you can show the POS charges as deducted from the account in the order they are incurred, you can just as easily leave them that way. There is no valid reason why debits don't get counted in the order in which they are incurred other than to maximize nsf charges. It is very clear that the banks change the order in which they credit transactions in order to maximize fees. The logical way is to do things chronologically. End of story.

Let's face it, the bottom line is that you need to have the funds in your account BEFORE you write checks or use your debit card. It does not matter which check or which amount comes in first.

People forget that banks are FOR profit companies and not social service agencies. You don't go into a store and steal something and justify it by saying, "I just don't have the money now, but I will pay you later."

People make errors, but there are people out there who consistently write checks before their pay goes in and expect the bank to rebate those fees.

Cathy -conn.

Thats true.

However, the store does not steal your money
each time of $34.
I have been investigating Bank America for 4 months. Because of the fees they charge. I can tell you for a fact they do change the accounts around to get all the fees they can. This is their company policy.
They have the computer programed to do this.
They not only do this they are rude to the custmers. Customers have a hard time to get the account closed. They want to milk it for all it is worth. You would not believe some of the e-mails I get on my web site about them. I'm an Investigative Reporter writing a book about them.
Every one should complain to the FTC and Congress
to change the laws. I wrote this in a hurry to leave, hope there are no mistakes in spelling.

A store won't charge you $34 each time you bounce a check. They will charge you $25 and forbid you from ever using a check in that store again, or turn the check over to the local Magistrate and you charged with a crime. When it gets to court, the Judge will award the unlucky recipient of your rubber "note" three times the face value. Unless the check was for $3, you'll pay a whole lot more than the $34 the bank charged.

I have a friend who told me these words of wisdom: "It's not against the law to owe someone, but they will throw your ass in jail for writing a bad check". Sage advice.

Robert-Jacksonville Fl

Thanks for your reply, and you are right. I don't have the answer to this problem, but it is a large problem for millions of people in this country.
Without a checking account, they can't cash their pay checks at the bank. They need a checking account for many reasons. A lot of them get paid by direct deposit. They need the account for that as well.
Other wise we could get laws passed to make the banks close any ones account who had more than 3 return items in a month.
The banks don't want to close them, they want to keep them open and milk them for every dollar.
I have letters and copies of accounts where they stay in the red 1/2 of the time. I have one from a disable Vet who pays from 12 to 30 fees every month.This has been an on going thing for a long time.They get a lot of his check each month. This is where a bank should close the account, not milk him for all his money. Well enought said,
I'm out of here.

Here is the scary part ladies and gentlemen...

I deposited a check 30 minutes late 2 days ago, and my pending charges magically posted first, leaving me with $140 in NSF fees.
The same thing has happened to me many times, leaving me with THOUSANDS I have paid Bank of America. Yes, I should consider BOA my employee -I should send them a 1099 tax form.

The SCARY part is something I discovered after getting off the phone with a customer service supervisor.

(By the way folks, those guys are not our enemies-they just do what the corporate suits tell them to. THat is why they get so frustrated. They have no say about anything, and probably just want to keep their job. They get paid little and then are given the responsibility of taking the brunt of our complaints.)

Anyway, "Trisha" was very nice and understanding as I made this discovery-we postulated that there are about 25,000,000 BOA customers. If only a small 10% were being charged on a regular basis like me, that is 2.5 million customers.

I was charged once $385 in the course of 8 days for depositing my check 29 minutes to late. IF there are only 10% of the people out there who have experienced this kind of FRAUD from BOA, then here is what they earn from us:

$350 times 2.5 million= $875,000,000 (in 8 days mind you)

Let's say this just happens every OTHER month.

$875,000,000 times 6 months= $5,250,000,000 (5.25 BILLION/ year)

(Yes, BOA makes AT LEAST this much on NSF fees per year. No wonder they have so much money for advertising!)

That's right-875 million dollars in a week and on the conservative side, 5.25 billion a year-congratulations BOA! You just made a lot of money and we received nothing in return. Not even a widget, or a service, or a frisbee. Thanks for helping boost the economy in these dire times! Now besides losing our houses, we also can't buy groceries. AWESOME work BOA-you are truly a company for the people. But what are you going to do BOA when all of us are out of money? Who will fuel your corrupt business and financial plans then? What an impressive scam! And who is going to question YOU, big, BAD, BOA?

So basically, it was me and the others like me who helped you purchase Countrywide this year for $4 Billion, and WAIT you even had money LEFT OVER according to my calculations.

And according to Trisha, my customer service supervisor, you changed your policies on reversing NSF fees just this year after you purchase MNBA bank and did a little switcheroo in the ranks. You have made it next to impossible for your little customer service reps to help out guys like me by reversing some of the charges.

I guess it must have been a no-brainer to buy Countrywide. You didn't even have to earn the money you used to buy them. That is actually brilliant! You are such brilliant criminals BOA! I am in awe, just like I was when I learned about the concepts used by the MAFIA, or how Hitler came into power. You must be proud-all of us Americans out here, feeling bad that we are negative again in our accounts, actually feeling ASHAMED of ourselves and embarrased, hoping you will give us another shot at our checking accounts and make things right!

You actually have us feeling BAD about ourselves, trudging up to the tellers at our local branches, hiding our faces in disgrace, appologizing for messing up again. All the while, I have been the one keeping you on top.

And the sad part is until now I just haven't had the time to go through the long and drawn out process of switching banks--now that everything is done through autodraft, I would have so many accounts that I would have to contact and switch around that it would take me days. Just the way you like it-we are so entangled in your web that escaping you would be almost as painful as paying you $35 everytime we "messed up" according to the rules you have set. Reminds me of "protection" money back in the Capone days.

So anyways, if nothing else, we are ON TO YOU Bank of America. There will be a day of reckoning for you, because no one gets away with a scam for long.

First of all, largest to smallest or smallest to largest really doesn't matter if you have sufficient funds in the account to cover all transactions. The bottom line is if you had the funds in the account before the transactions were presented, you wouldn't have gotten any overdraft fees. In no way should an account ever go into a negative balance whether it's 1 transaction or 10. If the bank has to advance even $.30 to cover a transaction for you, they have every right to charge what they want for you spending their money. That is what you agreed to when you opened the account, and if you're not maintaining records of your transactions then its best you don't have an acct.

Stop complaining on ROR for problems you cause yourself. This goes to anyone who feels that NSFs are bogus; there are people with accounts for over 20+ years that haven't overdrawn so I know that it's possible.

The attitude tells it all. That attitude pretty much describes most of my experiences with the B of A people with the occassional exception. No one is disputing that when a person overdraws their account that they should be charged. It would be nice if no one ever overdrew their account but the reality is that it happens for many different reasons. The point of this complaint is that Bank of America manipulates their systems specfically to maximize the amount of fees generated in order to fatten the bottom line (cause I guess they don't make enough money off us us).

If a customer checks their account on line and uses a debit card several times for less than the amount that is available, and later a check clears that might have taken several days or might only have taken 1 but then causes the account to overdraw even for a few dollars . Rather than charge 1 fee for the check that came posted at midnight and having one NSF fee. B of A will re-order to the transactions so that each smaller transaction generates it's own fee.

1)Named same day business. Use it.
2) Since they wont give you a card in the company name,it appears not too be an "official" company. You have a tax license? A Certificate of DBA? etc etc etc.
3)What you are explaining to us as how you were cashing the checks is named "floating" a check. Banks frown upon this practice.
4) just get the over draft protection. Its not that expensive
5) In the end, you and your husband are responsible for keeping your accounts in the positive, not the Bank. It isnt hard to balance a check book /account. Even on line
6) Just as a tip, if you use your debit card, do not expect the charges to be sent to your bank account on the same day you make a purchase. IE: filling up the car with gas. The gas station has 3 days to charge your account the amount owed. This is a common practice in upstate NY where I live.

The OP stated her husband made a purchase and from the sounds of it, that threw the account into negative status.

I am surprised 2 PM is the drop dead time where you live. The branches in the DC area are 5 PM and in some cases 7 PM. The ATM - 8 PM.

All banks/credit unions use largest to smallest in transactions. That being sad, I am not sure the employee has her list straight. Bank of America posts deposits first, look at your statement online, you will see this.

Regarding gas stations, what Bank of America does is subtract 1 dollar from your available balance because the gas stations usually take 3 days to send all the credit card transactions to be processed.

Mike
Waldorf, MD

The cut off time depends on the bank. Some have 2 P.M. some may have 4 or 5 P.M.

They usually have the cut off time in BIG numbers and letters so that you will note when this is it is also in writing somewhere in that printed document you were given when you opened your account.

Like others have said. If you don't have the money don't write the check. Don't count on floating a check (you are in bad shape if you are doing this).

Alot of times if you have direct deposit the funds are available immediately since they were electronically transferred into your account.

If you don't like the banks funds availability or end of banking day policies go somewhere else (not saying this to be negative). You as the consumer have the option which bank to chose. Try a credit union. I did and have been happy.

Avoid free checking accounts. These accounts often have the most fees associated with them because past history shows that people that are attracted to them usually have problems down the road.

My bank, for instances conveniently rearranges transactions so as to make my account negative. And the worse part is the negative balance never shows up on my on line statement. Only on their computers.

Recently, I was charged an NSF fee for a check that cleared my account. On line the balance still showed $91.45 after the check cleared. My register showed something similar. Yet, they state the account was negative $75 plus dollars after the check cleared. But, it does not show up on my on line statement.

How can they justify doing this. This is fraud.
When I asked them to email me what they see so we could be on the same page, they ignored my request. But, my on line statement still shows no negative balances.

So she is right. These banks play games with our money and find ways to charge us these fees. It is a multi million dollar operation.

As she stated $35.00 multiplied by a large number of accounts is a lot of money.

Some of us cannot afford to keep 100's of dollars in our account at all times. They prey on those of us who keep minimum balances.
So lay off. We are all not as lucky as you people to have enough money to never bring your account balance down below $10.00.

You don't have to keep hundreds of dollars in your account. Keep an accurate register and keep a positive balance and you won't be charged fees. You have spent the money as soon as you write the check and you have spent the money as soon as you use your checkcard. Write the transactions down as you do them and keep your register balance with $0.01 or more and you will not have a fee.