<p>They saw the customer anger at BofA, so Chase JP Morgan has said no debit card fee. Citibank says the same, although it has raised the fees on some of its checking accounts.</p>
<p>[Chase</a> opts out of debit-card fee - latimes.com](<a href=“Archive blogs”>Chase opts out of debit-card fee)</p>
<p>Exactly, coureur. They simply cost-shifted to increasing monthly maintenance fees (in some cases $12/mo) for checking accounts with minimum balances below $1500. Heard this on the radio so not 100% sure it was BOA or another bank they were addressing, but it was clearly in lieu of the debit card fee.</p>
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<p>Actually I don’t think anyone’s “ho hum” attitude made a difference. It was those who spoke up against this change that forced B of A (and others) to reconsider how they were going to structure their fees. GOOD. Glad folks (like me and many others) voiced their opinions.</p>
<p>[BofA</a> Likely To Alter Rules For Debit Card Fees After Criticism](<a href=“BofA Likely To Alter Rules For Debit Card Fees After Criticism | HuffPost Impact”>BofA Likely To Alter Rules For Debit Card Fees After Criticism | HuffPost Impact)</p>
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<p>Our credit union is packed with folks changing accounts. Though I don’t know where they are coming from, as our local BofA is always empty.</p>
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Except for the fact that B of A is now stating it will do exactly what I was told they were going to do when I talked to an account rep a month ago… which of course merely brought forth a bunch of anecdotal reports from people who had been given inaccurate info from account reps at different banks. Guess the person I talked to was just prescient. </p>
<p>So where are all these effective voices of protest when it comes to annual college tuition increases? How about a boycott or a transfer day, during with all NYU students move their enrollment over to CUNY? And Stanford students switch to SJSU? Or is there some sort of rule I can’t figure out why $5/month is outrageous but $58,000 a year isn’t?</p>
<p>I boycotted $58k a year too! (And for those who decide to squander $58k a year, the $60 at BofA is going to be waived anyway.</p>
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If that was the “exact” thing the BOA employee said, its pretty darned vague. I agree with Thumper that if there had not been sucha public outcry against this, the fee would have been imposed on the debit card across teh country, as it had been planned at other banks as well. I am glad to hear that Wells Fargo and others are also rethinking this, but again, they will simply cost shif the cost to another service.</p>
<p>I’ve been having issues with Wells Fargo ever since they converted our Wachovia accounts. They say they fix one thing and it screws up another. Well the final amusement was that I spoke to a rep on teh phone and asked about some of the services on our business account. Turns out they will charge if we look at more than 10 checks a month on line (silly but not likely to matter) but get this- they will charge $2 for every time we look at a deposit on line. Huh? Why? We can call the 24/7 phone rep and talk to them about the deposit at no cost, but if we want to see it on line (which does not take the time/energy of a live employee) it will cost $2 per deopist? On what planet does that make ANY sense?</p>
<p>Where I am, B of A started charging those checking/savings account fees last year. You either had to have a minimum balance, direct deposit, or a mortgage with them. The debit card fee was in ADDITION to those already “introduced” fees. </p>
<p>Our largest state “local” bank also indicated this week that they will not be instituting debit card fees.</p>
<p>And I seriously doubt it’s because of “ho hum” approaches to things. When I was at B of A last week to inquire about this, the customer service folks said that this was causing a LOT of time to be spent…and that the lines they were experiencing was because of folks closing accounts/asking questions…not because they were using B of A services.</p>
<p>She was hoping things would change because it was using valuable employee time.</p>
<p>I am reposting this youtube becase I believe it is exactly because of all the bad press and backlash from customers that led them to “rethink” their plan. And the other big banks dont want the bad press either, so are also rolling the debit card fee back and are burying their costs elsewhere, that will cause less of a PR/marketing nightmare. If customers HAD taken a “ho-hum” attidude those fees would be there to stay.
Watch and laugh [Hilarious</a> Message from Bank of America - YouTube](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
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<p>On the planet of Unbridled Greed, where, in the immortant words of BofA CEO Brian Moynihan, “We have a right to make a profit.”</p>
<p>I took part in a lengthy telephone survey of B of A last week. I have a B of A charge card with a new annual fee because I carry a balance on it. I gave them very low numbers on the “caring about the interests of the customers” categories. Some of the questions gave me the opportunity to explain my ratings.</p>
<p>Oh Cartera…too bad you couldn’t have given them MY phone number!!</p>
<p>I had everyone in mind with my answers. They probably wondered what I based my answers on since I only have the one credit card yet I had very strong opinions about them.</p>
<p>When credit cards were first introduced most, if not all of them, charged fees to card holders. Competition a/k/a free market capitalism resulted in free credit cards to card holders and a shifting of the cost to businesses accepting the cards.</p>
<p>What credit card companies should be doing is charging fees to credit card users based on their credit worthiness and charging interest rates based on their credit worthiness.</p>
<p>BofA caves:</p>
<p>[Bank</a> of America cancels debit card fees ? USATODAY.com](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/credit/story/2011-11-01/bank-of-america-drops-debit-fees/51026748/1]Bank”>http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/credit/story/2011-11-01/bank-of-america-drops-debit-fees/51026748/1)</p>
<p>^^ Too late to save me as a customer.</p>
<p>LasM: B of A does have the right to make a profit, along with all of the other businesses in this country. I’m not sure why a statement about making a profit should be seen as greed.</p>
<p>However, that’s not to say that I was in agreement with the fee. It seemed pretty outrageous to me. I am glad they dropped the fee, but not at all surprised. What will be interesting is whether they reinstate the fee once the Occupy folks go home.</p>
<p>I don’t think the OWS folks had anything to do with it. It think lines of people closing accounts did. I mentioned earlier that I participated in a very detailed phone survey about B of A a week or so ago. It was clearly designed to elicit public opinion about fees and whether recent decisons would impact future use of BofA’s products. If I’m any barometer, they didn’t do so well.</p>
<p>Bank of America did not change its policy because some account holders did not like the policy. People who use debit cards usually aren’t wealthy enough to generate profits for the bank. In my opinion, Bank of America changed its policy because other banks did not go along with the price increase. </p>
<p>This may be the time to buy B of A stock for long term investors.</p>