So I got a letter in the mail from Bank of America today. It begins:
At Bank of America, we want to ensure you understand your accounts and ways to maximize your relationship with us to make the most of your finances. As part of the ongoing commitment, we want you to know about these important updates to your account.
Wow! What great new changes to my account are they making?!
We are changing your account to make it consistent with our standard pricing. Some of our standard fees are listed below and on the enclosure. If any of these fees have been waived in the past, they will apply to your account effective with your statement cycle that starts on or after September 1, 2009. As an example, your account will be assessed a monthly service charge of $8.95 unless you meet one of the requirements below.
Yes, what a way to maximize my relationship with Bank of America - start paying them a monthly service charge of nine bucks. Only that sounds a lot like BofA maximizing the relationship at my expense. The ways I can avoid the charge are to have a direct deposit into the account or maintain an average balance of > $1,500. So hey, if you're rich, you don't have to pay. If you're poor, BofA is charging you $8.95 per month. What, did you expect different behavior from a corporate bank?
So, here's my personal story. I moved to Seattle with my fiance in December 2006. We opened accounts at Bank of America (my checking/savings, her checking/savings, joint checking/savings). The personal checking accounts get direct deposit. They agreed to waive the direct deposit requirement on the joint account going forward. Three months later, we got the service charge. We went into the office and informed them that we were told this would not be an issue. We asked specifically about it. They agreed to give us back the charge. They also agreed to waive the charge for the next five years (this is probably mid-2007). They wouldn't waive it indefinitely because the max value for their system is five years. So, the first guy was incorrect about that indefinite fee waive. And wonderful, so we get to look forward to a 2012 service charge because BofA can't figure out how to handle a null value in their database. Only, that's not the case because the second guy was wrong, too. Sept 1st 2009 is when the fee starts, and we're giving you less than one month of notice. Awesome lead time considering we close on a condo on August 31st.
And the funniest thing? THIS DOESN'T EVEN HELP YOUR FUCKING BANK! We're in the household income >$100k category. We could easily put $1,500 in there, or alter our direct deposit to go into all accounts. But we're not going to. Instead, we're going to move to a bank that doesn't charge $108/year for a basic checking account. Seriously, that's a batshit crazy charge. And for what? The zero man-hours it takes for your website to transfer money to that joint account from both our personal checking accounts? Is that what the charge is for? I don't understand.
Oh wait, yes I do. BofA is doing anything it can, including going back on its assurances, to try to pick-pocket its customers - particularly the less wealthy customers. Personally, I don't think this kind of shit is maximizing my relationship, and frankly, it makes me think that you don't care about your ongoing commitments.
I would tell Bank of America to cut the bullshit, but hey, that's their nature. Instead, I'm telling you, whoever has read this far, to drop Bank of America if you use them for any banking. Do it for the people who just lost their jobs and don't have the ability to do direct deposit anymore.