Revenge of the Gougers!

[Gerald]

The hardest part about writing about Bank of America’s dunderheaded plan to impose a $5-a-month fee on debit card users is deciding which of the many juicy angles to pursue. “Have Bank of America’s Managers Lost Their Minds?” asked The American Banker earlier this week. That’s one good angle. Then there’s the “are we really supposed to start using cash again?” angle. Or the Durbin angle — Senator Dick Durbin being the Illinois senator whose amendment to the new financial reform law, imposing a steep reduction in bank interchange fees, “forced” banks to search for ways to make up for the lost revenue. There’s even a presidential angle, with President Obama saying on Monday that banks didn’t have “some inherent right” to a certain level of profits — and then more or less withdrawing the remark the next day. Me, I’m going with the gouging angle. The revenue that Bank of America, and many other banks, is seeking to replace with its new fees is lucre that a more honorable profession would never have touched in the first place. Indeed, 30 years ago, banks themselves would have turned their backs on it. Of course, back then, banks viewed customers as people to be helped, not marks to be taken advantage of. It was, to be sure, a different world then, with regulated interest rates, the Glass-Steagall Act preventing banks from getting into lucrative trading and a sleepy business model that valued a steady dividend over a highflying stock price. As interest rates were deregulated, Glass-Steagall abolished and investors demanding that bank stocks perform like Internet stocks, that ethos changed. Banks began looking in some dark corners for new revenue; this is when hidden fees began to creep into credit-card agreements, for instance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/08/opinion/nocera-revenge-of-the-gougers.html?ref=opinion


Note: October 7, 2011

[Gerald]

And Steed, will NOT be glad :D

[soopaman2]

That little 5 dollar charge is only for the "little customers".

I bet you manage to scrap up a half a million in a saving account you don't touch, take out 2 loans from them, and let them use your money to butter their shareholders and CEO......Or lose it on the stockmarket, then get a payout from the fed.

You don't even want to know how much money they dump into lobbying and campaign contributions.

I blame the filthy, unwashed pinko,commie,Obama voting, Iraq and Afghanistan war starting, overspending, MSNBC watching liberal kids down on Wall Street personally.:know:

Edit/// I forgot unpatriotic and Hippie

[vienna]

http://www.drawger.com/kroninger/images/3009328028.jpg

[mookiemookie]

Banks are free to charge whatever stupid fees they like, so long as their customers have another option. I'm with Chase, only because I still have my employee account grandfathered in, but the minute they try this BS, I'm bolting to a credit union and giving them the finger over my shoulder as I walk out the door. (Which would be the second time in my life I did that to Chase. :haha:)

The article got it right though - banks got so used to absolutely gouging the public over the past few years that they now feel entitled to that level of profit. Unbelievably arrogant. It's like a thief who embezzled millions of dollars and got caught complaining that his jail cell doesn't have the caviar he's used to.

Repealing the Glass Steagall Act, which had the effect of allowing depository banks to take risks and act like investment banks, was one of the worst things to happen to this country in the past 50 years. It's one of the prime enablers of the financial crisis, and why no one's seriously considered reinstating it is beyond me.

[Tchocky]

I'm guessing credit unions aren't doing this?

*remembers that his BoA account is still open*

Oh dear.

[mookiemookie]

I'm guessing credit unions aren't doing this?

Do your research. There are good credit unions and bad ones. In general, they charge lower fees and have lower loan interest rates as they're member-owned nonprofit institutions not subject to federal tax.

[Gerald]

I have some foreign credit cards with no fees whatsoever, and what I use at home will cost $ 40 a year,:hmmm:

[krashkart]

I blame the filthy, unwashed pinko,commie,Obama voting, Iraq and Afghanistan war starting, overspending, MSNBC watching liberal kids down on Wall Street personally.:know:

Edit/// I forgot unpatriotic and Hippie


May I add "beret wearin', beard growin', cigar chompin' bourgeois Komsomolets"? :D

[Jimbuna]

May I add "beret wearin', beard growin', cigar chompin' bourgeois Komsomolets"? :D

You may...well added :03:

[vienna]

I blame the filthy, unwashed pinko,commie,Obama voting, Iraq and Afghanistan war starting, overspending, MSNBC watching liberal kids down on Wall Street personally.:know:

Edit/// I forgot unpatriotic and Hippie



http://content.comicskingdom.net/Bizarro/Bizarro.20111010_large.gif

[frau kaleun]

Like Mookie I'm with Chase - only cuz through a series of buyouts and mergers they ended up owning the bank where I'd had my accounts for 15-20 years. But I've never had any real problems with them.

At the moment I'd be charged a monthly fee for using their website to pay my bills, but I dodge that by paying anything that can be done electronically at the payees' sites - since they're the ones who want to get paid, they seem perfectly happy to handle the transactions from their end without charging me anything. But I do pay a monthly "service fee" on my checking account, against which I write two - count 'em, TWO - checks a month. Everything else is an electronic transaction of some kind, and I really only use the debit card when I need cash back at the till or to withdraw it directly from a Chase ATM. If they want to charge me an *extra* fee just for that, then I'm gonna have to start wondering what the current service fee is for - the untold toil and sweat that goes into handling my two paper checks a month? :nope:

The real question for me is whether or not the smaller institutions and credit unions around here have caught up in offering online banking. Some family have had their accounts at one of the bigger local credit unions for years, and it's only been in the past few years that they actually had access to an ATM that wasn't INSIDE the bank lobby and therefore unavailable when the bank was closed. How convenient!

So I guess what I'm saying is, if there's not a better alternative that will still give me all the conveniences I have now with Chase, I'd probably just suck it up and pay the darn fee. :dead:

[Sailor Steve]

Back in 1852 the immigrant Walker brothers opened a feed store in Salt Lake City. In 1860 their safe room was turned into a bank. In 1868 the brothers loaned money to a mining firm in Alta, and by the turn of the century they were known as the bankers for all the mines in the area. They sold out to Transamerica in 1956 and became part of First Interstate Bank in 1981.

Walker was my bank from 1977 to 1981, and First Interstate from then on. I was very happy until 1996 when First Interstate was bought out by Wells Fargo. It's gone steadily downhill from there, with new hidden fees and interesting money games.

Today I'm with a local credit union, and couldn't be happier. My CU has all sorts of online services, bill-pay options and other good stuff. I don't have a checkbook. I do everything either online or with a debit card, and they send a rent check to my landlord every month. I hardly ever see them. Oh, and my CU is part of a group that utilizes an ATM chain. I have to pay a fee if I use the ATM at the CU itself, but I can get money at any 7-11 for free. :sunny:

[Gerald]

Back in 1852 the immigrant Walker brothers opened a feed store in Salt Lake City. In 1860 their safe room was turned into a bank. In 1868 the brothers loaned money to a mining firm in Alta, and by the turn of the century they were known as the bankers for all the mines in the area. They sold out to Transamerica in 1956 and became part of First Interstate Bank in 1981.

Walker was my bank from 1977 to 1981, and First Interstate from then on. I was very happy until 1996 when First Interstate was bought out by Wells Fargo. It's gone steadily downhill from there, with new hidden fees and interesting money games.

Today I'm with a local credit union, and couldn't be happier. My CU has all sorts of online services, bill-pay options and other good stuff. I don't have a checkbook. I do everything either online or with a debit card, and they send a rent check to my landlord every month. I hardly ever see them. Oh, and my CU is part of a group that utilizes an ATM chain. I have to pay a fee if I use the ATM at the CU itself, but I can get money at any 7-11 for free. :sunny: "7-11 for free" all day in the weeks?

[kylania]

Saw on the news today that Bank of America is charging this $5 a month on debit cards to make up for lost revenue from the "Can only charge vendors half of what you've been charging them before" law.

So, since this new law will apparently cost BoA so much money, they need to charge, as someone else correctly points out, the little people money they can't afford to make up for that loss.

By charging debit card holders $5 a month BoA will end up making 13% more revenue then they were making before the law went into effect.

The charge is bulls--- and BoA are the poster child for bank greed.

[CaptainHaplo]

See this is what gets me.... this is the perfect time for capitalism to work - if you don't like the fee, move your money. Enough people do it, BoA will wake up and change their behavior.

Its funny - I work for a bank (not BoA) and I get a "free" account with them with all the fees waived. Thing is, I still do not choose to bank with them. Like many others here - I bank with a credit union. They are not as large (and thus not as location convienent), but I get a better product out of the CU.

Support what you like with your money. Thats what makes the system work.

*Why do you think most taxes are "hidden"?*

[the_tyrant]

Hmm, in Canada we don't get as many banking choices

My family has banked with HSBC for many years, and they gave me my first (and only) credit card.

I don't know much about the banking industry, but it seems like HSBC is a good bank

The first (and only) time I had to call them they actually had a really person that is on my side of the globe answer, and I did not have to wait for hours on end!

Its the only bank I know that does it