Bank of America Turns Tail, Abandons $5/Month Debit Card Fee

blr-editor | November 2, 2011 | Comments (0)

Bank of America finally threw in the towel on their $5/month debit card fees

Well, that didn’t take too long. After a deluge of complaints from its customers, Bank of America finally decided to revoke their intended $5/month charge for debit cards.

Citing a need to recover profits from the government cap on debit card fees to retailers, Bank of America had introduced the fee last month, to take effect in the new year.

This sparked outrage among its customers nationally, with thousands reported to have left and planning to leave the bank. Even President Obama had joined the fray, calling the fee “not good business practice.”

Democratic Rep. Brad Miller of North Carolina, Bank of America’s headquarters, also introduced a bill to make it easier for consumers to switch checking accounts.

The Occupy Wall Street campaign also brought unwelcome attention to the new fee, as did a petition by by 22-year-old D.C. resident Molly Katchpole, which ended up with 300,000 signers.

The bill brought about opportunistic denials by all the other major banks of any intentions to follow suit. Together with a determined wooing of their customers by these majors such as Citibank, and credit unions, Bank of America sent up the white flag yesterday.

Now it’s back to the drawing board for Bank of America to dream up new overdraft fees and lower minimum balances to make up for the money they lost in buying Countrywide – the bad loan disaster, and one of the worst business decisions ever made.