Bank Fee Revolt
October 18th, 2011 by flanewsFed up over new debit card fees some customers of national banks are looking for a new, cheaper place to do business. The Occupy Wall Street crowd has even set a date to switch from national banks to community banks… naming November 5th “Bank Transfer Day.” As Whitney Ray tells us, one state lawmaker is also taking up the cause filing a bill to outlaw debit card fees in Florida.
A deadline is approaching for these Bank of American customers. If they’re still using the national banking chain in January, they’ll be charged a five dollar monthly debit card fee.
“It’s kind of ridiculous,” said Tommy Kiggens.
“I’m not happy about it,” said BoA customer Michelle Silva.
Michelle Silva is a senior at Florida State University. She says the new fees will make it harder to pay for the necessities.
“It means lots of meals and filling up my car with gas. I mean it’s just kind of wasted money,” said Michelle.
But it’s not just Bank of America; Wells Fargo, Sun Trust, Chase Bank and Regions are all adopting new debit card fees. The fees are in response to a new federal banking law. The law cuts in half the amount banks can charge businesses that accept their debit cards.
Now the rush is on among some Bank of American Customers to find credit unions or community banks that don’t have fees and at the state capitol legislation has been filed to block the fees.
House Democrat Jeff Clemens filed the bill to eliminate the fees. He says national banks have gotten too greedy.
“They’re making huge profits, making huge executive salaries and now they want to turn around and dump that on the consumer in the form of this fee,” said Clemens.
The legislation faces an uphill battle in a GOP controlled legislature with not much of an appetite for new regulations, but even if the bill does pass there could be a court battle to determine if the state can regulate national banks.
Today Bank of American released its third quarter earnings. The bank earned 6.2 billion dollars in profits, but it wasn’t enough to beat out JP Morgan Chase as the top bank in the country.
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