Time for another class-action lawsuit. This time, Bank of America and its affiliated banks are putting up $35 million to settle accusations of doing various naughty things to boost their revenues in the form of overdraft fees (AKA insufficient funds fees, bounced check fees, returned item fees).
For example, let’s say you have a bank balance of $500. You have debit card transactions of $15, $75, $200, and then $600. Allegedly, BofA would order the transactions posted from high-to-low, so that you’d have 4 separate overdraft fee charges, instead of just one.
According to the official settlement website, it looks like it may cover a lot of people. If you are eligible, you may be rewarded up to $78 depending on the number of claimants. You must submit a claim form either by mail or online by May 1, 2009. So who’s eligible?
You are a member of the Settlement Class and eligible for a payment if you resided in the United States at any time between the dates set forth below, had an account at a bank listed below, and meet all three of the following requirements:
1. Your account was accessible through a debit card, check card, or any other bank
card used for debit purchases; AND
2. You paid at least one:
1. insufficient funds fee, overdraft fee, returned item fee, or similar fee that was assessed to your account within five business days after a Bank of America debit card transaction either occurred or posted to your account; OR
2. overlimit fee or similar fee that was assessed for an account cycle in which a Bank of America debit card transaction either occurred or posted to your account;
AND
3. The insufficient funds fee, overdraft fee, returned item fee, overlimit fee, or similar fee was paid between the following dates:
Saturday, July 11, 2009
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11 comments:
Hi there, and thank you for the website and your effort to stop those thieves! We are to late ( May 1.,2009) is the deadline - do you guys know if there will be new chances to register for this? I am dying to get my hands on those guys.
Love, Mia ( same experience, rearranging the numbers, putting the largest amounts first - we have lost $400 this way. )
hey mia thanks for the comment...unfortunately i am not involved in the law suit i just happen to hate bank of america (and chase for that matter) for a laundry list of reasons, and i found a few articles and posts from other places and re-posted them here ...feel free to follow this blog as i intend on researching more and updating regularly about this subject. I also plan on putting the news stories i post into easily click able categories but that is a side issue. Once again sorry but thank you for your comment.
I have had this happen, I even emailed and spoke face to face with the workers in the actual bank and they. I would love to find out how to get in on the class action law suit against them, this month alone they have stolen well over $400 from me and because I could not get my child support changed to a different bank they have stolen that direct deposit as well to cover 'their' fee's
Here is something you all might loooove to hear. A check went through my account which my husband had written and we recorded it incorrectly in our register. We had seven debit transactions PENDING before the check went through...and once it did...three of those transactions POSTED and our account was negative $72. We immediately (the day it showed up on online banking that we were negative) put $80 in the ATM to save the other four PENDING transactions from getting fees. I knew I would be responsible for the 3 $35 fees that would be hitting my account soon for the three transactions...nothing I can do. So I check online banking first thing the next morning and my account is now negative about $230. The $80 I had deposited to make sure I was in the positive, they first took in FEES AND THEN POSTED MY OTHER TRANSACTIONS....all four of them, slapping 4 more $35 fees on for a total of 7 THIRTY FIVE DOLLAR FEES! Outraged we called the 800 number (call center) spoke with a rep for 35 minutes who said bank of america was kind enough to pay the transactions to the vendor and not kick it back so we incurred all 7 fees legitimately....wait.. it gets better. So I then look online for a number to the CEO's office and speak to a man named Jose, who after 45 minutes recredits me 5 of the fees. I now have a credit for $175 and my account is only negative $54 and change. (this was on Wednesday). Of course I thank him and he assures me the account is fine, no more fees are pending and I let him know we have two direct deposits coming in on Friday. He says that everything is good and I will be all set. So I only have to pay for the two fees. I feel awesome...AND THEN...First thing Thursday morning I wake up and check my account online...THREE MORE $35 fees have been added to my account! And I am negative $160! How can this be? I still have the credit for $175 from Jose! Outraged I try to call "Jose" back and he is conveniently off on Thursday and I am told since he is the one who handled my case, I need to speak to him about it, and he should be in on Fridy. SO...oh yes there's more...Thursday afternoon I go to work...and log on just to check my account..and guess what....there is now ANOTHER pending $35 fee to the account. What the .. So in total thus far...there have been ELEVEN $35 fees attached to my account...we haven't touched the account since that check posted EXCEPT TO PUT MONEY IN THE ATM. TELL ME THIS: how is it eleven fees would be validated to my account in the first place when there were only SEVEN transactions pending? And why did "Jose" tell me everything was going to be okay? I don't have a lot of money, I am a full time college student/part time worker/stay at home mom and my husband works for peanuts...yes...almost literally. These fees in fact would equal $20 short of a paychek for him. I am calling Jose Friday morning and if he is not there...I don;t know what to do. I do know that I will be finding a new bank regardless.
I've bank with BofA for at least 10 years and currently have a bout 5 accounts with them. I've have overdrafted in the past and blamed myself for the mistakes. It's difficult to keep track of all the spendings since both my wife and I used the same personal account. However, last month and this month I was hit with combined 30 overdraft fees, $35 each, costing me $1050. 19 in July 2009 and 11 in June 2009. Again, I'm to blame for 4 or 5 of the overdrafts but not 30. As soon as I found out we've overdrafted, I always transfered more than enough money from other accounts to cover it. The problem is BofA would take their Overdraft Fees first and allowed others ($5 to $10) transactions to be overdrafts. Cycle continue and I ended up the 30 overdraft Fees.
I concured with other people that this is scam of BofA. Asking BofA why they wouldn't refused the charges if my balance was negative, they said that we doing our customers a favor by allowing small charges to go through. If BofA wnat to do it's customers a favor, why not wait for any transactions that would post the same day to clear first before getting their Fees. I'm too will be looking for a new Bank
I want you to know that I am planning to contact the media regarding this, and I am looking for people who would like to tell their story.( The more people the better )
I live in Los Angeles, so I am planning to contact LA Times.
If you feel like talking to a journalist about what happened to you - would you like to?
Bank of America together with several of the largest banks are in 2009 planning to make an estimate of 35,8 billion ( billion ) dollars on this so called ´favor´of theirs.
Not everybody in America can afford an overdraft fee protection - because some of the people of this country are currently living paycheck by paycheck. And it is THOSE people they are stealing from.
Please let me know, I am posting a few links:
clossonsettlement.com
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/credit/2009-07-08-banks-overdraft-fees_N.htm
Lets Kick some Butt!!
Mia
I just left B of A over some ridiculous fees. Didn't know my account was overdrawn so 6 days went by and they charged me another 35.00 and they told me until I deposited the money in there to bring the account current they could charge me another 35.00 every 6th day. And I repeated back to the woman what she told me and she said yes that's correct. This was all over $5.53 .I told them woman no wonder why people keep filing lawsuits againt you for unfair business practices. Then I asked if I could close my account and she told me no not until the account is brought current. That's like a catch22. But they have paid themselves before where they order the the purchase from highest to lowest. I'm sorry I didn't know about the suit before now, I would have gladly jumped in.
To really fix this we really need to not settle this for a small amount of 35 million (I know it's not small to the individual). They have profited of this 35 billion. The only way to handle this is by letting it go to court and having it be made into a big deal. If we settle it will only allow them to continue with this scam and claim that they have done nothing wrong. I talked to somebody in corporate and that is what she said is nothing has been charged so we have done no wrong.
BoA use to not charge you an overdraft fee until it actually was withdrawn from your account. That way if you made a mistake you could transfer some money to cover any pending transactions. Now, BoA keeps letting you use your ATM card to make charges even though you don't have the money in the account. Then you get charged an overdraft fee for all the pending transactions. That is just not right! They should decline any transaction if there is no money to cover the transaction - period! Or they need to go back to the old way of assessing overdraft charges.
Bank of America has just charged me seven 35.00 fees for debit transactions - for all of the same reasons listed above and more - there nasty "habit"of paying the largest debit charge first, so several other smaller purchases will cause more overdraft fees. I called the call enter and told them how outrageous this is, and he said that I couldn't close my acoount until it is current. I saw the recent article on our local news regarding BofA fees - any idea if there is a law suit out there that we can be a part of?? I am so MAD about this!
Trish
Vacaville
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