Bank of America stirs up unrest among ATM users

While announcement last week that Bank of America, with more than 17,000 automated teller machines, is increasing the ATM fee for non-customers to $3 per transaction from $2 brought much print and broadcast coverage, most reports omitted several noteworthy groups that are grumbling about the hike, observes Grumpy Editor.

They are:

•  Consumer Federation of America, Washington, D.C., an advocacy, research, education and service organization for consumers.

•  Consumers Union, publisher of Consumers Report, Yonkers, N.Y.

•  Service Employees International Union, Washington, D.C.,  a fast-growing union with 1.9 million members in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico.

•  Woodstock Institute, Chicago-based policy and advocacy non-profit that promotes community reinvestment and economic development in lower-income and minority communities.

•  Americans for Fairness in Lending, Boston, which raises awareness of abusive credit and lending practices and calls for re-regulation of the industry.

•  California Reinvestment Coalition, San Francisco, advocates for the right of low-income communities and communities of color to have fair and equal access to banking and other financial services. 

The groups, in a joint statement, mentioned, “We are deeply concerned” about B of A’s plan to raise ATM fees, adding: “Given the recent and disturbing trend toward fee-based profits that is making banking services more and more unaffordable for the Americans who need them most, we call on Bank of America and other financial institutions to proceed cautiously before placing even greater reliance on such practices.”

They also called on “Bank of America and other banks to explain why --- even as fees for nearly all other financial services decline over time as the scale of their use increases and related costs decline --- ATM fees continue to ‘defy gravity’ and are now poised to rise by another 50 percent.”

As with some other recent B of A actions, such tactics present a public relations problem and discourages potential patrons from entering its ATM locations --- at a time when the bank is advertising heavily for new customers as the "Bank of Opportunity."

The ATM fee hike triggered scores of Web comments, mostly negative.

Comments

[Triston]

Yep, the same question is asked by my organization at the Merchants Payment Coalition. Look at the interchange fee...it has shot up 117 percent since 2001 while new technologies have lowered the actual cost to make the credit card transaction.

We need more disclosure with these unfair credit card fees.
http://www.unfaircreditcardfees.com

Thanks for bringing this to light.