Some of the discussion on HT has turned towards BOA charging a new debit fee.
In my time in the corporate-industrial world, I dealt with many banks, including BOA. I have seen firsthand the massive infrastructure changes and demands that the Dodd-Frank legislation has placed upon banks. Increased monitoring requirements, data storage requirements, reporting requirements ... all of this costs money and BOA is borderline bankrupt already. They're also one of the largest banks out there, so they have a lot more to report back to the government. It makes sense that they're going to spend more money on those requirements.
Bottom line ... what did you expect? All government oversight costs money and businesses invariably pass those costs on to their customers. If you want to stop that, you're going to have to go to the heart of the matter ... big government and criminals like Dodd and Frank.
In addition, they're a BANK. They would charge you for simply thinking about your own money if they thought you would stand for it. You are certainly free to vote with your feet and move your money to whatever institution you can find that charges you less, and in the process you may end up getting less perks or assuming greater risks.
I really can't imagine that this post would be construed as me defending Bank of America, but they do have the right to recover their losses and increase costs when the situation dictates. Welcome to business in America.
1 comment:
I agree, they are a business and entitled to charge "fees" for their services. As a consumer it it OUR job to find the best deal for ourselves.
The irony of the situation is that the "banks" shoved us in the direction of using these cards instead of cash to save themselves the cost of handling cash. My first thought as a teen seeing an ATM was cool, cash comes out of a whole in the wall!! It seems that now that they have the population trained on using debit cards they are now charging for the very behavior they pushed us into it. That, to my tin foil covered head, smells of planning.
Chase just decided to charge me $12 a month for the privaledge of a checking account even though I have two other accounts with them, each one on it own has to "qualify" for no fees. So as any educated consumer would do I decided not to pay $60/year for and opened a new account at another bank that I deal with (a small regional privately held bank). No fees there.
Bottom line neither of us are defending B of A, we are defending a business' right to operate free from governemnt regulation.
Times change, ways of doing thing change.
Post a Comment