Bank of America unilaterally amends deposit agreements for Pacific Northwest customers

Finan­cial “ser­vices” giant Bank of Amer­i­ca, which has been stag­ger­ing through 2011 under the weight of bad debt inher­it­ed from acqui­si­tions like Coun­try­wide, has begun inform­ing cus­tomers in Wash­ing­ton and Ida­ho that it is chang­ing the deposit agree­ments for per­son­al accounts in both states, NPI has learned.

The changes will take effect on Octo­ber 14th, 2011, accord­ing to mate­ri­als obtained by NPI. In a pack­et sent out by U.S. mail, Bank of Amer­i­ca is spin­ning the changes it is mak­ing as good for cus­tomers, promis­ing “greater access and more control”.

But what Bank of Amer­i­ca real­ly means is that it is final­ly get­ting around to mod­ern­iz­ing its stodgy, dat­ed online bank­ing inter­face (which lacks many basic and advanced fea­tures offered by rival banks) whilst mak­ing it much hard­er to avoid month­ly “main­te­nance fees” on check­ing and sav­ings accounts.

In oth­er words, what Bank of Amer­i­ca is doing is elim­i­nat­ing uncon­di­tion­al free check­ing (and free sav­ing) on just about every type of account it offers.

Take the “eBank­ing” account offer­ing. A month­ly main­te­nance fee of $8.95 will be auto­mat­i­cal­ly deduct­ed from eBank­ing check­ing accounts unless a cus­tomer has only used “self-ser­vice” options for deposits and with­drawals and enrolled in paper­less e‑statements. In oth­er words, if you’re a Bank of Amer­i­ca cus­tomer with an eBank­ing check­ing account, and you make just one deposit at the counter with a teller, you’ll owe Bank of Amer­i­ca $8.95 for that month.

Even high­er fees will be charged to “MyAc­cess” or “Reg­u­lar” check­ing cus­tomers. They’ll pay $12 or $14 month­ly unless they can main­tain a min­i­mum dai­ly bal­ance of $1,500. MyAc­cess cus­tomers can also avoid the fee by mak­ing a direct deposit in the amount of $250 at least once a month; Reg­u­lar cus­tomers can also avoid the fee by main­tain­ing min­i­mum dai­ly bal­ances in linked sav­ings accounts.

There is a check­ing account with­out any month­ly fee — Cam­pusEdge, for stu­dents — but once opened, it is con­vert­ed to anoth­er check­ing account after five years. Proof of stu­dent sta­tus is required for the account to be opened.

What about sav­ings accounts?

The “Reg­u­lar” sav­ings account will be sub­ject­ed to a month­ly $5 main­te­nance fee unless a cus­tomer adds at least $25 each month from a Bank of Amer­i­ca check­ing account, or main­tains a min­i­mum dai­ly bal­ance of $300, or links the account to a Bank of Amer­i­ca Advan­tage check­ing account. Only three with­drawals or trans­fers are per­mit­ted per month before a sep­a­rate “excess with­draw­al fee” of $3 kicks in.

And mon­ey-mar­ket sav­ings account cus­tomers will have to keep min­i­mum dai­ly bal­ances in order to avoid main­te­nance fees.

To be clear, not all of these fees and restric­tions are new. Some are, some are not. But what is new is that there are no longer any accounts that can­not be charged month­ly fees except Cam­pusEdge and sav­ings accounts for minors. For all oth­er accounts, month­ly fees will be charged unless con­di­tions are met.

Bank of Amer­i­ca’s lit­er­a­ture also says that as of Octo­ber 16th, “all deb­it and ATM cards will have their own indi­vid­ual lim­its for the dol­lar amount of ATM with­drawals and point of sale pur­chas­es you cab make in a sin­gle day.” Cus­tomers are instruct­ed to look inside a book­let to review the terms that will be applic­a­ble to them.

If you are a Bank of Amer­i­ca cus­tomer, we at NPI encour­age you to begin wind­ing down your rela­tion­ship with Bank of Amer­i­ca now in advance of the effec­tive date of these changes. There are many local cred­it unions that you can move your mon­ey to, such as BECU, Sound (Water­mark) Cred­it Union, Alas­ka USA, or Qual­star.

More and more peo­ple are real­iz­ing that it makes no sense to con­tin­ue to do busi­ness with Wall Street banks. Last year, sev­er­al greedy Wall Street banks donat­ed mon­ey to Tim Eyman’s I‑1053, includ­ing Bank of Amer­i­ca, which put up $10,000. (Oth­er I‑1053 sup­port­ers includ­ed Wells Far­go and JPMor­gan Chase).

Cred­it unions offer low­er fees, bet­ter rates, and supe­ri­or ser­vice. You can rest assured that, by join­ing a cred­it union, you’ll be able to avoid the new fees and restric­tions that big banks are adding to their offerings.

Wash­ing­ton’s largest cred­it union, BECU, reg­u­lar­ly makes a point of let­ting its mem­bers know that it is not plan­ning on fol­low­ing Wall Street’s lead. From the August BECU newsletter:

You may have heard, or may hear sto­ries about finan­cial insti­tu­tions begin­ning to levy new or addi­tion­al fees to their check­ing accounts or for the use of a deb­it card. As a mem­ber-owned cred­it union, we do not have any plans to elim­i­nate free check­ing or add addi­tion­al fees.

And from the May BECU newsletter:

Free check­ing is a hot top­ic right now. Some finan­cial intu­itions may offer what appears to be a “free” check­ing account and then nick­el and dime you with fees. We want to assure you that check­ing is tru­ly free at BECU. Not only is it free, but we actu­al­ly pay you inter­est on the bal­ance you have in your check­ing account. That’s what it means to be a mem­ber of a not-for-prof­it cred­it union.

Cred­it unions real­ly are seri­ous about putting their mem­bers first. When you join a cred­it union, you’re join­ing a mem­ber owned finan­cial coop­er­a­tive that has no out­side stock­hold­ers to pay. If you’ve still got a Bank of Amer­i­ca check­ing or sav­ings account, make a point of clos­ing it now or dur­ing the next few weeks, and move your mon­ey to a cred­it union. You’ll be glad you did.