Using Your Bank Of America Debit Card Will Cost You $5 A Month (Unless You're Rich)

(Kenny Goh Wei Kiat/Shutterstock)

If you bank with Bank of America, the privilege of using your debit card will cost you $5 a month starting next year. The new fee has something to do with a change in banking regulations; banks had previously charged retailers an average 44 cents when a customer pays with a debit card. But the Dodd-Frank Act's Durbin amendment, which takes effect Saturday, caps fees at 21 cents per transaction. Banks will lose billions and fees, and these poor bankers need to recover that lost revenue somehow—so they're turning to you, reliable consumer, for help.

Bank of America, Chase and Wells Fargo each have been testing $3-a-month fees for debit cards in some markets, WNYC reports, and now BofA, which just terminated 30,000 employees, is kicking it up a notch. "The economics of offering a debit card have changed," Bank of America spokeswoman Anne Pace tells Reuters. She explains that customers "expect certain features for their accounts, like overdraft and fraud protection, and the fee will offset some of those costs."

Expect to see added fees like this popping up at other banks, now that the biggest bank in the nation has made the jump. But there's a silver lining to all of this, at least with Bank of America: the debit card fee will be waived for the bank's premium or platinum privileges accounts tied to its Merrill Lynch brokerage. Nice to see those guys catching a break for once.

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By John Del Signore in News on September 29, 2011 5:18 PM

Comments [rss]

chee1rs

Pull your money out and put it in your mattress , that way you pay for no service

carneyvor

Bank of America sucks, they care about absolutely nobody!

carneyvor

bank of america sucks, they do not care about anyone..worst bank ever.

delicats

I was just thinking of changing over to BOA from Chase (long story, I'm still angry at them for freezing my account for 3 days)

Nevermind, I'll probably just go fireproof safe under the bed. This isn't news, it's more routine nickel & diming, that is all.

Konrad_Lorenz

Yeah, seriously, the banks just make up one excuse after another for not giving back to you all of the money that you put in.

The problem is, a bank account is still needed to receive funds electronically, otherwise I'd not need one at all.

pendejito

New sign seen at Occupy Wall Street, "Fuck Bank of America and Your $5 Monthly Debit Card Fee!"

Matt F.

What pisses me off about the Durbin Amendment is that I had a debit card that gave me airline miles. I paid an annual fee for it (about five bucks a month) but the language of the act basically said the bank couldn't give me miles for it anymore and they did away with the program.

In short: They didn't think this law out through enough, and the banks are smarter than congress. They're gonna get around the law and hit the consumers hard.

imadick

stop complaining and get a credit card with airline miles, credit cards always give more anyway.

ANGRYGOD11

I just about stopped using my debit card as one credit card is accepted everywhere, awards points and I pay it completely off every month. Consumers need to be smarter, shop around and stop whining. B of A does this because too many people are too lazy to make banks suffer for their greed at the customers' expense.

YouMadBro

To be rich you have to have $5000, news at 11.

HairyG

Debit and credit cards are raising the prices of the things we buy. Use your card to buy a cup of coffee and the retailer has to cough up 25c or 50c in fees eventually we all pay for that in higher coffee prices.

Rocknrope

Wrong. The merchant fees for credit card acceptance are in the 3-5% range, so you're talking about 6-10 cents on a $2 cup of coffee. They don't want to take cards, that's their choice, but the cost in giving up convenience for their customers more than makes up for the small percentage.

FU Boy

Still, it's overhead cost that doesn't need to be applied. Pay in cash and that cost goes away, and the "fat cats" will have to tighten their belts.

Cent by cent, yes, but if we slowly take away those cents we slowly take away their dollars, millions of transactions at a time.

Rocknrope

What about buying stuff online? Or high ticket items like appliances or televisions?

I get what you're saying in that we need to educate people on being fiscally responsible and not buying more than you can afford, but getting rid of cards isn't realistic at this point, unless Anonymous gets to the system and brings the infrastructure down.

FU Boy

Just me, but I don't buy stuff online unless I can avoid it. And the joy of renting means that I don't buy appliances.

FU Boy

So pay in cash. Is it so hard to carry a buck fifty for coffee?

Everyone wants to have a card so they don't have to worry about money. Just swipe and done. Which is the kind of thinking that got us into this economic crisis. People overstepping what they could handle without really considering the cost.

Carry the cash and you realize what you're really spending. Which leads to better financial decisions. Which leads to question like, "Why am I paying this much for a 16 oz cup of coffee?"

Traci Lawson

So, if you have a debit card, but don't use it in a given month, there's no fee?

CityFace

That's right! But then there's a $7.50 card inactivity fee.

Rocknrope

Clearly they're spending the card fees generated on singing lessons...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

SPsGhost

"expect certain features for their accounts, like overdraft and fraud protection,"

WHICH THEY FUCKING ALREADY CHARGE YOU FOR ANYWAY! What the fuck? These people really think we're stupid? It's like the MTA asshole who said there would be an additional $1 fee for monthly cards because people get new cards instead of refilling them, WHEN THE MACHINES DON'T ALLOW THEM TO REFILLED. They really do deserve to be burned at the stake. Not figuratively.