Dear Sir or Madame,

I’m writing to report to you the abusive fee policy of Bank of America. Since the end of last month to the beginning of this month Bank of America has taken approximately $500 in overdraft fees from my bank account. They will hold charges as pending for days. Because of this when I check my balance at their ATM it gives me a different balance then what the actual balance is. They claim that it’s the company that is holding the charges as pending thus my balance is different from reality. Now, I have a PayPal debit card that I use at the same places I use my Bank of America card and the charges are never pending.

I’m living on Social Security and a small pension from New York State Government. Because Bank of America took so much money from me I have to depend on food banks to eat and I can’t pay the full amount of my rent.

I’m not the only person who is dealing with this problem. Norm K from My3cents.com writes:
(http://www.my3cents.com/showReview.cgi?id=54484)

“It was troubling because I did not realize how wide spread abusive funds availability policies were; it was encouraging because I understood that I was not alone on this issue. That realization was also infuriating when one considers bank customers are currently being charged by banks on two fronts: first as customer who are charged egregious fees and second as taxpayers to bail out the very banks who are charging them as depositors.
When reviewing the issues I also concluded that characterizing those who have experienced the negative and often expensive effects of abusive funds availability and overdraft policy as irresponsible miscreants who cannot balance their check book is patently false. If fact, many who have had negative experiences with abusive overdraft fees are victims of overdraft policies crafted to allow banks to ignore deposit credits while first running all check and debit card charges in order of greatest to least. This maximizes overdraft events and related overdraft fees.

The processing order practices appear to be allowed by exceptions in Federal Reserve Board Regulation CC. Once a customer has a history of overdrafts, that regulation apparently allows banks to ignore required funds availability requirements, which often creates future cascades of unanticipated and unwarranted overdraft events. It also appears that customers are not informed by the bank that their accounts are being processed under different rules that create increasing opportunity for the bank to maximize fees charged.”


I feel the Federal Governments should step in and protect the American people. These institutions have abused the average citizen for years. Please look into this growing problem.

Respectfully,
Robin Church.