Posted on 12/31/2004 12:34:53 PM PST by Grey Ghost II
Bank of America Corp., the third-largest U.S. bank, must pay $284 million to customers who were charged overdraft fees on accounts containing customer Social Security deposits, a judge ruled Thursday.
Bank of America has said it intends to appeal the decision, in which California Judge Anne Bouliane in San Francisco confirmed her tentative Dec. 8 ruling. In addition to the $284 million, the decision calls on the bank to give each affected customer $1,000. As many as 1.3 million customers may qualify, which could eventually increase the award to $1.6 billion, according to Mark Johnson, a lawyer for the customers.
"The decision confirms the jury's verdict that the bank's conduct was wrongful and provides for an ultimate remedy for victims," Johnson said.
The customers' attorneys argued Bank of America's actions violated California laws, citing a 1974 state Supreme Court case that prohibits banks from taking Social Security benefits to recover its own debts. The class-action case, filed more than five years ago, only applies to California customers, the bank has said.
Bank of America argued it couldn't stop charging the overdraft fees because the accounts at issue contain both Social Security and other funds. The order is "asking the bank to change its systems, to change its programs such that the fees won't be charged, but there's no way to tell what debits are allowed and which aren't allowed," Arne Wagner, a lawyer for Bank of America, has told the judge.
A Bank of America spokeswomen Shirley did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
The suit stems from complaints by one man, Paul Miller, who said the bank took bounced check fees from an account in which his Social Security benefits were automatically deposited.
The bank notifies customers in writing that such fees can be automatically deducted from their accounts. Bouliane ruled that customers weren't told the fees could be applied to their Social Security money.
Johnson said Thursday's order gives the Charlotte bank about 70 days to appeal the decision. Bank of America collects between $3 million and $4 million each month in bounced check fees from the accounts of California customers who have their monthly Social Security benefits electronically deposited, he said.
Bank of America has filed court papers seeking to decertify the class of 1.3 million customers, Johnson said. Suing as a class is less costly for the individual plaintiffs and gives them more leverage to negotiate a settlement.
Actually, they are.
Businesses who insist on remaining in Kalifornia and doing business there get exactly what they deserve.
They won't get any sympathy from me.
Agreed- boa SUCKS!
I tried to cash checks drawn on them on several different occasions and they wanted to charge ME $10.00 each time because I did not have an account with them.
I said that the checks were written by customers that have accounts at boa and they just replied that "it is company policy to do this because I did not have an account"
I told them to shove it.
boa=A$$HOLES
Yes. No.
Actually - it IS a CALIFORNIA thing. And your reference to election troubles- California doesn't have such big election problems because the LIberals are firmly in charge of most of the state. The roaches are everywhere....
Now, on to this story. This is a CALIFORNIA case, brought in LIBERAL CALIFORNIA courts. This case (not to defend BofA in any way) is about people writing hot checks. The courts are TOTALLY wrong for this ruling. These folks were writing hot checks - the bank is entitled to it's fees, which are CLEARLY spelled out in all documents pertaining to the account (and signed when the account was opened).
Now, if this had been a case of the bank not crediting the auto deposit on the day received in an attempt to cause overdrafts - that would be different. That is NOT the case here.
American Express did the same type of thing with my business account.
You likely could have gotten those fees back. Did you ask?
Ashamed of something?
Full disclosure: I am medically retired from BofA and have been since 07/2000. When I call their customer service line for my bank accounts, I call the exact same number as anyone else who's a customer of theirs does. The only way they know I'm a retiree is if I tell them and they go to a separate screen.
I had to call their customer service line today because I had forgotten the 'associate' 800 number for personnel benefits. Now, I don't know which customer service lines they've supposedly transferring to India but I talked to an American who had no problem getting me the insider number for personnel. I sincerely doubt a call center employee in India would have had access to that information.
Are there problems at times when one deals with a big entity? Sure there are! I dealt with complaints years ago when I worked for Exxon. I dealt with complaints when I worked for BankOne. It's a trade-off. Do you want the services a large corporation is able to offer (ie; trust department, warehousing of mortgage loans, etc.) or do you want the limited options a locally owned bank can offer?
You likely could have gotten those fees back. Did you ask?
sure did .... but it was MY fault, don't you see?
No, are you? Give us your real name, Paul. What's the 151 stand for..your weight?
"Is this thread only getting responses from people who have had bad experiences with BofA?"
It's the percentages, I guess.
I had BoA try to charge me for being past due - on a purchase that had been made 7 days prior. I went thru 5 people before I found someone who could understand that I couldn't be 30 days past due on a purchase made 7 days ago.
FWIW, all 5 of the people I spoke to were in Arizona - so they can't complain about language problems. Public education problems, maybe, but not language...
little off topic, wouldn't you say?
BofA is run by a bunch of dishonest corrupt thugs. I suppose Washington Mutual is worse, but BofA sucks.
Yes an no. Many were warrants written against insufficient balances but many were not. Simply screw ups by both the customer and the bank.
What got BofA in trouble was double dipping. BofA would withdraw funds from an account to cover the amount of the overdraft plus a penality. If that punative amount again overdrafted the account BofA would tack on another overdraft charge.
An example. You write a $100 check but it isn't covered by your deposit until the next banking day. On that day (2nd day) the bank withdraws $100 to cover the face value of the warrant and $15 penality to teach you a lesson. If there are insufficient funds in your account to cover the penality then the bank charges another $15 fee against a future deposit. Double dipping. They got caught.
This is only one of several class action suits filed against BofA over their insufficient funds practices in the 60s and 70s. As a consequence of these litilgations BofA has changed many of these pracitices.
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