Decoding Bank of America’s Latest Credit Card Fee

The headaches have been nearly endless since the day that my MBNA credit card switched over to Bank of America. There were problems logging in to my account online. Readers reported dramatic increases in their annual percentage rates. Now, I received a long letter from Bank of America full of new fees and hidden catches.

Bank of America sent out this three page "Important Amendments to your Credit Card Agreement" letter over the last few weeks. Most customers probably threw it directly into the trash. But if you read closely, you would see that Bank of America has implemented a new minimum finance charge.

Translation: Unless you pay your entire Bank of America credit card balance in full each month, you’ll be charged a minimum finance fee of $1.50 or a full finance charge on the balance, whichever is greater.

Most credit card issuers (including Citibank and Capital One) only charge a minimum finance fee of $0.50 each month. Bank of America’s change represents a pretty major fee increase.

Below the minimum finance notice are instructions for rejecting this change. According to the notice, you can send your rejection before May 1 in a letter to Bank of America – P.O. Box 15718 – Wilmington, DE 19850. However, their customer service team told me that all this rejection does is temporarily freeze your account. Once you use your card for a purchase again you virtually "accept" the change and are stuck with the fee all over again.

This lovely letter also included a notice that my account will no longer have a grace period unless I pay the balance in full by the due date each month, that late payments and over limit fees go as high as $39 and that they will charge a 2% fee for international charges.

Bank of America is obviously trying to find new ways to nickel and dime customers who rarely carry over a balance on their accounts. If I so much as pay ten cents less than the full amount due on my account, I’d be looking at some serious fees.

The timing of these changes is especially odd given that the whole credit card industry is under congressional scrutiny for charging excessive fees. Instead of following in Citibank’s footsteps and voluntarily cutting back on their worst fees, Bank of America appears to be stepping it up. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like using my BofA account anytime soon.

sOURCE: http://www.credit.com/blog/2007/03/decoding_bank_o/