This should come as no surprise to anyone, but Bank of America has found a new way to rip off its customers. I found out about this through a friend. You see, Bank of America sold my mortgage to M&T Bank recently. I posted something about it on Facebook, and a friend posted that her mortgage was also sold to M&T Bank.
I moved all of my Bank of America accounts to my local credit recently, but my friend did not. She contacted me today urging me to look at my most recently statement. This will require a little backstory, so bear with me.
When you get a mortgage with Bank of America, they encourage you to open a free "Advantage" account. In fact, you can get two free "Advantage" accounts when you have a mortgage with Bank of America. You can also get two free savings accounts. These accounts are free as long as you have your first mortgage with Bank of America.
My friend's mortgage was sold to M&T Bank, meaning she no longer had a mortgage with Bank of America. Guess what happened to all those free accounts? You guessed it. She got hit with a $25 monthly fee for each checking account. Then she got hit with a $8.95 fee for each savings account. Total fees for one month $67.90.
Bank of America never made mention that her accounts would be assessed a fee now that her mortgage was sold to another bank. Sure, they mentioned it 7 years ago when she opened the accounts along with her mortgage, but wouldn't a GOOD company that cares about its customers remind that customer? That's what she thought.
She called Bank of America and they have refused to refund the fees. She will be closing her accounts before the end of the year because of this. She was one of the ones laughing at me as I posted information about "Bank Transfer Day" on Facebook. Now she's wishing she listened.
Beware and let your friends know, if Bank of America sold their mortgage their remaining accounts will be assessed these monthly fees. Oh yeah, I should mention, you can "EASILY" get those fees waived by maintaing a daily balance of $15,000 in the checking accounts and $2,500 in the savings accounts, at least that is what Bank of America told her.
I've encouraged her to not only close her accounts, but to also write her Representative (newly Orange to Blue endorsed Brad Miller). This crap has got to stop. How many thousands of people were assessed these fees due to no action of their own. Bank of America made the decision to sell their mortgages and now they get hit with these ridiculous fees. It's nuts.
Move your freakin' accounts folks.
