Bank of America decided against charging its customers a $5 monthly fee to use their debit cards to make purchases Tuesday after receiving too many complaints from consumers.
Last month, the bank had announced its decision to introduce the fee, which was much like what other banks were doing. Wells Fargo, SunTrust and JPMorgan Chase all had similar charges for debit cards.
However, last week the other banks announced plans to drop the debit card fee, leaving only Bank of America with the policy. A representative then released a statement Tuesday about a new change.
“We have listened to our customers very closely over the last few weeks,” said David Darnell, a co-chief operations officer at Bank of America. “We recognize their concern over our proposed debit usage fee.”
A federal law limiting the amount of fees banks can charge stores when consumers use debit cards for purchases went into effect Oct. 1, which would cost banks billions of dollars in revenue each year.
The debit card fees for consumers, then, were intended to make up for some of the revenue loss. However, Bank of America customers were less than pleased.
“I really can’t believe they would charge me $5 each month just to use my card,” said Emily Wagner, a sophomore business and mathematics major and Bank of America debit card user. “It’s just ridiculous.”
Other students recognize that it was not just Bank of America planning the change, but other banks as well.
“I had seriously considered switching to Capital One, which didn’t charge a fee,” said junior history and government and politics major Joshua Dowling. “I still find the idea that the bank could charge me to use my own money slightly scary, but Bank of America is really convenient, so I may have stuck by them anyway.”
Even politicians took the side of consumers, with President Obama claiming customers were being mistreated for profit, and Vice President Joe Biden calling Bank of America “tone deaf.”
For now, the fees have been dropped with no sign of returning. The bank has not announced any future plans for covering the revenue loss caused by the new law, but experts say they will have to find another way to manage the loss of funds.