The second largest bank in America was fined US$250 million for scamming its customers!

The United States is having its own version of the SSL scandal right now and boy is it big!

Bank of America, or BOA for short, has agreed to pay out US$250 million in fines and compensation for a whole host of service violations against customers. 

According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, for over a decade, BOA knowingly double-charged customers’ fees, withheld credit card perks and opened credit cards without customer authorisation. 

This is huge news because like I said before, BOA is the second largest bank in America. 

It’s actually one of the “Big Four”, one of the top four banks in America that hold roughly 45% of all US customer deposits. Each Big Four bank has assets of more than US$1.7 TRILLION.

BOA itself handles around 11% of the United States’ overall banking deposits. For reference, the US has a population of roughly 331 million people and let’s say each person has at least one account. So this literally affects millions of people. 

The Protection Bureau said that from 2018 to 2022, BOA would charge US$35 every time a customer tried to withdraw money from their account but couldn’t because of insufficient funds.  That’s over JMD$5000!

Imagine, you already don’t have enough money to handle your business, and then you get slapped with a US$35 fee because yuh bruk! Not nice but the bank was reportedly able to bring in hundreds of millions of dollars by doing this. 

On top of that, customers were sometimes double charged for overdraft or maintenance fees!

The drama with the fees is one thing, but according to the Bureau, BOA employees would sign customers up for credit cards without their consent!

This was reportedly because they were under pressure to meet sales targets, or wanted bonuses. And this choppa behaviour dates back to 2012.

Then with their legit credit card customers, the bank failed to give out promised cash rewards and bonus points. You know agents always try to hook you into a credit card by telling you all these great things you’ll get.

But you know they say, “What’s done in the dark, must come to light.”

Bank of America has agreed to pay US$100 million in restitution to impacted customers, and another US$150 million in civil penalties to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

So, you see guys, it’s not just Jamaica alone these things happen. They happen all across the world in some of the biggest institutions…

And that’s the bottom line.