As banks seek to impose new fees like Bank of America’s $5 monthly debit card fee, people are thinking of moving their money. With the role that Wall Street played in the economic collapse who would blame people for wanting to rid themselves of these banksters. They take bailouts but do nothing for small businesses or the average everyday consumer. In addition to that these banks continue to give huge payouts to their executives.
Besides leaving consumers infuriated, the debit card fees have also drawn the wrath of the White House, with President Obama warning last week that customers should not be “mistreated” in pursuit of profit, while Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. characterized moves to hit consumers with new charges “incredibly tone deaf.” Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, took the unusual step of denouncing Bank of America on the Senate floor, urging customers to “vote with your feet, get the heck out of that bank.”
The Times article says that investors are selling their shares in bank stocks like hotcakes. Why shouldn’t the everyday working man or woman not do the same? It’s time to move your money to credit unions or small community savings banks, if they still exist.
If they’re going to keep these sort of shenanigans going then people will do exactly what those free market fundamentalists would approve of and that is switch banks.
Bank of America’s announcement this week about its new $5 debit card fee was no coincidence. On Saturday, new federal laws go into effect that stopped the bank from charging other fees that were deemed unfair. So in order to keep up their record profits, Bank of America’s solution was to invent a new, unregulated fee to stick on its customers.
I’m with Wells Fargo personally but that doesn’t mean I might not one day look at a credit union or smaller community bank.
This is great.
Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis took a pounding Thursday from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. One of the most damning exchanges occurred between Lewis and Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), when Kucinich exposed Lewis' request for government cover from shareholder lawsuits stemming from BofA's troubled merger with Merrill Lynch.
They are ratcheting up shareholder activism when it is needed most. They’ve started this fundraising drive to raise ten thousand dollars so they can go to the upcoming annual shareholder meetings of these corporations and directly challenge them.