Bank of America says it won’t raise fees ahead of new regulations
Jennifer McClelland | RSS | 3 Comments
Of all the bad that Bank of America has done in the past, at least it is trying to make up for it in the future, or at least they say they are. With the new regulations, Bank of America has decided that it would not hike credit card rates or increase fees before the new law is to go into effect.
New regulations are set to take effect in February. The new laws are meant to reform practices in the credit card industry including limiting banks’ and other lenders’ abilities to raise their fees and rates. It also requires that they give borrowers a greater understanding of the lending process and the costs associated with borrowing through greater disclosure.
The regulations may actually be moved up two months. Lawmakers in Congress have introduced some legislation that would cause the new laws to go into effect on December 1st instead of in February. The reason for the move is that credit card companies are raising rates and charging higher fees ahead of the new laws. Unfortunately for the borrower, the bureaucratic process takes longer than a credit card company’s decision to increase the interest rate on their card.
Some credit card companies have taken it upon themselves to change the terms of their agreements with their borrowers. Discover cards decided that it was going to “transition” some of its fixed interest rate card holders to a less-than-ideal variable rate. It is business practices like this that caused the government to take action against the companies and to set new laws and regulations for the industry.
Bank of America has done a lot in the past to make their customers leave in droves. The company has really taken a more consumer oriented approach in an attempt to gain back some of the customers that it lost when it started the shady business practices that are now being regulated against.
Bank of America was once one of the worst offenders. It was raising rates for customers who never missed a payment and would even pay more than their minimum payment.
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Tags: oriented approach, fixed interest, bank of america
Steve from Live Ambitions | Wed, Oct 07 2009
Talk is cheap. We won’t know for sure until they really do what they say. If they don’t make the money through interest rates, they’ll make up for it some other way. It’s pretty much a game of cat and mouse.
Chris McClelland | Mon, Oct 12 2009
Just for laughs when we where coming out of Dallas a couple of months ago the Bank of America building looked like a huge Tron building. I was seriously expecting to see like Darth Vader or something appear on the roof fighting Yoda.
Otherwise it’s an interesting way to display just a corporate building.
Jason in Ohio | Mon, Oct 19 2009
They LIE! I got a BOA loan back in 2005 to consolidate some other higher-interest debt. $25,000 loan, “FIXED” rate (ha, ha, ha) below 10%, payments of 360 per month. NEVER late even once. NEVER. Got notice this weekend that my “FIXED” rate was not fixed anymore, but would now be variable and slide up and down with the US primes rate. Funny that they did not date the letter, even though it was received on October 17th. It just says “October.” Do they really think we are all so dumb? I guess BOA wants to “hedge” their bets as to when the 45 days notice begins and ends. Nice.
What a steaming pile of crap. These people are like legalized loan sharks. I will be refinancing this debt one way or another and saying “good bye” to BOA. They are absolute bastards for doing this, especially after the banking world was bailed out by people like me. I hope that Congress nails them for it, especially after BOA’s apparently worthless promise not to do this very thing. I will be forwarding copies of my notice to all of my local, state, and federal lawmakers. There should be criminal penalties for this type of behavior.