Guess how much Bank of American charge Social Security customers for NSF?

[madmusic]

Miller v. Bank of America (Cal. Ct. App. - Nov. 20, 2006)
This case is about a class action lawsuit in which Bank of America was charged with illegally seizing social security payments and other public benefit payments to cover various unrelated bank fees (primarily NSF and overdraft fees). A California Supreme Court opinion from 1974 generally doesn't allow banks to seize government benefit payments to offset unrelated charges, but this case is arguably distinguishable from the present one.

I'll leave you in suspense about how the class action comes out. Read this http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A110137.PDF">relatively short opinion by Justice Siggins for the answer. I'll instead only ask a single question:

Guess how much in NSF and overdraft fees Bank of America has obtained from the class (people who directly deposit their social security and other government benefit checks into BOA accounts) during the class period, which is between January 1994 and May 2003?

What do you think? How much did they earn? Come on. Guess.

Would you believe: $284,211,273.

Wow. That's a freaking lot of change.

http://calapp.blogspot.com/

Let's see, $284,211,273/$600 = 473685.

So they in effect got the entire checks of 473,685 Social Security recipients. And that's just in California. (The $600 is a guess attempt to average out the payments for from 1994 to 2003 and may not be accurate.)

[williesgirl]

1. They really are blood-suckers, aren't they? Boo, hiss. recommended

[madmusic]

2. Kinda makes you wonder how much they make off of everyone...

Just in NSF and overdraft charges. And it's all computerized in seconds. How much would that be per hour?

[Warpy]

3. I'm not surprised, they're the biggest bank in the country

However, every bank out there has been jacking up all the nuisance fees for many years. Those fees have risen much more quickly than inflation has and are way out of proportion to what it actually costs a bank to return a bounced check. Grand totals for all the megabanks out there would likely be quite impressive.

[shanti]

4. screw bank of america

i cut them loose about 8 years ago for a credit union. their business practices suck. it was a great financial decision.

[bullimiami]

5. 25+ years of republican drive to deregulate everything has left us in a mess.

it is long past time for strenuous re-regulation.

start with banking, insurance and corporate accounting.

[caligirl]

6. i would love to believe their is a Bush in the BOA rat's nest somewhere.