Bank of America Fees (Updated)
Ever since getting my Bank of America account just before college, I have run into fees at random times. To be honest, my Bank of America was probably sufficient for my years at college. It was convenient since BoA ATMs/banks were all over the New England area. And as a college student, there were no fees even for low balances (the key words being "college student").
After college, I left several hundreds of dollars in my BoA checking and savings account solely because of convenience of transferring money to my siblings. The interest rates are atrocious (.05% for savings) and there are no local BoA even close to my current home. Last year, I was charged a fee in the checking account. Since I don't really need the account, I contacted them and they offered a no-fee online checking account and reimbursed me for the fee; I took it because what could it hurt...
Today, almost a year later, I check my Mint.com account and saw that my BoA Savings account had a $12 fee... A $12 fee for an account that's getting .05%?! COME ON! My Schwab checking account gets .1% at least! I made no changes to my account and all of a sudden BoA starts charging a MONTHLY $12 fee for this account... Outrageous. No wonder new services like Simple are succeeding; the big existing banks are horrendous.
The lesson here: Don't trust big banks. Pay attention to fees using services like Mint.com or Personal Capital. Move for banks with higher interest rates/better benefits (Schwab, Ally, Barclays)
Looks like I'm going to have called BoA tomorrow... I'll post an update after...
Update: After an extremely long wait totally to a phone call over 1 hour and 20 minutes long, I got my fees reimbursed and an explanation of the fees. BoA is consolidating their bank account types and I was automatically put into a savings account that required a minimum balance of $2500 to waive the maintenance fee... I was put in a savings account with a $300 minimum but I am considering closing both of my BoA accounts because of the low interest and upcoming changes to checking accounts (which may cause even more trouble).