‘DOUBLE-DIPPED’

Bank of America Forced to Shell Out $250 Million Over Wrongful Fees

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said the bank “wrongfully withheld credit card rewards, double-dipped on fees, and opened accounts without consent.”

Bank of America must fork over $250 million in penalties and restitution because it “wrongfully withheld credit card rewards, double-dipped on fees, and opened accounts without consent,” a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau official told The Wall Street Journal. According to the CFPB, the bank would “double-dip” its $35 fee for declined transactions by charging repeatedly for the same transaction. The bureau also said Bank of America failed to hand out promised credit-card account bonuses to tens of thousands of customers, and its employees illegally opened credit-card accounts on customers’ behalf without their knowledge since at least 2012. Bank of America has to shell out $100 million to affected consumers, $90 million in penalties to the CFPB, and $60 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. A Bank of America spokesperson told the Journal that the bank “voluntarily reduced overdraft fees and eliminated all non-sufficient fund fees in the first half of 2022” and that “revenue from these fees has dropped more than 90%.”