Top Stocks provides analysis about the most noteworthy stocks in the market each day, combining some of the best content from around the MSN Money site and the rest of the Web.
Contributors include professional investors and journalists affiliated with MSN Money. For more about the contributors, click here.
Stocks to Watch
Subscribe to Top Stocks
| Currency | US Dollar |
|---|---|
| British Pound to US Dollar | 1.568135 |
| Euro to US Dollar | 1.376084 |
| Japanese Yen to US Dollar | 0.011156 |
| Canadian Dollar to US Dollar | 0.936768 |
Blogs We Like
- 24/7 Wall Street
- The Confused Capitalist
- DealBook
- DealBreaker.com
- Huffington Post Business
- Nouriel Roubini's blog
- Seeking Alpha
- The Big Picture
- Floyd Norris: Notions on High and Low Finance
- Daily Speculations
- Ticker Sense
- Freakonomics
- Beat the Press
- Kudlow's Money Politic$
- Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal
- DigStock Dig Blog
- Silicon Alley Insider
- MSN Money Smart Spending
- MSN Money Smart Taxes
- The Disciplined Investor
- Howard Lindzon
- Market Movers
Banks punish perfect customers
Bank of America and others test program that hits their best customers with new fees.
Pay all your bills on time and have perfect credit? How dare you. All that responsible behavior is doing nothing for banks. They can't slap a single overdraft fee or service charge on you. It's no fun to have you as a customer because, well, you're just too good!
So now, Bank of America (BAC) and other institutions are testing out a new annual fee for perfect customers. If you do everything right and play by the rules, you may be asked to pony up between $29 and $99 a year. Welcome to the new world of banking, where no good deed goes unpunished.
"There is a big segment of their population that they will have never made any money on, which is people who pay their bills on time every month," a research director at CreditCards.com told CBS News.
Bank of America and Citigroup (C) say they're just testing the fees now, and haven't made any decisions.
This isn't the first time we've seen this. Banks and other credit card companies are jacking up interest rates and closing the accounts of all types of customers -- including those who pay bills religiously.
It boils down to this: How much are Americans willing to take? Banks are trying to find out exactly how far they can push their customers.
When they say they're testing a new fee, they're really waiting to see how many complaints they get.
And I hope everyone who gets thrown into this lose-lose situation complains, because this is no way to treat customers.
Related reading:
Citibank yanks customer cards
So lets do the math, They, (the Banks) get the money at .5% and lend it to its best most credit worthy customers at 5%.
That's ten times their cost or a 1,000% return on their investment. plus loan costs and fee's.
And you scratch your heads and wonder how they pay themselves so much in bonuses.
See anything wrong in this picture
Big surprise..... I saw my "punishment" with Capital One months ago, when they raised my interest rate from 9 to 19% (!!). Before you ask, I had a balance less than $300, I paid double what they asked for each month, and I was never late with payments. When I called to ask why my interest rate had more than doubled, they had no answer for me (either wouldn't or couldn't tell me...it was hard to say), so I just politely closed my account and paid it off.
What's just plain spiteful though is how you really have to be so proactive in scanning your bank accounts for those (sneaky) mystery $3.50 fees they tack on here and there..... I guess they figured that amount is low enough to fly under most folk's radar....
DO NOT EVER-EVER DO BUSINESS WITH BANK OF AMERICA
DO NOT EVER-EVER DO BUSINESS WITH BANK OF AMERICA
right on, do not become a victim to "Bank of America" this is the worst company I have ever had the misfortune of dealing with. Their customer reps are rude, they reward their good paying customers with escalated interest rates and bogus late fees. It took me 6 months to close out an account with them. They didn't want to loose another unhappy customer, so they refuse to give an accurate pay off balance. I finally paid them $100.00 more than the payoff balance, and waited for them to send me the difference.
DO NOT EVER-EVER DO BUSINESS WITH BANK OF AMERICA
DO NOT EVER-EVER DO BUSINESS WITH BANK OF AMERICA
DO NOT EVER-EVER DO BUSINESS WITH BANK OF AMERICA
DO NOT EVER-EVER DO BUSINESS WITH BANK OF AMERICA
BANKER & GOVERNMENT MISSION STATEMENT:
FE, FI, FO, FUM!!! We smell the blood of the commonman. Be he "live" or be he "dead", We'll grid his bones to make our BREAD 
.
The End. Sleep well!
My credit union raised the rates once to cover the rising costs, guess how much they raised it, .25%, that sounds fair to me, they are getting just a minimum out of every customer to cover the rising expenses, anyone can afford a 1/4% increase, however banks need to raise your rates 10-25% in order to pay their executives like the Bank of America CEO millions of dollars to retire after tanking the company. Don't listen to these credit union bashers, they are bankers doing what they do best, LIE!!
One more thing, credit unions don't see you as a high risk because you have debt, as long as you pay on time regardless if you pay a minimum, they will not change your terms, so don't feel guilty if you happened to overspend in your past or perhaps you lost your job or have a very sick relative with expensive hospital bills, the credit union will help because you are a customer to them rather than just a number or a sucker, they will provide you the loan or the credit card and not lower your limit to get you to default on purpose, that should be the standard of customer service. That is why they have not failed or needed a bailout in order to survive the slump in the economy. Once the new credit card bill is in effect, you will notice in a few years that customers will not purposely default and the banks will be profitable after they have no more option than to pay a regular salary to their executives, otherwise they will be history like AIG and the other failing businesses, funny how Toyota and Honda are doing well, oh yes I forgot, their CEO doesn't even make a million a year while managing a bigger and more profitable business.
BLACKBYRD: " YOU GET 100 ATTA BOYS"
MY SAME FEELINGS, I HOPE THAT ALL THE BIG BANKS FAIL. THEY ALL TREAT GOOD PAYERS LIKE CRAP, I COULD CARE LESS ABOUT CREDIT OR CREDIT CARDS, I CLOSED ALL OF MINE OUT,AND I COULD CARE LESS ABOUT "CREDIT SCORES" BLAAAAAAAAA!
TO HELL WITH THEM ALL.
COMBAT VIETNAM VETERAN
WA. STATE
If you are current or ex-military (God bless them), or have a member in your family that is, go to USAA. I bank with them. No fees, no surprises, and great customer service. I work for another bank and won't leave USAA.
If not, as previous comments have posted, go to your local credit union. Concerned about lack of ATMs? Who still uses cash? Use your debit/check card for everything! Much more convenient and much safer. If you lose cash, it's gone forever. If you lose your debit/check card, you can get it replaced and dispute unauthorized transactions. Cash will soon be obsolete.
We Americans love our country. I do, and I know you do as well.
Our country has been taken hostage by the banking industry and the Federal Reserve.
The FED is what is controlling our country, not the people.
The "elected" "leaders", if they can be called that, are puppets of a larger entity.
We the people make laws, and they find ways to circumvent our laws and/or conveniently dismantle our laws and regulatory safeguards.
Why are WE paying to help THEM, when our TAX $ should be going to help US.
Let the big banks FAIL. Let them ROT!
Let greed fail the greedy.
The FED does not bail you out when you fail.
The FED does not help you when you fail.
Who helps you when you fail...not them.
So, why are we allowing them to take our $ to save their sorry, corrupt a$$es.
Not to mention, the banks use our money and pay us nothing for it.
The interest rate has been below 3% for more than 20 years and getting lower.
And yet they keep raising rates on us.
Power leads to greed leads to corruption leads to tyranny.
It is our duty to liberate our country from our "government" and these financial terrorists.
How. I don't know, but joining the credit unions sound like a great start.
We, we are a union, are we not...a union of 50 states!
Take heed the words of the founders of our once great country for they were well aware of power that begets evil, and the evil that leads to tyranny.
Afterall, they got the hell out of England's "kingdom".
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." (and do nothing)
- Thomas Jefferson
"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny.
When the government fears the people, there is liberty."
- Thomas Jefferson
"It is the Duty of the Patriot to protect his country from his government."
- Thomas Paine
StockScouter data provided by Gradient Analytics, Inc.
Quotes supplied by Interactive Data.
MSN Money's editorial goal is to provide a forum for personal finance and investment ideas. Our articles, columns, message board posts and other features should not be construed as investment advice, nor does their appearance imply an endorsement by Microsoft of any specific security or trading strategy. An investor's best course of action must be based on individual circumstances.
advertisement
Top Stocks Contributors
advertisement
MSN Money Video
Readers' Choice
| Rating | Top 5 Articles |
|---|---|
| 4.13 | Growth won't dig US out of this hole |
| 3.98 | 4 reasons we get ripped off |
| 3.93 | Battling the system: A patient's tale |
| 3.84 | Mortgage hardship applicants in limbo |
| 3.82 | The coming economic crisis in China |