Money Facts Archive Get the real facts that will shape your future by having them delivered to your Inbox!

Here's another one of those articles that leaves you just shaking your head. Apparently, Bank of America, and other banks, want to CHARGE customers a fee for paying on time! This ludicrous proposition, posted by Kim Peterson on Wednesday, October 28, 2009, can be found at:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/top-stocks/blog.aspx?post=1340412&_blg=1,1340412

Here it is:

"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."

I may have the reason for this seemingly idiotic fee-proposition. The AFL-CIO reported that Bank of America's CEO made just less than $10 million in 2008. This, however, was dramatically less than the 2007 CEO compensation of almost $24 million. Obviously, we can't have a Bank of America's CEO trying to get by on $200,000 a week...

No doubt these new fees will help solve that problem!

- Ed Smith, Publisher
The EHS Letter Manual