I avoid using BoA ATMs and I AM a customer. I just don't have the need to constantly remove money when I can pay my bills online. I usually take out money once a month to last me the month and that's so I can do laundry. *shrug*

Why can't they just apply fees for the services rendered? For instance: non-customer taking out cash=$1 fee, non-customer making cash deposit= $2 fee, non-customer doing a transfer and wanting a copy of the check and also some stamps = $5 fee.
Why not? Because they know that most people use ATMs for cash withdrawal, oh and the current idea is more profitable.

I mean, I have only once ever used an ATM not affiliated with my bank, got charged $2, and learned my lesson. If you want to save money, just avoid ATMs from other banks, otherwise you'll get screwed whether its $2 or $3.

If you look back at my comments in this thread, you'll notice none of them were ad hominem attacks.

I honestly don't think I whined about being offended in this discussion, I KNOW I didn't whine about being gay, and I really don't think you know me well enough to determine my personal comfort level with being gay (or much else about me). But if I feel I'm being persecuted for being gay or having my rights denied because of it (here or in the real world), I'll damned sure stand up for myself -- and I'll be fighting, not whining.

And again, as I've said before, that was not the case here.

@bradanomics, I don't consider what you wrote to be homophobic at all. I have no real insight into your actual homophobia (or lack thereof), and although trotting out the "I have ____ friends so I'm not anti-____" line of reasoning tends to raise red flags, I have no reason to doubt your sincerity when you say you aren't. I usually assume people are NOT homophobic until they do something to indicate otherwise. I find life is much more pleasant that way.

Congratulations on your marriage -- seriously (no sarcasm).

__________________________

And this is SUPPOSED to be a discussion about BofA's fees, not a threadjack. So, on topic: BofA's fees are wildly inappropriate, so I'll try even harder to avoid their ATM's. However, I would use one of theirs before I used some no-name ATM in a bar or convenience store. I simply do not trust those ATM's.

@Antediluvian:

I find your username offensive. As a founding member of the "Society for the Disapproval of People that Call Themselves 'Antediluvian'". Please kindly change your name so that I am not threatened anymore.

Everybody whining about being "offended" is causing a huge issue in this country and our rights as citizens are being threatened because of it. If you have to whine about being gay and being persecuted because of it, then you obviously are not very comfortable with the fact that you are gay.

And before you attack me for being homophobic, know that my brother is gay and he was my best man in my wedding. I have gay friends, but they don't whine when someone offends them.

Good day.

With larger fees for foreign ATM transactions, it is worth asking our banks if they will reimburse us for them. Some accounts can get up to a certain number of fees reimbursed, but you have to ask for it.

At $1 it might not be worth one's time, but at $3 each ($6 or $12 if you have several), it adds up and is probably worth the 10 minutes of calling or writing to request reimbursement.

Why?

Because if they screw over other banks by reaming their cardholders with $3 charges, /what do you think those banks will do to BoA cardholders/? A price war is avoided by a business because it creates a permanent price drop across the market b/c nobody can raise their price back to normal without being undercut by the others, thus hurting all the businesses in the long run by lowering the market price. This is the opposite scenario. A price increase like this allows for everyone to do the same in retaliation, establishing a higher price, thus benefiting all the businesses in the long run by increasing the market price.

This hurts BoA cardholders too.

As for scanning the check, the site calls for the scan and takes the image straight from the scanner; you can't edit the picture between scanning and submitting it, other than the cropping it asks you to do. Like another poster said, there is no more option for fraud than paper transactions.

I'm not offended by use of the words "fuck," "screw," "suck," and "blow," because those are all things I can do by choice. Nobody chooses to be raped.

I can choose not to use a B of A ATM, or I can use it and grumble about the fee, but to call it "rape" would be incredibly disrespectful to anyone who has actually been RAPED.

@ the vaseline/suck comparison etc.

reminds me of one time in high school when a teacher overheard a student use the term "jew me" and got angry at him. The teacher suggested he use gypped instead.

1. "more bang for the buck" -- she said it was bad because it referred to prostitution
2. "blackout" -- she said this was bad because it's racist.

Just so y'all realize, I do not subscribe to her misunderstanding of those phrases, and did try to clarify for her their legitimacy. She meant well, but was so completely off base with her thoughts on these phrases.

FWIW, I do not believe that generic terms like "screwed," "fucked," "sucks," and "blows" are offensive, and I doubt that you do too.

And no, I don't have to avoid those terms while asking someone to avoid something I consider offensive because I don't consider those offensive. If someone raises a genuine concern over the terms, I'll thoughtfully consider it -- without the snide commentary -- and make a choice to continue to use the terms or not.

I made a simple request, politely, and without judging anyone. Can those of you who've tried to turn this into something more say you've done the same?

The use of "bent over" and other rape imagery in common language does come from homophobia, more specifically, paranoia over deviant, rape-y homosexuals terrorizing God fearin' straight folks. While most people don't realize it, that is where it comes from (it certainly didn't come from men empathizing with the most common victims of sexual assault, women at the hands of men).

But that's also where pejoratives like "suck" and "blow" comes from, maybe not as paranoid or graphic, but the same hatred for gays that led to "anal rape" as a commonly understood analogy for poor treatment.

If you're going to ask someone to watch the language they use, which is well within your rights, you should at least do the same yourself.

For example, in NYC, there's a WaMu at the corner of 2nd Ave and St. Mark's, a highly-trafficked corner pretty much every night of the week, but especially weekends. Back when WaMu had free ATMs for everyone, they'd routinely run out of cash on Friday night. That means WaMu customers couldn't use those ATMs were refilled on Monday morning.

But yes, $3 is ridiculous. That's almost strip club level.

Have you ever hit a busy ATM that had no cash left in it?

I also don't pay them any fees. I have the right kind of account for my habits, and it's all FREE.

Sure, financial institutions like to game you. Game 'em right back.

@dbeahn:
Can we stop with the suck comments? As a hetro man, I really don't need to see a gay man talking about sucking.
(Yes, I'm being sarcastic. Grow up. Slang about being screwed, lack of lubricant, etc etc are way old hat in the lexicon and in common use and have been common for years. But if you want to be over-sensitive I'll play along)

*golfclap*

i am a BofA customer, and i was sent out of town for work... naturally i eventually ran out of money and needed more... except... there weren't any BofA locations in this city.

so my choices are
* get raped by the ATM, then raped again by BofA, * go to Walgreens, and get raped by the BofA Debit card purchase charge?

tough choice.

I wish they would pass a law that only the person actually running the ATM is allowed to charge a fee.

@kingoman: Right on!

It is your own damn fault if you are paying ATM fees. Plan ahead and you will never pay an ATM fee unless you absolutly have to, and in that case you probably won't mind paying $3

A long time ago, banks paid YOU to use YOUR money. Now WE pay THEM to use our money. What a great racket...

Newsflash, gay men aren't the only ones using the back door. Moreover, Vaseline kills condoms. Use Astroglide.

They scan the check in and OCR the numbers off the bottom. Your check clears instantly. It's not any different than writing a business a paper check. And whose to say they can't make 100 photoshopped copies of your check before they trot down to the bank to deposit them?

Writing a paper check to anyone involves risk. Relatively speaking, I think the risk of Deposit@Home for the payor is comparable to any other payee.

I don't have any problem with this at all. I would have a problem with it, however, if they charged their customers a fee to withdraw money, but they are not.

It's a simple supply and demand issue. You need cash, the ATM has cash, and if you want to use the ATM and aren't a customer you should get charged to use it. Ever tried to get money out of a strip club ATM? Do that once and you will definitely learn to plan ahead.

BoA doen't care if you don't use their ATM. In fact it sounds like they hope you don't, because it is an inconvience for their customers to stand in line and wait for non-customers. They hope you will find that their ATM is convienent for you and you will become a customer of theirs.

Pretty basic if you ask me.

In 25 years of using ATMs, I may have paid 3 or 4 usage fees, and all in cases of extreme need with no easy alternative. It just isn't that hard to avoid them most of the time.

B of A will be the one ATM I won't use from now on. Which means I will not see the advertisements they play during transactions. I guess this means I will not look in the windows of the bank itself while using the ATM, nor remember the bank and its locations when I need some banking service or start another account.

Thanks,

Henry

Heck I think BofA ATMs should give out free money!

And if they don't they're Nazis... and I'm reporting them to the BBB, the FTC and my state Attorney General!

@Freedomboy: LOL I had to explain ATM to a co-worker...the look on her face was awesome!!! Then again she didn't know that box was a sexual referance either..

@Freedomboy: I'm doing this instead of work, even though I haven't posted in a while... :)

All this worry about vaseline and nobody Googled ATM? What kind of internet time wasting are you doing anyway? Sheesh.

And we all know that ONLY homosexual men have anal sex. There's no straight porn at ALL out there with anal sex. Straight men would never consider asking a woman for that, because women hate it and straight men hate it, right?

Ironic, because I know straight men and women that enjoy anal, and I know gay men that hate it.

Me? I'm with you and KILLAVANILLA - I'm not wild about having anal sex with my bank. And not just because it seems every time I do, I have to catch and don't even get a reach-a-round :(

Bank Of America ATM's take cash, automaticlly count deposits for you, no envelope needed. If you have the photo on your ATM card, your ATMS develope a learning curve and instead of asking for your pin number when you enter the card, they ask for it when you make a transaction. if you're always using the same ATM to deposit into the same checking account with cash, it just opens the slot for you and accepts the cash.

They are great ATMS, and remember, I joined BoA because I had a security deposit check back from a landlord/leasing company from BoA They charge a $5.00 fee for non-customers to cash checks there. Well, Even though the $5.00 fee was pocket change compared to the deposit I was getting back (cruddy company, had to pay a new deposit every year, and it kept stacking on the old one, but it earned interest)

Now because of that situation, I'm a BofA Advantage Member, and about $3K away from being a Private Bank Client. That means I'll have my own personal private banker. Someone has to pay for the luxury of having tellers fill out all my forms for me, making fresh cookies every morning for the branch, and nice yummy starbucks coffee on site, as well as the plasma tv's for the clients to watch while waiting for their appointments. It might as well be the non-customers.

If they called a spade a spade, I'd have no problems: "our non-customers need to evaluate our usurious fees and make a decision". Saying that they're protecting their customers by reaming non-customers is like saying letting The Gays marry is going to cause my divorce.

This actually concerns me. I wouldn't want someone simply scanning in a copy of a check that I write into an account. They can do what they want with the check (Photoshop), and then send in the doctored checks. Also, how long will they be hanging onto those paper checks and scanned copies? Will they shred them? Probably not, since it's not THEIR account in jeopardy.

@royal72:
Zing!

@Antediluvian:
Cool.
Just like straight dudes, sometimes people aren't so, well....faaaaaaaaaaabulous. Yo go girl.
I used to have the best time with my friend The big gay Todd.
Wonder what he's been up to.....
Best sense of humor on the planet.
He used to crack me up with stories about his little bear bashes.

@killavanilla:

Hello, I'm a gay man -- of course I have a sense of humor, and it's faaaaabulous. :-)

If there's going to be any sort of sex with a bank, they need to be paying US and there'd better be a HELL of a lot of money involved. Then it's merely a business transaction, like with any other prostitute.

blah blah blah cash back at market blah blah blah credit union blah blah blah

If you think this will seriously effect business, look at the ringtone story right next to this one on the front page. People are stupid, and most won't even notice the fee.

It'd be interesting to see their profits after a year of this. I have walked away from atm's that were charging $2 or $3 dollar fee because i knew of other locations where it was $1.50. Basically, there's a point in which the fee will lose business and I would think $3 is either there or getting dangerously close for some customers.

@Antediluvian:
Oh, I get the reference to anal sex. That's why it's funny. You know, the bank is giving it to us all....
In the rumpus.
I'm a straight man. I find nothing displeasurable about anal sex. However, the same cannot be said about anal sex with my bank. Under any conditions. Doesn't EVER feel good. Banks are BIG. I am small. So are you, especially considering it's a BANK and not a human person.
I can only assume that you wouldn't want to have anal sex with your bank, no matter how long you've been with them.
Regardless of your sexual preferences.
I am hoping right now that you have a sense of humor. And I understand your observations.
Respect.

@kahri: I was being facetious. It's a shit decision of course.

Banks make money because you deposit money into their accounts and they can invest/loan out the money and make interest. The bank loses money if a non-customer withdraws money from their ATM. They have to pay to have the ATM built, moved there, kept there, electricity, and a person to stock the ATM with cash and make sure everything works. Why shouldn't the banks charge what they want? If you don't like the fee, become a BoA customer.

Despite your testimony to the contrary, Bank of America's new fee structure for non-BOA card holders is grossly inappropriate. To suggest that it is your desire to cut down on wait times for your own customers is laughable. You must get paid a lot of money to talk that much bullshit and keep a straight face.

Here would have been a much better way to present it. "Here at Bank of America, we would like to make considerably more profit from our non-core customers, therefore we are raising or ATM surcharge by a dollar."

Sincerely,

J Blake
Lansing, MI

Another alternative is planning ahead. Figure out how much money you'll need until your next trip to the ATM, add a little padding, and take it out and spend it wisely. This is not to be snide -- it's a genuine suggestion and is meant to cover day-to-day expenses, not unexpected ones.

Fair question, but one which begs the answer "evidently something or else non-account-holders would chose to go elsewhere". Maybe its location, in which case the $3 fee might drive a few ATM users to think about transferring their accounts to the locations which are evidently convenient for them.

@dbeahn:

As I said, it's not something I make a big deal of, but will politely ask the person not to use the phrase.

As for being overly sensitive, I simply made a request. No one HAS to honor it, and some people (like you) can try to twist it into something it's not.

ING Direct checking is 4% (more if you have over $50k in your account), and it's free.

@VA_White: I came in here expressly to recommend USAA, which absolutely rules. Who needs branches?

@kahri: They probably are in some places if you're talking about where they're located and/or how many they are.

I think they should have just been honest and said, "It's to pay for the new deposit feature and it keeps the ATMs free for our customers. That, and we like money."

@killavanilla:

Vaseline reference = anal sex reference

It's a direct suggestion that anal sex is inherently a bad thing. It's a phrase (or comment or the topic) said almost exclusively by men, most of the time without realizing (or actually intending) the offense, but it's there nonetheless. Being gay means a heightened awareness that there are people out there who take issue with my sex life.

The vaseline references are not something I take huge issue with; but when I see it, I will politely point it out and ask the person not to use the phrase. So I did. That's all.

$3 seems high to me too. But, you are paying for the convenience of using their ATM's.

Whatever that value is to you should determine how willing you are to find another bank's ATM to use.

Now the ATMs are used to rape your account a few dollars at a time.

USAA reimburses your ATM fees, BTW. You can also scan checks at home and deposit them without mailing them in. If you're eligible and not banking there, you're a complete dumbass.

@IRSistherootofallevil: I bank at Chevy Chase in Maryland, and if I choose "debit" rather than "credit" to make a purchase at a grocery store, Chevy Chase considers it a non-Chevy Chase ATM and I'm assessed a fee.

@Antediluvian: "And yes, $3 sucks as a "fee.""

Can we stop with the suck comments? As a hetro man, I really don't need to see a gay man talking about sucking.

(Yes, I'm being sarcastic. Grow up. Slang about being screwed, lack of lubricant, etc etc are way old hat in the lexicon and in common use and have been common for years. But if you want to be over-sensitive I'll play along)

Even if there's a charge for a debit transaction it's usually much lower than the cost of a foreign ATM "convenience" fee.

@Antediluvian:
um, what?
What does being gay have to do with the joke again?

Ben, could you & your fellow editors please avoid the vaseline / rape jokes? They come across as juvenile; as a gay man, I just find them offensive. Thanks.

And yes, $3 sucks as a "fee." I take out cash from debit transactions as the supermarket or drug store.

This doesn't surprise me from BofA. One of the clients we audit has a bank account through them that they have a 3 dollar charge everytime they get their cancelled checks sent to them with their statement. Sounds alright since it could cost them significant money to send the actual checks, except since January of 2006 they have received scanned versions of their checks and the fee is still the same. Not to mention they never have more than 4 checks in a month.

We'll not even talk about the 15 dollar monthly maintenance fee for being under 5,000 on their non-interest bearing checking account.

And I'm a CU member..but mine kinda sucks and doesn't have a lot of ATMs.

@KAHRI see you don't get it! By charging non-customers $3 to use their ATMs they CREATE an inconvenient environment, insulation from which is provided to paying customers. Makes perfect sense.

I'm just waiting for them to start charging $15 for using "their convenience." Just give it a few years...

My head hurts.

I agree with charging a nominal fee, but $3 is crazy. Actually, I would have been fine with just the second part of the statement "...it is appropriate to charge people who aren't our customers for accessing our convenience." That's true--banks can charge whatever they wish, but the spin is just too hard on this one.

I dont have a problem with this. Company decides to raise fees on non-customers for a convenience that they dont have to provide, sounds good to me.

My CU has a deal with a larger bank chain to use thier ATMs free, so I cant tell you the last time I got hit with an ATM fee except on vacation.

Dear God, I love being a credit union member.