When I lived in America I opened a bank account with Bank of America because I figured they were probably a fairly safe bet to keep my money safe.

Since I’ve moved back to the UK I’ve hardly touched my American account. At one point I had to contact them regarding some fraud that Blockbuster caused by having absolutely shit account security, but that was about it.

I logged in for the first time in a few months two days ago to find that for the last three months they’ve been taking $8.95 out of my account for the pleasure of having an account with them. After a quick search on the Internet I found that this charge is for all current accounts with less than $1500 in them. I have searched through my email and I never received any notification of such a charge. My address details are up-to-date, but I also never received a letter. I opted for paperless statements, but since I never use that account I didn’t bother checking them.

Since I never used the account I didn’t leave very much money in there, so I found that the last payment they took from me actually made me overdrawn. No doubt I will receive a charge for that, too. Again, I got no notification that my account was overdrawn, and if I hadn’t randomly decided to check my account online I would still be completely unaware that I was getting more and more into debt just by having a bank account open.

I have contacted Bank of America via the contact form on their website to see why I wasn’t informed by an email, or letter, but I haven’t received a reply yet. So now I’m using their Live Chat support thing to speak to an agent from my browser.

You: I really wanted to keep my account open, but I’m sure I can find plenty of places that won’t take $9 a month from me just for keeping my money with them, and probably have higher interest rates and a better history of open communication with their customers.
Alan: Stuart, Our records are showing that the account fees have been charged to your account .

No shit!