A man walks past an ATM outside Bank of America Corp. headquarters on Monday, May 2, 2016. in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA.
Chris Keane | Bloomberg | Getty Images
bank of Americathe second largest US bank by assets, which in recent years has engaged in deceptive practices that have hurt hundreds of thousands of customers, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Tuesday.
The bank charged multiple $35 overdrafts for the same transaction, did not issue rewards to credit card users and enrolled customers in card accounts without their consent, the CFPB said in a statement. rack.
Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America was ordered to pay a total of $150 million in fines to the CFPB and another regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. It also must pay approximately $80.4 million to customers falsely charged falsely, in addition to the $23 million it has already paid to customers who have been falsely denied card reissues.
“These practices are illegal and undermine customer confidence,” CFPB director Rohit Chopra said in the press release. “The CFPB will end these practices throughout the banking system.”
Bank of America spokesman Bill Halldin said in response that the lender “voluntarily reduced its overdraft fees and eliminated all non-sufficient fund fees in the first half of 2022,” resulting in a decrease in revenue from those fees by 90%.
The announcement Tuesday is the latest sign that some of the practices enforced by the Wells Fargo The 2016 fraudulent account scandal was not limited to that bank.
Regulators have penalized Wells Fargo for a sales culture that led to the creation of 3.5 million fake accounts. But other lenders have made similar mistakes, included American bankwho paid a $37.5 million fine last year for posting unauthorized customer accounts.