No end in sight for runaway bank fees

News that Bank of America was jacking up its ATM fee for noncustomers from $2 to $3 prompted the usual muttering about money-grubbing financial institutions that nickel-and-dime people to death.

But BofA's reaching deeper into noncustomers' pockets isn't the real story here. The real story is the fact that virtually all banks increasingly rely on a variety of fees to boost the bottom line, and the trend shows no sign of abating.

According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., about 42 percent of banks' annual revenue last year came from noninterest income, which is dominated by money from fees. That's up from about 34 percent a decade ago.

Andrew Gray, an FDIC spokesman, said this highlights "the industry's increasing reliance on fee-based sources of income."

"Banks are in business like anyone else," said Brian Porter, 54, who works for a Fortune 500 company that he said he'd rather not identify. "Their job is to make money, and the place where you make money is fees."

Blame bank shareholders, he said.

"Banks are under tremendous pressure to generate fee income," Porter said.

The 50 percent increase in BofA's noncustomer ATM fee obviously won't sit well with anyone who needs some ready cash by turning to one of the bank's 17,000 machines -- the largest ATM network in the United States.

BofA argues that the fee increase benefits its customers by providing an incentive for noncustomers to take their ATM needs elsewhere.

"If you are a customer of Bank of America, you will have greater access to our network of ATMs," said Diane Wagner, a spokeswoman for the bank.

Some might say that BofA is solving a problem that doesn't exist. When was the last time you saw a line stretching around the block at an ATM?

"If people don't like paying the fees, use your own bank," said Lorrick Simon, 38, a financial-services worker and BofA customer. "This is a free society. If you don't like the fees, vote with your dollars."

Easier said than done, considering that just about all banks slap fees onto even the most picayune transactions. If you print out the online list of BofA's fees for its various accounts, for example, you get a document 11 pages long.

Fees vary depending on the account. Some of the more eye-opening charges:

• BofA charges $3 just to return canceled checks with the monthly statement.
• The bank charges nothing for you to speak by phone with a checking-account service rep six times a month. After that, it's $1 per call in many cases. Your seventh call to BofA's automated phone service, and all subsequent such calls in a given month, can run 50 cents.
• Wells Fargo may charge $2 to speak with a service rep by phone "when your request could have been handled by our automated service."
• Wells charges some customers a $1 monthly "point-of-sale purchase fee" just to use their debit cards.
• Citibank charges some customers $5 to draft a money order. Noncustomers are charged $10.
• If you want to stop payment on a check, Citi may charge $30.

"The only requirement for banks is that they disclose their fees," said Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. "Otherwise, neither Congress nor the regulators believe in capping fees."

Tara Terry, a 45-year-old legal secretary, said her absolute least-favorite fee is her bank's overdraft fee.

"I got hit with a fee for $20 just because my payroll deposit hadn't arrived until a few minutes after I made a payment for something else that same day," she said, shaking her head.

The not-for-profit Center for Responsible Lending said in a recent report that banks were charging customers a total $17.5 billion a year in overdraft fees, up 70 percent from 2004.

The system is so out of whack, according to the center's findings, that the $17.5 billion in overdraft fees is even larger than the $15.8 billion that consumers are overdrawing.

"It's ridiculous," Terry said. "It's highway robbery."