Fees R us.

• Author: Hightower, Jim
• Position: Vox Populist - Increase in bank fees - Viewpoint essay

Have you received your thank you note? I'm still waiting for mine.

A year into the Wall Street bailout, I've yet to get any sort of "thank you" from even a single one of the big banks that you and I have propped up with $12 trillion in direct giveaways, indirect giveaways, government guarantees, and sweetheart loans. You'd think their mommas would've taught them better. But I've begun to think that waiting on a simple gesture of banker gratitude is like waiting for Donald Trump to have a good hair day--ain't gonna happen.

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Far from showing appreciation, the largest banking chains are now going out of their way to stiff us. Instead of nice notes, they are quietly slipping new gotchas into our monthly credit card bills and bank statements. In June, for example, Bank of America abruptly raised its fee for a basic checking account by 50 percent. Citibank jacked up the interest rate on some of its cards to 29.99 percent. And JPMorganChase doubled the required minimum payment on its cards.

Across the board, fees have sky-rocketed to their highest levels on record, including assessments for such common occurrences as overdrafts (as high as $39), stop-payment actions ($30--double what it was ten years ago), balance transfers (up more than 50 percent in the past year), and ATM use (doubled in ten years).

To add insult to injury, the banks blame us for their rate increases. Because the economy is such a wreck, industry spokesmen say there is a greater risk that customers will bounce checks or fall behind on their credit card payments. Thus, claim purse-lipped bankers, they must protect themselves from us by ratcheting up rates and fees. "There is an increased riskiness around repayment because of the recession," spaketh one lobbyist for the financial giants.

Glade doesn't make enough Spring Lilac to cover up the stench of this argument. Come on--it was the greed and incompetence of Mr. Jolly Banker that wrecked our economy, caused the recession, and forced the odious bailout on us. They want us to pay for that?

The truth is, they are socking it to their customers for two reasons: 1) they can; and 2) fee hikes are a shifty way to snatch enormous levels of new income...