Bank of America must pay around $150 million to customers for doubling up on some fees, withholding reward bonuses and opening accounts without customer consent.
Bank of America will pay $90 million in penalties to the CFPB and $60 million in penalties to the OCC, the former agency said Tuesday.
The OCC also found the bank’s double-dipping on fees was illegal.
Bank of America, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, serves 68 million people and small business clients. The bank had $2.4 trillion in consolidated assets and $1.9 trillion in domestic deposits as of March 31, making it the second-largest bank in the U.S.
The bank did not immediately respond to requests from The Associated Press for comment.
Bank of America had a policy of charging customers $35 after the bank declined a transaction because the customer did not have enough funds in their account, the CFPB said. The agency determined that the bank double-dipped by allowing fees to be repeatedly charged for the same transaction.
Bank of America also offered people cash rewards and bonus points when signing up for a card, but the CFPB said the bank illegally withheld promised credit card account bonuses.
And last of all, the CFPB said, Bank of America employees illegally applied for and enrolled consumers in credit card accounts without their knowledge or authorization since at least 2012. The employees were trying to hit sales-based incentive goals and performance evaluation criteria that have since been “disbanded,” the CFPB said. The account openings, the agency said, wound up saddling consumers with “unjustified fees” and “negative effects on their credit profiles.”
Wells Fargo has paid billions in fines after it was determined that the San Francisco bank opened millions of unauthorized bank accounts in order to meet unrealistic sales goals.
“Bank of America wrongfully withheld credit card rewards, double-dipped on fees, and opened accounts without consent,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a statement. “These practices are illegal and undermine customer trust.”
In 2014 the CFPB ordered Bank of America to pay $727 million for illegal credit card practices. Last year it was ordered to pay a $10 million civil penalty over unlawful garnishments. Also in 2022, the CFPB and OCC fined Bank of America $225 million and required it to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in redress to consumers for botched disbursement of state unemployment benefits at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.





