How Bank of America ruined my Fleet MasterCard
This rant has been a long time coming, but a post on the Consumerist blog today, entitled “BoA Buys MBNA, Starts Charging Customers Extra For Not Paying Balances Off In Full“, inspired me to write it up. Forgive me if the timing of some of these events is a little bit off, but the overall gist of it is the same, regardless of some of the details.
I opened checking and savings accounts at Bank of America about 3 years ago, because Wachovia royally screwed me over in my first overdraft situation ever. I shopped around for a new bank for a while, particularly soliciting word-of-mouth advice from friends and coworkers. I was impressed with BoA’s online banking, in which check card transactions appeared on the website instantly. This was much better than Wachovia’s, where it sometimes took *days* for a charge to appear on the website, even in a “pending” state.
Well, it wasn’t long before BoA bought Fleet. This seemed like a good thing to me, because my Fleet credit card (my primary credit card, which I’d held for longer than any other cards) suffered from a more painfully slow charge-to-website time than Wachovia’s check card. With my Fleet card, my charges would sometimes take 7-14 DAYS to appear online, even in a pending state. Unacceptable. But I kept using the card, because of the positive impact it had on my credit rating (the many years the account had been open, and because of the fixed 7.99% interest rate).
Actually, I should point out that at some point prior to the BoA-Fleet announcement, my Fleet card suddenly changed its terms, instituting a variable interest rate which was, at that time, around 13.5%. I called their Customer Service and complained about this, and they lowered my rate down to a lower variable rate, around 7.4% or so. At some point, a year or two later, I received notice about a class-action lawsuit against Fleet, regarding the changing of fixed rates into variable rates (not very “fixed” if they can change it whenever they want to). Although technically they may have been allowed to change it, it still wasn’t very nice, and they ended up settling the suit. A while later, I got over $100 back on my Fleet card in two settlement-related deposits. That was cool.
Anyways… After BoA bought Fleet, they immediately changed the terms of the card, making the interest rate go back up to something-teen-point-something. Ugh. A year or so later, BoA finally assimilated the Fleet card into its online banking system, though, and it did, in fact, speed up the charge-to-website time. It also gave me back a feature that the Fleet website had taken away at some point — the ability to download transactions from the currently open billing period into my personal financial software (MS Money, the subject of another rant!). That was nice. It also allowed me to now make payments to the Fleet card (now a BoA card) much faster, and I could even do instant cash advances from the card, in the event of an emergency, directly into my checking account. This came in handy a couple times. Yes, the fees are horrible for that, but still better than dealing with overdraft/NSF hell!
Over time, BoA has changed the terms even more, making the variable interest rate even higher (currently 17.24% for purchases, 24.24% for cash advances), raising balance transfer fees, late fees, and generally making every other rate/fee higher as well.
I’ve kept the card, though, because it’s now pushing me close to the 10-year mark, which should look good on my credit report. Oh, and one other positive thing in all of this… When I got this Fleet card, it was called the “Winners Edge MasterCard”. Every time you used the card, there was a slight chance that you could win a prize of getting that charge paid for. I won a couple times over the first couple years, with charges in the $5-20 range (of course it was never any of the $500-5000 charges!). At some point, the card quietly stopped offering that reward. Boo! Hiss! But when BoA took over the card, they renamed to to “Power Rewards MasterCard” and I started accumulating points-per-dollar-spent. That has continued, and that’s better than no rewards.
Anyways.. That’s [more than] enough for this rant. Next one will be about how BoA has destroyed my Merrill Lynch Platinum Plus Visa.
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April 11th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Heh. That’s how the credit industry works. They get you in with good deals, trade with each other like junkies trading aids-infested needles, and eventually you wind up with a worse deal.
Same thing is happening with my Wachovia (MBNA) MasterCard. I had to get it re-issued — all of a sudden I had to have a Visa not a MasterCard. Then MBNA sold their stuff somehow…. Wachovia keeps sending me letters to transfer my card to them, but I don’t want to futz with it. But I have received several notices that talk about changes which I assume are not in my best interest.
I’ll keep using it cause I’ve never not paid off the complete balance every month (automatically), and I like the $20K limit, but like — if I was in any other situation, I’d be leaving.
But it’s a pain. Autobilling to credit cards means changing credit cards can cause your bills not to get paid. Yuck.
April 14th, 2007 at 2:51 am
[…] my MBNA card was to be come a BoA card, slowly over the course of the year — the same way my Fleet card became a BoA card the previous year. We put the cards away and did not use them for 3 months straight. They still raised my limit a […]
May 15th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
[…] the FIA Card Services (aka Evil Spawn of the Bank of America+Fleet and Bank of America+MBNA mergers) Privacy Policy (emphasis added by me): This notice describes the […]