Bank Of America Debit Fee: D.C. Woman Delivers 150,000 Signatures, Cancels Account

WASHINGTON -- After collecting well over 150,000 signatures in less than a week, District of Columbia resident Molly Katchpole, 22, followed through with her threat to close her account with Bank of America.

Appearing outside a Bank of America branch at 18th and K Streets NW, Katchpole spoke with reporters about her plan of action before going inside.

"I'm going to go inside, tell them, calmly, that I would like to close my bank account. Then I'd like to ask if I could hand these to [Bank of America CEO] Brian Moynihan. I know he was here yesterday; I don't know if he's here today. But if he is, that would be really cool. If he's not, I'll pass them off."

Then Katchpole cut up her debit card in front of reporters to show her commitment to following through with her threat. When asked if there was anything the bank could do to prevent her from closing her account, Katchpole responded, "No, I'm just fed up."

As she told The Huffington Post on Wednesday, Katchpole said this movement is about more then just her.

"I work two part-time jobs, and $5 might not seem like a lot of money to the people who made the decision, but to thousands of people right now, an extra $60 a year to a company they just bailed out with their tax money is not okay," she said. "It's not okay with me, and so when I made the decision, I knew that other people would be fed up with it, too."

Katchpole said that people who wouldn't be affected by the change were also upset.

"If you read the reasons why people signed [the petition], they were really upset. Some people said, 'I have a premium account, so this wouldn't even affect me, but I am still closing my bank account and moving to another bank because this is outrageous.'"

After about 20 minutes, she went into the bank branch to close her account; she came back outside and called the whole thing "just a business transaction."

The employees didn't have much of a reaction to the petition but promised to relay her petition to more senior employees in Bank of America.

When asked how she felt about the whole ordeal, Katchpole responded, "liberated, I feel good."

WATCH: Bank of America Debit Fee Controversy

Comments

[slackgeek]

10:52 PM on 10/09/2011

hopefully at least the 150k+ that signed the petition actually close their accounts, i am closing mine.

[dkuck15138]

02:23 PM on 10/12/2011

Me too!

[Jonathan Alter]

09:29 AM on 10/07/2011

Why is this even a story? Move to another bank...problem solved.

[cfruth]

08:51 AM on 10/07/2011

I am in 100% agreement with Molly! Screw Bof A! Who do they think they are!? I will be closing my account with them immediately!

[keithnjc]

12:16 AM on 10/07/2011

being a bank of america customer i have changed my preferences from paperless billing to mail . i will help out the postal service and have bank of america pay them to mail my statements !

[Mark JohnsonI]

06:28 PM on 10/06/2011

All of these new fees that BofA and the other big banks are introducing are in response to the reduced interchange revenues from debit transactions that resulted from the Durbin Amendment. Frankly, I don't blame them. I mean, if the government decided that a large chunk of my income should be collected by someone else, which in the case of the Durbin Amendment are the retailers, I would look elsewhere for ways to increase my revenues.

We've been repeatedly warning, ever since the debit interchange limit was first proposed, that it was ultimately going to hurt consumers in the form of higher fees and that is exactly what is currently taking place. http://blog.unibulmerchantservices.com/banks-discontinue-debit-rewards-programs

[ProgressBeforeAnything]

07:11 PM on 10/06/2011

It doesn't hurt consumers when there are alternative choices aplenty :)

[cfruth]

08:53 AM on 10/07/2011

Yeah, you're probably one of those people who makes millions of dollars so this fee is a drop in the bucket to you!

[jpatton346]

06:20 PM on 10/06/2011

banks never steal small but if given the opportunity they will steal big

[Dye]

05:12 PM on 10/06/2011

Capitalism hard at work stepping on the average person to protect the shareholders.