U.S. PIRG visited 392 branches across the country, 24 of which were local, to gauge how forthcoming bankers were about checking and savings account fees. About 75 percent of area branches, located in the District, Arlington and Bethesda, provided undercover researchers with a complete list of fees, compared with 38 percent nationwide.
Banks are required by law to disclose upon request the terms and conditions of deposit accounts, including fees to transfer funds, use ATMs or stop payment on a check. Institutions are expected to ensure customers across all branches have access to the same information. That, however, is not always the case, according to U.S. PIRG.
Results were mixed at the three Citibank locations researchers visited. One location in downtown Washington promptly provided a fee schedule, while it took repeated requests to obtain information from another several blocks away. Citibank spokeswoman Natalie Marin said that fee information is available at every branch and presented upon request, declining to further discuss the matter.
Researchers were met with similar results at Capital One branches, with a location in the District readily complying and another in Bethesda failing to do so. While Capital One spokeswoman Tatiana Stead declined to comment on U.S. PIRG’s report, she said, “We are committed to transparency and provide easy-to-understand disclosures, including fees, for all of our customer accounts.”
The American Bankers Association rejected U.S. PIRG’s methodology and dismissed its findings. “They decided that if they had to wait more than 10 minutes to get a fee list, that the information wasn’t available,” ABA spokeswoman Carol Kaplan wrote in an e-mail. “This arbitrary standard is illogical and fails to take into account the time of day, the number of available personnel or other unforeseen circumstances.”
U.S. PIRG’s national findings mirror a 2008 U.S. Government Accountability Office report that found 22 percent of branches failed to provide a complete list of service fees. At that time, the GAO discovered consumers were paying more than $36 billion in fees associated with checking and savings accounts, which led the agency to question how aware consumers were of the terms and conditions.
The wave of financial reform that swept the country following the economic crash ushered in new rules on overdraft protection and the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. As the agency gears up to launch in July, U.S. PIRG is demanding it address the lack of transparency in banking.
“The new bureau has got to straighten out this mess,” said Ed Mierzwinski, director of U.S. PIRG’s consumer program. “If markets are going to work, consumers have to get the information they are required to get by law.”
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