Bank of America Website Malfunctioning "Again" Amid Volume Surge Following Debit Card Fee Hikes; New 52-Week Low of $5.60; Time to Switch Banks

Bank of America has taken "proactive" measures to manage traffic following a bad decision to hike fees on debit cards.

The bank has been swamped with traffic and instead of increasing servers, has taken measures in the bank's words "could result in some customers experiencing slowness or temporarily having access issues."

Lovely.

Please consider BofA website malfunctioning again

Bank of America's website, plagued by problems Friday and Saturday but supposedly fixed on Sunday, wasn't working again Monday.

Many users trying to access bankofamerica.com get a message saying the home page is temporarily unavailable. But spokeswoman Tara Burke said customers who experience slowness or can't get into their accounts should keep trying.

Burke said the access problems are a result of the bank managing traffic volume during peak use.

"We've simply taken some proactive measures to manage customer traffic during peak hours during the day," she said. "That could result in some customers experiencing slowness or temporarily having access issues."

She declined to say whether volume has surged in recent days.

The problems began Friday, a day after the bank said it would start charging a $5 monthly fee for customers using debit cards. Burke insisted there's no connection. The delays and the home page message persisted Saturday, but Burke said Sunday that things were fine.

Bank of America (BAC) Plunges Below $6



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Shared of Bank of America have solidly taken out the "Buffett is Buying" low reached in August. The spike to $8.79 was a good time to unload if you were still holding this turkey in any size.

Warren Buffett did not buy Bank of America shares, he got a sweet deal to buy debt that came with a free option to buy shares. The move was an obvious ploy by Bank of America to put a floor on the share price. It did not work.

Time to Switch Banks

My recommendation is that if you are at any bank that raises debit card fees, switch banks. That Bank of America's servers are flooded is a welcome sign that customers have had enough.

Adding insult to injury, the "proactive" way Bank of America handled this maneuver suggests blatant incompetence.

Addendum:

"PT" who lives in Seattle writes ...

Is this blatant incompetence and/or an effort to slow customer transfers? It's time for BofA customers, such as myself, to take some of our own proactive measures and move our accounts to a bank which is capable of handling "peak traffic".

I bank with BofA in Washington, which has a totally separate portal for accessing accounts. It has been offline since 7:00 am Seattle time, when I first tried to access my account, and that is hardly what I would call a "peak traffic" hour. An electronic run on the bank prompted by customers fed up with their incompetence and, most recently, their plan to impose a fee on debit card usage.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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