The country’s biggest banks - Bank of America, Citibank, and Wells Fargo - to name a few, are suffering the severe financial fallout of bad subprime loans.  As profiled in today’s “Power Lunch” program on CNBC, it has gotten so bad that Bank of America has announced to its employees that it will no longer be supplying hand soap, sugar-free hot chocolate, flavored teas, and crackers, among other amenities.  What’s next, toilet paper?  These dire financial straits suggest that banks are going to be even more aggressive about pursuing other sources of revenue, including the much hated, but extremely profitable bank fees that they levy on unsuspecting consumers.  A couple of months ago, I was shocked to discover a $10.00 inactivity fee on a secondary checking account that my husband and I maintain at Chevy Chase Bank.   I spent about 20 minutes on the phone disputing the fee until they finally removed it.  What really upset me was that this fee was never disclosed to us when we opened the account.  I’ve also successfully disputed a $9.00 service fee levied on my Bank of America account.  However, Citibank declined to remove a 3% foreign currency conversion fee on my Mastercard, even though I pointed out to them that other credit cards did not charge such a steep fee.

Next time you get a bank statement or credit card statement in the mail, make sure to watch out for any inexplicable fees that have been deducted from your account.  Banks are looking for any source of revenue that they can find, and existing customers are usually the low-hanging fruit.  Any mistakes or new fees that they levy, they are betting that you won’t call to dispute the fee, and cha-ching$, they have a few more bucks in the till.  This cash goes a long way in the executive boardroom.  Take a look at Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis’ compensation package, which, with restricted stock, totalled over $22 million in 2006 (Feb. 16, 2006 Reuters).