The United States authorities ordered this Tuesday Bank of America (BoA), the country’s second largest bank, to pay a fine of 250 million dollars for charging double commissions, opening “fake accounts” and failing to pay promised incentives to their credit card customers.

In a statement, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said the entity, which has committed other violations in the past, harmed “hundreds of thousands of consumers” over several years and across “multiple product lines and services.”

The CFPB accuses BoA of “repeatedly” charging a $35 fee determined for a transaction declined due to insufficient funds in the account, something it describes as a scheme to “collect worthless fees” and which the entity claims is “substantial additional income” over the years.

He adds that since 2012, BoA employees, in order to exceed sales goals and evaluation criteria, they also opened credit card accounts without their customers’ knowledge or authorization“unlawfully obtaining and using” your financial information to fulfill those requests without permission.

Due to these actions, the regulator indicates, the bank charged clients unjustified fees, which negatively affected their credit profile and they had to invest time in correcting the “mistakes”.

The opening of fake accounts a few years ago sparked a scandal at another major US bank, Wells Fargo, whose business has been hampered by fines and fines to correct the problem.

They denied bonus rewards

Finally, BoA is accused of recruiting customers to open credit card accounts with offers of cash or points, then failing to pay those incentives or bonuses to “tens of thousands” of them.

The penalty consists of about 100 million that will go to compensate injured consumers and another 150 million in fines for the CFPB and foreign exchange regulatory authority in the United States.

BoA has been the subject of other fines before, and last year it had to pay $225 million for problems with the payment of state unemployment benefits during the covid-19 pandemic, while almost a decade ago it had to pay $727 million for illegal practices related to card loans .