By Elizabeth Dilts Marshall

NEW YORK, Reuters – Two customers filed a class action lawsuit against Bank of America Corp (NYSE) on Thursday. They claim that the bank failed to honour promises to reimburse overdraft fees to those who were in financial distress during the pandemic.

Anthony Ramirez is a California truck driver and Masako Williams (85-year-old retired Texas resident) said they requested a refund from the bank for hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees and nonsufficient funds fees. They were charged for the costs in 2020 and 2021 for not being able to work.

Bank of America, like many other banks, pledged, at the start of the COVID-19 epidemic, to provide financial assistance to customers who needed it, as well as to reimburse certain NSF and overdraft fees. According to the U.S. District Court Northern California lawsuit.

William Halldin, spokesperson for Bank of America, did not respond to the inquiry but stated that “tens of million dollars” in fee waivers were provided by the bank during the peak of the pandemic of 2020.

Overdraft fees and NSF fees are being scrutinized more closely by regulators. U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is currently exploring new guidelines to reduce banks’ reliance upon fees and seeking testimonials from bank customers.

Bank of America announced in January that its overdraft fees will be reduced from $35 to $10 beginning May and that it will stop charging $35 for nonsufficient funds fees. This includes bounced checks, automated withdrawals and automatic account withdrawals the bank rejects.

Williams and Ramirez claimed that their requests for refunds were repeatedly rejected by bank employees and that there was no system in place to allow them to request refunds.

Williams, for example, was denied a refund once by a bank representative, who claimed that “the computer program used wouldn’t allow it”, according to the lawsuit.

“Bank of America told people, ‘If you have a problem, call us and we will refund your overdraft fees,'” Hassan Zavareei, a founding partner of the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Tycko & Zavareei, told Reuters in an interview.

They promised, but did not create nor implement systems that would allow them to keep their promises.