Editor’s note: The original February 2022 version of this article was lost. The Lee Daily Register rebuilt it in October 2026 from the reporting and court records cited below, and added what happened afterward. The original version contained wording errors, including describing the fee waivers as offered during a “flu pandemic.” The bank’s statement referred to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Two Bank of America customers have filed a proposed class action accusing the bank of breaking its pandemic-era promise to refund overdraft and nonsufficient funds fees for people facing financial hardship.
The plaintiffs, California truck driver Anthony Ramirez and Masako Williams, an 85-year-old retiree in Texas, filed the suit Thursday, Feb. 10, in federal court in Northern California. Each says they were charged several hundred dollars in fees in 2020 and 2021, when they lost work or relatives who supported them lost work, and that bank representatives repeatedly turned down their refund requests, Reuters reported. According to the complaint, one representative told Williams the bank’s computer program would not allow a refund.
What the customers claim
The suit accuses the bank of breaching the covenant of good faith and fair dealing in its account contract, unjust enrichment, and violating California and Texas laws against unfair trade practices, according to a statement from the plaintiffs’ law firm, Tycko & Zavareei. The complaint says the bank collected $1.1 billion in overdraft fees in 2020.
Hassan Zavareei, a founding partner of the Washington firm, told Reuters the bank invited customers to call and have their fees refunded but never set up the systems to deliver on that offer.
Bank spokesperson William Halldin did not address the lawsuit directly. He said the bank gave customers tens of millions of dollars in fee waivers at the height of the pandemic in 2020.
Overdraft fees under pressure
The case comes as regulators look harder at overdraft charges. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been gathering customer accounts of overdraft and other junk fees while it considers new guidance. In January, Bank of America said it would cut its overdraft fee from $35 to $10 starting in May and stop charging its $35 nonsufficient funds fee, Reuters reported.
What happened next
On June 15, 2022, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers dismissed the first version of the suit. She found the bank had promised to consider fee relief case by case, not to refund every fee, but left room for claims that customers were misled about whether a relief program existed, Bloomberg Law reported. The plaintiffs later filed an amended complaint.
In April 2024, the judge ruled the bank must face the revised lawsuit. She found customers had plausibly alleged that the bank kept advertising fee relief on its website and app after quietly ending its Client Assistance Program on Aug. 31, 2020, Reuters reported. By then, the named plaintiffs were Ramirez, California manufacturing worker Mynor Aldana and Janet Hobson, a retired widow in New Jersey.
On Oct. 7, 2025, the judge certified classes of Bank of America checking customers in California and New Jersey who were charged overdraft or insufficient funds fees between September 2020 and June 2022, Bloomberg Law reported. The law firm said the California class covers customers who asked for a pandemic-related refund and did not receive one.
The court docket (No. 4:22-cv-00859) shows the case still open in October 2026, with entries from late 2025 recording case numbers at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Lee Daily Register found no report of a settlement or trial.
