Former BankBoston Customers v Fleet Financial Corp., Bank of America
Many thousands of ex-customers due $25 in class action
Hundreds of thousands of former BankBoston customers have yet to claim $25 payments they are entitled to under a $12.5 million class-action settlement with Bank of America.
Court documents indicate only about 58,000 account holders have filed claims so far, or less than 10 percent of the total. The precise size of the class is unknown, but it is estimated to be 584,000 to 1 million account holders.
If the number of people filing claims stays at the current level, it would be a bonanza for three nonprofit groups -- City Year National, Greater Boston Legal Services, and the National Consumer Law Center.
Under the terms of the settlement, the $12.5 million would be split between former BankBoston customers, the attorneys who brought the suit, and the three nonprofits.
As it stands now, the former BankBoston customers who have filed claims would receive a total of $1.5 million. The plaintiff attorneys are seeking court approval to recover more than $3 million for costs and fees. The balance of the funds, about $8 million if claims remain at the current level, would be split among the nonprofits.
The lawsuit, settled earlier this year, alleged that former BankBoston customers in 68 Eastern Massachusetts communities were notified too late by Fleet Financial Corp. about merger-related changes to their accounts involving fees and minimum balance requirements.
Fleet agreed to the settlement after an appeals court cleared the way for a court case against the bank. Bank of America was forced to pick up the settlement cost after it acquired Fleet last year. Neither Fleet nor Bank of America admitted any wrongdoing in agreeing to the settlement.
Anyone who had a BankBoston checking, savings, money market, or NOW account at one of the bank's branches in the 68 communities in 2000 would be eligible to file a claim. People who filed claims are entitled to $25 for each account.
Attorneys involved with the case declined comment, but one of the lawyers is quoted in court documents as saying that a claim rate of 5 to 10 percent is fairly typical in cases where the misconduct occurred five years ago and the claimants are difficult to crack down.
Bank of America sent claim forms to close to 1 million current account holders who hold the type of accounts covered by the settlement, but any customers who went to another bank after Fleet acquired BankBoston would not have received the forms. Notice of the settlement was also published in a variety of Massachusetts newspapers.
