Clark is usually no friend of Bank of America. Need we remind you of the Matthew Shinnick debacle -- when BoA had the San Francisco man imprisoned on false check fraud charges and then didn't pay his legal fees or even apologize? But today Clark refuses to join the chorus of boos rising across the country as people take BoA to task for their new rip-off ATM fees. The mega-bank is now charging non-customers who use one of their ATMs a fee of three dollars. Clark thinks that if BoA wants to rip you off, it is their right; that's how the free market functions. If they want to raise the charge to five or 10 bucks, Clark thinks that's fine too. The last time he paid an ATM fee was on June 16, 1996, in Moab, Utah. The merchants in that town didn't take credit cards, so Clark went to each bank in the area and found the cheapest ATM fee -- one dollar. He jokes that he then had to skip a meal to make up for paying the fee!

Clark remembers the days when ATMs first came out and surcharges were 25 cents. Now he hears they're as much as five dollars in casinos. But you can easily avoid rip-off charges if you only use ATMs that belong to your bank or credit union. Publix has its own ATMs that many people use for free because the regional supermarket chain has partnered with hundreds of financial institutions. So nobody on Capitol Hill should be talking about imposing price controls on ATM charges, according to Clark. If you choose to use an unauthorized cash machine, you must pay the price. Finally, Clark thinks the timing of BoA's new move is very interesting. Banks tend to raise their fees twice a year -- in August and December. They do this just in time for summer vacation and the holidays. Those are the two times of year when people usually don't watch their accounts too closely. So this latest BoA surcharge is a just little August surprise from the company!