Have you heard the BOFA radio ads for their “Keep the Change” program? They all center around what a horrible thing it is to lose your spare change.
One ad talks through a person vacuuming up spare change in the car. Another has lost change in a closet sharing how they were lost. Yet another talks about the horrors the lost change has to endure – one of whom has to live in an empty mayo jar in the garage – well it really isn’t empty if the change is in it, is it?
The main idea of the program is that BOFA will round up all you debit card purchases, and put the difference directly into your savings account. Kinda of a cool idea, but I really dislike how they are running the ad campaign.
The implication of ALL the ads that I have heard is that if you just sign up for the Keep the Change program, that you won’t lose spare change, instead of extolling the actual program. Think about it, is Keep the Change really going to help you avoid spare change, and thus losing said spare change?
No, it really isn’t.
Using a BOFA debit card all the time, instead of cash, will cause you to not have any spare change, and thus you won’t lose any. I will give them this. But so will using a debit card from ANY AND EVERY OTHER BANK. When was the last time that you got spare change back from a debit card transaction? Other than cash back of course, and then you get paper money, most likely twenties…
Not seeing how BOFA saves you from losing spare change…
Again, yes, it will cause you to save your own money, in a relatively painless way, agreed, and for this I give them kudos for a semi innovative program. But it DOES NOT REDUCE LOST SPARE CHANGE, and lost spare change is all the ads talk about.
As an aside, I must say, that if you are not the saving type, my guess is that all that money in your savings account is going to get sucked into your banking account as soon as it becomes large enough to be noticeable 😉