It's Robbery to Charge for Debit Cards?

Well, yeah, according to Lloyd Constantine, at New York Times, "Debit Card Fees Are Robbery":

Debit cards were developed by banks as a replacement for paper checks. When a consumer pays with a debit card instead of a check, the bank saves money. In the 1980s, Visa calculated the savings at 55 cents to $1.60 per check. The savings is much higher today. For decades, Bank of America, the founding owner and member of Visa (originally called BankAmericard) and all of the Visa and MasterCard banks, including Chase, hid the identity of their debit cards from stores by designing them to look and function like their signature authorized credit cards and by charging stores the same price for debit and credit transactions. Banks did this despite the fact that purchases made with a debit card didn’t involve a loan from the bank, posed very little fraud risk and were extravagantly profitable to banks because they eliminated the costs of processing and clearing checks.

RTWT.

Constantine won a huge antitrust lawsuit against the banks in 2003, so he's knowledgeable about this. But he's practically arguing that the big banks are public utilities, entities ostensibly in the public trust. Businesses certainly have social responsibility, but don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining when you're alleging robbery for $5.00 monthly fees to use a debit card. I don't love the big banks, obviously, but having a debit card has simplified life for untold millions of people. And some banks having eliminated banking fees for basic checking accounts, and careful consumers who maintain their balances, avoid overdrafts, etc., avoid penalty fees. So, shop around. That's how it works. Constantine makes a decent point at the conclusion, in any case:

Retail customers of Bank of America and of any other bank that follows its lead should swiftly move their business. I am certain that other banks will welcome the competitive opportunity that Bank of America has given them with its arrogant and disingenuous action and justification.

Glenn Reynolds has some brief comments as well, perhaps sympathetic to Constantine.