why did Bank of America just waste a lot of clerks' time to make everybody get their credit card?

In My Humble Opinion
1

they used to have free checking above some balance limit. Now they abolished that account type, so we can go to the office, waste 20 minutes of the clerk’s time and rename the account into some other account type. That one will also be free if you make a payment once a month with a credit card with BoA or if you meet a few other conditions. In fact, another alternative condition seems to be also a balance limit, though I am not sure if that is a different balance limit than what was before in the now abolished account type.

Yeah, so what’s the big idea here? Why make everybody queue up at the neighboring outlet to rename free account of type 1 into free account of type 2?

2

I highly doubt that you are just talking to clerks. You’re talking to sales people who are supposed to do everything they can to sell you something: insurance, credit card, new mortgage, new IRA, new CD, anything.

They got you in - now is their chance! The hardest part with any sales job is actually getting people in to listen to the pitch.

3

Because some people will be too lazy and/or ignorant to change their account and will just put up with the extra charges.