Bank of America Horror Story – Part 2

See Part 1

So the next day I check my online statement, no luck the thing still says I owe for July. I’m thinking maybe they have system where things aren’t reflected online in real time, or even 1 day behind. By the way, doesn’t Bank of America pride itself on its high technology? I have big problems with their online systems. That’s for another day…

So I wait for 3 days. Check online, no luck, time to give these people another call. This time I get “Maria” who speaks Spanish first and English last, but we are able to communicate just fine. I play dumb…

Me: When do I owe July’s Payment?
Maria: Sir that was due 5 days ago, Can we set up a check by phone?

Me: Ahh, No. Do you see that I called in a couple days ago?
Maria: Yes, let me read the note.

Maria: Ok, sir I’m showing you were supposed to get your fees waived.
Me: Yes, did that happen?

Maria: No, let me get that started again
Me: Thanks, now what are you showing for July’s payment?

Maria: Let me calculate……..Ok, after we reapply your payment you will owe $5 for July.
Me: That can’t be, I made more then twice my minimum for July.

Maria: Right, but you paid early and that went towards your June payment
Me: You sent me an email and said my payment was due, I made the payment….. I’ve already gone over this.

Maria: Sir, can you hold for a minute?
Me: Sure

Maria: Sir, things have been corrected, you will only be due $5 for August payment.
Me: August? where are you guys coming up with $5?

She goes on to give me, what has to be new age math, because it didn’t make sense. You could tell she was getting frustrated with me, because I kept correcting her new age math. By the end of the conversation she was yelling “You owe $5 for August, that’s it”

I could tell this was going nowhere, so I agreed $5… Two days later I placed another phone call to Bank of America determined to speak with someone who slightly understood banking.

Me: Can I speak to your manager?
Rep: Sir Can I help you?

Me: Yes, I need to speak to a manager
Rep: Sir I need to know why

Me: Nope, just a manager please.

So I finally talk to a Brian. We go over the same story again, but this time Brian has an answer. They went ahead and re-aged my account this month. So I get charded interest. He said they have no way to reapply a payment to a different month and that the reason why customer service was giving me all different answers was that they didn’t have access to the same system that he does to see re-ages.

Let me tell you Bank of America, you dropped the ball big time with me.


If you’re having problems like this with your credit card company, maybe you should look into new credit card offers. Some people find that Chase credit cards have favorable terms, while others prefer frequent flyer credit cards that offer rewards for spending.

Tim

A .NET, PHP, Marketing Guru authority, at least I hope I am. Reach me at tboland@gmail.com

14 thoughts on “Bank of America Horror Story – Part 2

  1. I sooo Agree with you. I applied for a credit card thru Bof A and was denied. BUT I got a letter oh I would say days latter asking if I wanted a secure credit card, that I should fill out this form mail it with $ 99.00. So I did. Approximately a month latter I get a letter regretting that it was refused for NSF, BUT I sent a money order (because I do have a problem balancing my check book) So I call every number given to me. Bottom line, last person I spoke to tells me, ‘well the money order must have been STOLEN! She has no record of me paying anything, but if I got a letter telling me that there was insufficient funds than, I stole the money order. So I refused to pay for transactions I paid in advance but yet they didnt collect till weeks latter. I don’t know how they have become the largest.

  2. I have been doing BofA online banking for over six months now. The results are:
    1) missed business rent payment. My building office called and asked why. With them on the phone I asked BofA rep. Answer: It looks like we sent it to the wrong address. We sent it again. It hadn’t. It got there over a month late.
    2) Double bill and warning from health insurance. Call and explain I have had some online problems. Everyone does, says the person. We advise Kaiser members not to use BofA online banking.
    2) Last straw, probably. Today I get a bill for the second half of my home owners insurance. Log in to BofA and see that the payment to EArthquake insurance is canceled. I did that, then paid half the year. It did not go through. I can’t get earthquake insurance for another two years.
    4) Ditto Chase Manhattan Credit card. I paid the charges and cringed thinking of the credit report. Called customer service regarding another $9 charge. “We get this now and then, he said. The last guy is suing Bofa.

    I need to take myu business to another bank.

  3. Oh yea BOA blows big time.

    I almost went to work there once, or at least the part of their business that handles credit cards for retail.

    What a goat screw that place was on the inside.

    This doesn’t surprise me one bit.

    🙂

  4. I HAVE MAINTAINED A CREDIT SCORE OF 720 . I APPLIED FOR AND RECEIVED A VISA FROM BANK OF AMERICA IN AUGUST OF 2006 W/ NO INTEREST FOR 6 MONTHS . AFTER THAT IT STATED THE INTEREST WILL BE 10.99 . THIS VISA HAD A $10,000.00 LIMIT . AT THE END OF THE SIX MONTHS I NOTICE THAT THE INTEREST RATE WAS 22.99 % . I IMMEDIATELY CONTACTED BANK OF AMERICA AND ASK WHY THE VISA WAS 23.99% . THEY INFORMED ME THAT IT WAS A VARIABLE RATE AND IT CANNOT BE CHANGED . BEAR IN MIND THAT I WAS NEVER LATE ON ANY PAYMENTS EVEN THOUGH I ACHIEVED A HIGH CREDIT RATING . I PROMPTLY PAID THEM THE $6000.00 I OWED THEM IN ONE INSTALLMENT AND TOLD TTHEM TO KISS MY ASS .
    BANK AMERICA IS REAL GREEDY ,SO I SEE WHY THEY’RE TARGETING THE HISPANICS . MANY HISPANIC IMMIGRANTS DONT REALLY UNDERSTAND INTEREST RATES . MANY OF THEM ARE POOR MIGRANTS WHO DON’T HAVE A THIRD GRADE EDUCATION AND BANK OF AMERICA KNOWS THIS ,BUT THIS IS ONE AMERICAN THAT BANK OF AMERICA AND THE GREEDY CORPORATE EXEC WONT RIP OFF . DONT TRUST THEM AT ALL .

  5. usery is what it is….. a good customer always on time with payments for 4 yrs and suddenly intrest jumped to 26.99% because of some elusive mistake in my past well before them…………….

  6. I had a spell where my paycheck (direct deposited to BOA – they are rather constricting…) was less than usual and through my own fault (procreastination) I ended up being too late to change my automatic billpay payments and they went through, sending my account into 3 digit negativity…

    I get these emails from BOA customer service telling me to take action on these payments before they get returned for insufficient funds, so I take a ClickBank commission check for over $600 and deposit it at a drive through window on my way to work.

    The teller tells me they have put a hold on my check (I deposit ClickBank commission checks every two weeks since May of 2007, and they never put a hold on them) for 7 days and that only $100 of the deposit is available. Well that doesn’t even put a dent in the negativity in my account, and the payments are all reversed. Then my direct deposit hits my account and since my account was negative, I did not have enough left over (without the $500 that I deposited to prevent this from happening) to cover the automatic bill payments for this week. After about 50 emails to customer (dis)service, I get the same reply each time telling me that holds are placed because of several reasons:

    “The decision to place a hold is based on many factors, including the
    account history and overall customer relationship. For example, how long
    a customer has banked with us, account balance maintained, whether items have caused nonsufficient funds and other factors.

    “Although there is no guarantee holds will be avoided in the future it is
    less likely when you:

    – Have an established account history
    – Maintain higher average balances
    – Have no nonsufficient funds, returned items or overdraft items
    – Continue to expand your relationship with the bank”

    Great, but they could have handed my check back to me and allowed me to deposit it once my direct deposit went through.

    So I am now at the point where the $500 will be available, and there still won’t be enough money for the bills because of the over $200 in fees that I just paid.

    I am shopping for a new bank… or I may just go to all paypal and etrade.

  7. I saw the story this morning ,(9-24-08) of two former empolyees of BofA. They were in a call center and told thier “horror” stories of what thier job required and what thay “had” to do. I applaud them both for leavinging and for telling the TRUTH.
    I was at one time an employee of First Card, Bank of Chicago….one of the most reputable companies in the business.. not only were they fair with thier customers but also appreciative and fair with thier employees . I worked for them in a New York office. I was asked to help them expand and move to Springfield,Mo. to help train and bring up a new location. I agreed.
    All was great for the first several months until Bank of America mergered and changed All the rules !
    We were no longer to be honest and polite to our customers, take our time to assure our customer was satisfied, but to be ” done in one” .. lie if we had too ! We had to meet “calls per hour and monetary quota”. (“We had to keep our jobs”) . We had to meet the customers concerns, sell new products ( they did not need), advise of all new available services , (some of which were not ready to be offered), we were to try and increase thier credit line and ” guarantee ” them a low percentage rate…all this in less than three minutes !!!! Any call back from the same phone number for clarification jeopardized our job and left us up for possible termination or future reprisals. The stress nearly killed me. I was accussed of not being a team player and saw many of my coworkers fired. I finally resigned . Several years later, I took a position with Chase Bank,located in New York, another reputable company whose moto was ” customer service first “. Once again I was asked to relocate to help bring up a new site. I agreed. This time I moved to San Antonio, Tx.
    Again, after several months in Texas, BofA mergered and took control. ” All customer service ” went out the window ! We were back to extremely tight rules and demands… answer the phone, handle the call, sell, get off the line and take the next call….you were timed,audited,held responsible for lost calls, and reproached and threatened if you did not bring in ” x ” amount of dollars per call. Being no masochist I fulfilled my contract with the bank and I quit.
    I still reside in Texas, a much smaller town, a much smaller paycheck. I work as a provider for the handicapped and also as a stained glass artist. I do not make the salary I use to, I do not get to travel I as use to. I am not as stressed as I use to be, but I do love going to and coming home from my job. I do give customer service and spend as much time as needed to satisfy my customer.
    They are happy and so am I !
    I’d rather take my time, make those I work for happy, take a smaller paycheck, have less stress in my life and know that I work for “job satisfaction” and NOT “who can I screw today”.
    Again, I applaud those two ladies for standing up to the ” high and mighty ones”, the corporate ” parasites”..the one’s whos only concern is “THIER Wallet” and not thier empolyees or thier customers.
    Sincerely relieved to get this off my chest,
    Kevin J McCormack

  8. My husband had worked at his job for close to 30 years and it closed. I was lucky to still have my job. He decided to open a restaurant that failed and we ended up getting into some financial issues and ultimately had to file bankruptcy. I was allowed to keep my credit card which was a boa visa card. That was a major mistake. After about a year I get a letter that my interest was going to increase by a huge amount even though I never missed a payment since I had the card. I called and decided that I wanted to just pay it off if they would not increase the interest rates. I have been paying more every month hoping to hurry up and get it paid off but it seems like not much is coming of the principal. I decided to try again and call and also because I received another letter in the mail that was a bit hard to understand and I did not know if I was going to get some additional under the table charges. I also noticed that the finance charge was more from one month to the next even though I pay pretty much the same amount each month so the finance charge I thought should go down. The first person was totally confusing and kept saying the charge was correct and it did go down. I said I had both statements in front of me and they show differentlly. I asked to be transferred to a supervisor. He said sure but disconnected me instead. I called back and got someone who did explain things more clearly about 29 days on May’s bill and 32 on June’s per the cycle. Ok this made sense. I told him that I wanted my interest decreased because I was just paying off my card and was not using it. He transferred me to someone who must have been majorly suffering from pms. She said no they could not do that and also said that she saw that actually my interest rate was about to double. That got me pretty upset. She then said she saw that we had filed bankruptcy and so she was going to cancel my card. I said are you saying I am no longer going to get statements and does that mean I don’t have to pay the rest off? She said sure if you want to screw up you credit. I said to her that I had just told her that I do not use the credit card. The last one they sent I did not activate and just cut up. They should have record of it never being activated and the old one is expired. I think she knew that if had it show that they cancelled it that it would end up on my credit report. I could not belieive how I was treated. I was so upset by the time I got off the call. Here I could have put that credit card on the list when we filed bankruptcy and no longer have to pay it but I wanted to do the right thing and look where it got me. I will never do business with this so called Mega bank again!

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