Consumer complaint received 2023-04-04
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: CA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Fee problem

Complaint:
I have a bank account with Bank of America which I have not touched since XX/XX/XXXX. Without me knowing, starting in XX/XX/XXXX, they started charging me a {$12.00} service fee every single month. I had no idea this was happening or I would have made changes right away to the account. In total my account has been reduced from {$1000.00} to {$800.00}. They provided me no notice about the change to my account. The only way I would have been alerted to this was if I went online and checked my statements. I had no reason to check my statements because I wasn't touching the account and I had never been charged a fee before. 

I went into a Bank of America Branch in XXXX of XXXX to address the problem. They gave me a credit for {$24.00} ( 2 months worth of service charges ) and told me that was the best the system would allow them to do at a branch. They recommended I call their service number. 

In XXXX of XXXX I called Bank of America 's service number. I spoke with XXXX employee who refused to help and could not figure out why I was not charged service charges before XX/XX/XXXX and then all of a sudden started to get charged. I eventually spoke with a supervisor named XXXX ( employee # : XXXX ). She was unpleasant, rude and dismissive. She was however able to finally identify the source of the issue. 

Apparently the reason this happened is because my sister in law, who is jointly on the account, previously had a total balance across all of her accounts in excess of {$100000.00}. That made it such that my account had no required minimum balance. When her aggregate balance dropped below {$100000.00} that triggered a minimum balance requirement for my individual account to avoid the $ XXXX fee. 

I had no idea about any of this. When I signed up for the account in XXXX this was not brought to my attention. The employee at the branch only told me that I did not need to worry about service charges. Similarly it took XXXX separate employees to figure out why my account was being charged all of a sudden. Yet Bank of America is now telling me that the responsibility lies with me to understand their terms and monitor their fees which came without warning. I had no reason to be checking my statements given there was no activity in the account and I had not previously been charged fees. 

I was advised that I could escalate this matter by writing to Bank of America employee XXXX XXXX. I advised her of the problem on XX/XX/XXXX. Bank of America employee XXXX XXXX responded to my email to XXXX. When we spoke he sympathized with my problem and hoped to credit my account and he tried to but told me that the computer system didn't allow him to do it. On XX/XX/XXXX I am trying one last time to contact XXXX XXXX hoping she will help with my problem. 

Assuming Bank of America has an obligation to act in good faith they ought to provide some form of active notification that a service charge that has never been charged before is being applied and will continue to be applied each month indefinitely. 

My account has received {$220.00} worth of service charges. Bank of America gave me a credit for {$24.00}. This nets out to a total loss {$200.00}. 

I kindly ask that Bank of America reimburse me for the {$200.00} that has wrongfully been taken in service charges without warning.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief