Consumer complaint received 2022-10-28
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: CA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Closing an account
Sub-issue: Company closed your account

Complaint:
Bank of America closed my account which at the time held approximately XXXX I was out of the country at the time which they were aware of since we were working out a problem I had at the bank. On XXXX XXXX XXXX I noticed on online banking that payments which had booked were now being declined. The funds which had been debited were being returned to my account. At this time, I was making large transfers through ( Transfer ) XXXX money transfer service for living expenses in XXXX. The first debit which was returned was a {$10000.00} transfer through XXXX. I then noticed a {$2000.00} credit card payment to my XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX which had been debited on XX/XX/XXXX had been returned to my account. 
Not knowing what was happening, but after two days, realizing there was a serious problem, I called Bank of America on XX/XX/XXXX and was directed to the closed account department. They told me my account, per policy, was being closed for business reasons and were unable to give me any further information. 
On XXXX XXXX, I contacted BofA executive team and told them they needed a court order to seize funds in my bank account. This seemed to get through to them because on that date I transfered {$30000.00} to my XXXX trading account. This transfer went through and the funds entered my XXXX account. Seeing this window was open, I then transfered {$10000.00} more to XXXX. 
Unsure of the disposition of my running payments, I left {$8000.00} in the BofA account to cover these payments. 
What made this process untenable is that BofA was approving payments and then clawing them back and the time frame for these transactions was on average 4 days. But when they clawed back the XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX payment which had cleared on XXXX XXXX, I had no way to know how far back BofA would go clawing back payments. BofA had provided no information on the closing process other than the account would be fully closed by XXXX XXXX. 
However, because BofA had approved and then canceled the XXXX  transfer of {$10000.00}, XXXX had put these funds in my XXXXXXXX XXXX account so XXXX was now owed {$10000.00} so they put the request for funds back through BofA which Bank of America once again approved on XXXX XXXX then clawed back on XXXX XXXX. When BofA initially cleared this payment it put my account- {$6700.00} overdrawn since I had evacuated the funds from the BofA account because I needed these funds to run my business. I had been told that a check would be sent to me, but I did not want a check for {$48000.00} sent to my house which could potentially be lost in the mail, which would have had catostrophic consequences for me. That is why I transfered the funds to XXXX since at least they would be available to me. 
On XXXX XXXX, understanding that I was facing a catosrophic event, I booked a flight for XXXX XXXX from XXXX home to California to sort out the problem. 
When I got home, I found a letter from Bank of America, dated XXXX XXXX, which I would not have received in the mail until the afternoon of XXXX XXXX, stating that my account was being closed. However, as described, BofA on XXXX XXXX had started clawing back debits which had been placed on XXXX XXXX. 
This letter told me that I needed to migrate my payments to another source however, it provided no time to do this, there was not a reasonable time frame allowed to switch over. For this reason, I did not receive my Social Security check for XXXX, and my relationship with XXXX was harmed since I owed them {$10000.00} for two weeks which I was not able to finally pay once I had opened a new account and had time to transfer money in from XXXX. The date I could once again pay bills was XXXX XXXX. 
A reasonable time frame then for them to close an account, starting on XXXX XXXX would be approximately 15 days. No grace period was allowed and their process of approving and then clawing back payments which were made as early as XXXX XXXX, a day prior to the mailing of the letter and 4 days before I could have reasonable responded even if I had been in the US. 
Along the way, on XXXX XXXX or XXXX since I had contacted the Executive team, I received an email from that team telling me to contact their representative. However, that team member had laid over a XXXX object which blocked the contact information. It was not until I went to reply a day later that I realized I could delete the object to see the contact information. It is my beleif that this was done on purpose to thwart my abitlty to make contact. I sent this contact an email which was never responed to. The phone number provided was a straight to voice mail phone and although I gave that contact my XXXX mobile phone number I did not recieve a call. 
In fact, it is my observation that this Executive contact was actually done only to rub my face in the fact that Bank of America had so much power that they could purposefully make the closing process as hard as possible while causing as much damage as possible. The bank seemed to be intent on this closing process being retaliatory and punitive. 
This seems like the result of de-regulation in which the bank can treat customers in any way they want and if you complain they retaliate. This was the cause of my initial complaint to the bank, that after doing business with BofA for 22 years and being a " Preferred Rewards Gold Member ' that branch customer service had degraded so far that I no longer recognized the bank which I had originally opened an account. 
If this is the place to put a resolution, there is not much I can ask for. It is true that the original agreement when openeing the account was that BofA could close the account at any time without cause. 
However, the closing process is radical, out of conformance with any reasonable time frame it would take to transfer my business to another bank, and does not take into consideration the catostrophic consequences of their actions, offers no grace period with activities creating confusion, approving debits and then clawing back payments willy-nilly so that a customer can not determine where they are in the process, I recieved no other notice of this radical decision other than the letter to my home which they knew I would not receive although they are quick to send email alerts for other much less serious events. 

Bank of America seemed to use their clout to cause me harm. 

So a proper resolution to this is for the CFPB to do an audit of BofA closing procedures to determine how other people are being affecter. 
The CFPB should also, if possible, provide BofA with a best practices closing process and if the bank refuses to take this into consideration and if the harm to their customers is found to be severe, the CFPB should fine BofA for the damage done to customers. 
It cost me {$3000.00} to fly back to the US, however, it is doubtlful that I can recoup these costs since the policy is clearly stated, however, in a perfect world I would like my {$3000.00} back because the cause of the account closure, although they would not tell me was because I made a complaint to the bank about a serious breach of business practices and instead of working with me to resolve this issue, they chose to use their policy to close my account so that the complaint went away. 
Since they will not and did not formally tell me why they had closed my account, I will share no details of that, however, I have documented the events which led to the closure and I have sent it to executives at BofA so they are aware that they were probably misinformed on the details of my problem at the bank. 
My guess is that they will do nothing since doing nothing is easier for them than doing something. Cordially. XXXX XXXX

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