Consumer complaint received 2018-05-13
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: MD
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Trouble using your card
Sub-issue: Can't use card to make purchases

Complaint:
Bank of America continues to engage in deceptive, unfair and abusive behavior in the management of an XXXX linked mastercard. Specifically, across a month or so, it has repeatedly denied me access to the account, online or by phone, most of the time after assuring me that this would not be the case, that the card was workable and that I could see activity through online banking. Yet, after lying repeatedly, it continued to decline multiple charges for little reason, several after claiming that the card was functioning. This is an habitual and typical abuse for this card and I have filed previous CFPB complaints about it, with little change. 

This XXXX associated credit card, one might think, is associated with travel. However, when I travel, the chances of the card being denied increases considerably and this happened recently. Traveling with the card frequently renders it unusable. 

Bank of America engages in bad faith behavior by this and at least two other characteristic activities. First, it tries to elude being reached by telephone. The phone number on the back of this card is miniscule and uses white typeface against a light colored, light grey, card. It is simply illegible. When I finally was able to get a magnifying glass to read the number BOA does not want its credit card customers to use because it does not want to pay for employees to handle the calls, I encountered long wait times on the telephone, a second means of eluding public contact. Next, on one of many calls to it, a BOA representative told me I had to answer so-called security questions for her to make the card work as advertised again. BOA frequently uses garbage for security purposes, asks questions that are based on false information, then denies me access to the account, online or to use, because I do not answer with the false information that BOA wants and has embraced at the core of its operations. This is but one of many habitual problems with BOA 's operations for this card. 

When I called perhaps for the third time to get the hold BOA put on this card and refused to release for false and abusive reasons, I was told at some point that it had to issue a new card and that it would send a new one overnight to me. Yet, as it always does, BOA lied again. The card did not arrive overnight but two days later, a real problem when I travel. After getting the new card a day late, I activated it by phone and was told that it would work. Wrong again. BOA, lied about that as well. The first time I tried to use the card after the activation, the charge was denied again. I called the elusive representatives again, and was again assured that the card would work. Yet, this claim also was a lie, as the new card has not worked as advertised since I received it, despite me being told that it would 2 or more times, days apart, by 2 or more sources. Clearly, BOA has a systemic problem that it simply lies about to placate customers too busy to call it and hang on the phone until someone answers the call with another lie. 

I have resorted to using another credit card and doubt I will try to use the card that so many representatives of BOA are trained to lie about on cue. 

Why do the CFPB and XXXX allow BOA to lie habitually to customers who try to use the XXXX mastercard?

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 explanation