Consumer complaint received 2018-06-15
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: NY
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: Other debt
Issue: Took or threatened to take negative or legal action
Sub-issue: Threatened to sue you for very old debt

Complaint:
I had a bank account at Bank of America in XXXX. I did bounce a check or possibly 2 and the bank repeatedly attempted to put these checks through, resulting in hundreds of dollars of fees owed to the bank. When the account was negative $ 300+ dollars or so due to these fees, I told them to close the account and that they're nuts to think they can get away with attempting to repeatedly charge ridiculous overdraft fees, keeping my account in the negative and keeping all of my money. Now it is 12 years later and Bank of America has been contacting me, and threatening to sue me for over {$1000.00} plus lawyer fees and all legal court fees, totaling over {$3000.00}. They called Monday, XX/XX/XXXX from a restricted number saying a process server would be out to my address for a court issue and to call a different out-of-state phone number if I had any questions. I called and a man named " XXXX '' bullied me, telling me I had signed a contract, that Bank of America was well within their rights to collect this debt, because I had signed a written contract, this was money fairly owed to them and that they were sure to win in court. At first they caught me off guard ; I got upset, was crying and explained that I'm on a limited income, a working class single mother. They offered to let me off the hook for {$540.00} by today, XX/XX/XXXX. However, after doing some research, I discovered that the statute of limitations is 6 years on debt collections in NY state and 6 years on written contracts. I then dug further into some legal websites and discovered that Bank of America has been trying to use a loophole in the law, claiming that people who live and opened accounts in other states have never officially " timed out '' on the statute of limitations, since they don't live in the state Bank of America is based out of. I believe they are targeting people who may fall for this nonsense, and either pay some ridiculous amount of money by a certain date or not be able to make it to court, or fully understand the law. If the defendant doesn't show up, or is easily bullied or doesn't understand the law and their legal rights, they will win their suit for an amount way over what was ever actually owed. In doing research online, its also interesting to note that Bank of America had several of their large accounts ( that they lent a lot of money to ) go bankrupt in XXXX, and may be be trying to recoup what they can by taking advantage of the working class. I notified " XXXX '' of " XXXX XXXX XXXX, '' ( the man who I spoke to Monday and today ) of the statute of limitations, he didn't seem to know or understand the laws at all and repeatedly attempted to make me doubt what I know to be true, making me question whether or not he actually even works for any law firm at all, since he has zero knowledge of the law. He went as far as to make me repeat my statement several times and seemed to find it humorous that I know the law.

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