Consumer complaint received 2023-09-08
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: GA
Product: Credit card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Closing your account
Sub-issue: Company closed your account

Complaint:
I am a 20 year consumer of Bank of America Corporations, and recently experienced financial harm at the hands of two of the employees who work within the collections department. My personal consumer accounts were mishandled on behalf of an employee that I spoke with on XX/XX/XXXX. This employee acted negligent and intentional when trying to assist me with requesting an APR reduction. As a result of a phone call with this employee it was determined that the employee could not assist me with getting a lower rate APR reduction, resulting in me refusing any other services they were attempting to offer me. I refused those alternatives because they made no sense financially for my personal situation since I am a long standing paying consumer. I was not delinquent nor had I ever been prior to this phone call which I made the employee aware of. After ending the phone call I received notification on Friday XX/XX/XXXX, that all of my consumer credit accounts had been closed without notification. 
This prompted me to call back into the service center for answers as I had not authorized or advised such closings of my accounts, I had just paid over {$700.00} in monthly payments a few days prior. I was fortunate enough to be connected with a supervisor when I called back on that Friday to determine what had occurred with my accounts. The supervisor was able to tell me that a letter was being generated based on an action to close my account that was initiated on XX/XX/XXXX. The supervisor advised me they were not able to see what the details of the letter were because everything had just been initiated. The supervisor did everything possible to figure out what may have happened on my account. The notes did not indicate anything to say why my accounts may have been closed and which department had processed the actions. The supervisor proceeded to ask me if I had any fraud or identity theft issues related to my personal credit and I acknowledge that I did and had a case manager from XXXX XXXX who had worked with me to report the matter and lock down all of my credit profiles due to heightened level of the fraud that had occurred on my personal credit profile, while they worked to resolve the issue. The supervisor advised this could be a possibility to the accounts being closed and I told the supervisor that I had called in two days earlier and spoke with someone requesting to lower my APRs on my consumer cards temporary and explained the conversations I had with two different employees one who was not able offer me any assistance and transferred me to another one who offered to refer me to a third party debt collector in which i refused. My sole intention for calling was to see if I could get the APRS lowered on my consumer credit accounts. After that employee was not able to help me or prompt me to another department who could assist me with lowering the APRs and advised going to a third party and closing all of my accounts was the only option for help. I kindly declined and advised that I was not interested in doing that. I was already paying my consumer accounts and asked the employee why I would want to ruin my credit by closing the accounts down. The consumer account endinging in XXXX was the first account I had opened that started my credit profile back in roughly XXXX It made no financial or common sense to do so. I was not late on the payments at the time of the call and had not been late anytime prior to the call. 
The supervisor could not find any information in the notes stating any other reason why the accounts could have been closed after telling the supervisor I wanted to file a complaint on the employee that I had spoken to because that employee had intentionally flagged my accounts to be closed for no apparent reason as I was trying to inquire on lower APRs. I advised the supervisor why I would make payments a few days prior and have my accounts closed, it made no absolute sense. I advised that Bank of America had never reduced my credit lines or closed my consumer accounts since I had been a customer with them over the past 20 years due to the immaculate relationship I had built with them. I told the supervisor it was an internal employee who caused all this negligence to me personally for no reason at all. The supervisor advised me that in order to get lower APRs it is something that Bank of America invites its consumers through marketing it is not something that is rarely done and the supervisor could not understand why the other employee did not make me aware of that which would have avoided all of the additional actions that took place. The supervisor was very sympathetic with me and apologized for what had occurred. They took time to notate the account and file a customer complaint for me on the employee who was solely responsible for what had transpired on my personal consumer account. The supervisor advised me that the branch would be the easiest alternative to possibly find out what could be going on but I did not have the time to take off work to go to the local branch as the one by my home is always super busy. The supervisor advised I should receive the letter by Monday and if I could take it to the branch to do so or call back once I had determined why my accounts were closed. I thanked the supervisor and praised them for their help with making me feel some comfort in what was going on. 
Upon receiving the four letters on Monday XX/XX/XXXX, I would soon determine why my accounts were all of a sudden closed. The letters read We were notified you intend to file for bankruptcy :. I thought to myself how could a human being act in such a malice way bringing harm to me and my family for no apparent reason at all. How could an employee act in such a negligent way and code my consumer account with a bankruptcy when I never once mentioned that I had filed a petition to the Bankruptcy clerk of courts, a private attorney, third party agency or notify Bank of America personally that I intended to file. I was heartbroken that such evil could be done by an employee. I had been paying all of my bills on time, never missed a payment, or was late on a payment. I called back into the customer service line after I got home from work and spoke with two additional employees with whom I advised of the situation that I spoke with the supervisor back on XXXX the XXXX, XXXX  about they too were very apologetic about what was happening to me, I advised them that I was going file a complaint on the employee who committed this nightmare for me. They read through all the notes and also filed an internal complaint on my behalf. They were not able to get me connected to the department who I needed to speak with in order to try and get the issue resolved because the unit was closed for the day. I was provided with the telephone number to contact the department in which I did on Tuesday XX/XX/XXXX. 
After speaking to eight representatives, I finally reached another supervisor in the collections department by the name of XXXX XXXX, which will be included in any legal fillings I will be pursuing. At this point I was overly frustrated at what had taken place and how many phone calls and transfers it took for me to get help. I advised the supervisor to tell me who notified them of my intent to file Bankruptcy as I had not called stating I would be filing, I did not contact the courts or file any petitions to file for bankruptcy, I did not have any attorneys representing me filing on my behalf and I also was not working with any third parties never have and never will. I asked why would an employee intentionally do what they did to my consumer accounts for no apparent reason as I was simply requesting for a temporary APR reduction. The supervisor proceeded to ask me did i mention anything about bankruptcy on the call and I advised no there was no need for me to I was calling about lowering interest rates and the employee was offering me a third party debt collector which i declined interest since I did not need to go that route as I was and had been making on time payments. I asked the supervisor, why would I personally call in and say I was intending on filing bankruptcy when I had just made monthly payments a few days prior and my accounts were not delinquent. It just makes no sense it was no benefit to me personally or financially. The supervisor stated they were not sure and advised that the accounts were closed. I said I needed to get an answer because I did not call and no one else did on my behalf and that an internal employee was the one responsible for causing this issue to begin with. The supervisor advised they would listen to the call and order a transcript, if there was an error on the employees behalf and I corrected the manager stating this would not be considered an error but employee negligence. The supervisor would work on trying to fix the issue and that it could take 3-5 days to receive the call information and after reviewing the information they would call me back. 
I waited and did not hear back and it was a week later so I called back today XX/XX/XXXXXXXX  to get an update from the supervisor. The supervisor was on another call at the time of my call and thus the customer service rep took my phone number for a call back. The supervisor called me back about 30 mins later and thanked me for calling back and for my patience. The supervisor went on to say that they had received the call back and had heard where I said This will show up in Bankruptcy. My immediate response was I never said such a thing and to stop making accusations that I said those words because I did not. I advised that maybe your employee made those comments, but I never said such words and would have no reason to say them. I advised that on that same call you should have heard me refusing and declining the services the employee was attempting to offer me and disconnecting the call kindly. The supervisor could care less about that and was not interested in getting to the bottom of this problem. I further stated that I never said that statement and to let me hear the call or share the entire statement in which the supervisor was referring to me saying the quoted statement above. The supervisor declined to assist me any further and proceeded saying they would document my account that I was not in bankruptcy or not planning to file, I corrected the supervisor once again stating I never called and notified you and that they needed to stop with all the false accusations and misrepresenting the notes on my account. I reaffirmed that the call was being recorded and advised that now I am considering that the supervisor and other employee are committing fraud on my consumer account and violating my rights under the fair consumer credit act as a I wanted to speak with the department who handle legal matters seeing that the supervisor had no intentions on helping me but just pushing this complaint off of their desk. I asked the supervisor not to make any representation on my account in which they could not confer with evidence I was not taking the word of a liar. I asked how I could obtain a record of the call because I was now going to press charges, file complaints and file legal suit because now a second employee was acting in a negligent nature and I am not letting them get away with this type of behavior. It is not warranted and nor should it be tolerated at this level of business when it comes to consumers ' livelihood. The supervisor had the audacity to mention a payment arrangement with me and I responded stating I was already and had been making payments and I would not be making anymore until this matter was cleared up and my consumer accounts were restored. The supervisor stated my accounts were not going to be reopened. I stated again I would not make payments until the accounts were restored. The supervisor tried to place fear in me saying I needed a subpoena to get the transcripts which i found to be actual law and I told him I planned on getting one and contacting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I was fully taken advantage of by this supervisor. They felt comfortable lying to me and I am not okay with this because if this is happening to me it is also happening to others and it is these employees who make a bad image for the company. I spent nearly my whole young and adult life banking with Bank of America. I have never experienced such poor customer service in my entire dealings and never thought I would see the day of something like this happening to me. Before I hung up I requested the information for the legal team again to make sure I had written it down correctly, so that I could submit a request notifying them of the matter. I will be faxing this information over to the legal team as well as mailing them a certified letter on XX/XX/XXXX. I also asked if the legal team had an email address and was told no I said okay and kindly ended the call.

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