Consumer complaint received 2023-11-06
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: FL
Product: Credit card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Other features, terms, or problems
Sub-issue: Other problem

Complaint:
I have a Bank of America credit card and I have had multiple issues trying to setup auto pay functionality that is advertised in their online banking and mobile banking products. The functionality in particular is that I should be able to setup auto pay with a fixed amount of my choosing. In their products they display a message that, " You can also set up auto pay based on the custom dates, amounts, and other details you choose. '' I read this as I can setup a custom date, custom amount, and details that I choose. Further when in the setup form for auto pay next to the amount field there is a help tip link that displays another message about what each option means. One of the options is Fixed Amount which is described as, " Choose this option to pay a fixed amount every month. You might end up paying less than your Total Minimum Payment Due, and so you might incur finance charges, including interest and late fees. We may adjust any of the above amounts to avoid a payment of disputed transactions on your account. '' At some point between XXXX and XXXX I wished to change my auto pay amount from {$100.00} to {$250.00} a month so I cancelled the {$100.00} amount and went to setup the new auto pay amount and could not. I then called their customer services and at that time they said I would to wait XXXX hours or some period of time in order to be able to setup a new one myself, however, the person I spoke with manually setup the {$250.00} a month auto pay for me. At this time I now wish to change this from {$250.00} a month to {$150.00} a month. When I went to try and do this I remembered from the last time I needed to wait a few days before I should be able to set this back up so I cancelled the auto pay, from what I remember around XX/XX/2023 and waited until today XX/XX/XXXX to try and set it up again. Again I can not set a fixed amount for my auto pay. I call customer service and wait on hold for about XXXX minutes to speak to someone named XXXX from XXXX, she would not give me any other information other than that when I asked for her full name. I also told her that I was filing this complaint because I was told on the phone that this functionality is no longer available, and she told me that this was to protect customers. I emphatically disagree with this explanation as now for credit card customers our only option is to pay the minimum or pay the full statement balance. Paying the minimum only is great for the bank that gets the interest as profit but bad for customers who will likely never pay off their bills without micro-managing their payments, and paying the full statement balance which most customers are likely not able to do. Personally I always pay well above the minimum so that I do not have to pay interest and pay off my debts in a timeframe that I wish to. 

My complaint is that removal of this functionality was never disclosed to customers. When I first got this credit card I was able to setup a fixed amount auto payment and at some point between XXXX and XX/XX/2023 this functionality was removed as an option without my knowledge. Secondly, this functionality is still displayed to the customer as an option that is not there. Thirdly, the customer services rep would not offer me even an option to manually set XXXX back up for me as had done previously.

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