Consumer complaint received 2019-08-27
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: NJ
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 its shoddy, unfair, deceptive and abusive operations, false advertising and claims about its so-called credit card services. I have filed numerous CFPB complaints about this willful, habitual perpetrator in the past to no avail. BOA clearly does not manage its credit card accounts in any reasonable manner or consistently with its own advertising and claims. In the most recent problems I have had with it, it has managed to disable not 1 but 2 credit cards I have with it all the while claiming that I should be able to use them. It has blocked me from using its online banking system and has long wait times when I try to call it. It remains inaccessible in any reasonable way despite its routine claims to the contrary. Its perpetual, deliberate lying and deception of its customers should not be tolerated, yet it is. Because these problems pertain to 2 different BOA credit cards, I will submit two CFPB complaints, one for each card. Please note, however, that the same issuer is behind all dysfunctions for both cards, indicating that there are systemic problems with BOA credit card operations. 

The first card is a travel VISA ( Acct # XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ). The second is an XXXX branded Mastercard ( Acct # XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ). Recently I could not sign into online banking for either account, and sought to reset my online passcode to be able to access the accounts. This proved to be impossible for multiple reasons and I remain locked out of both accounts. Along the way, BOA subjected me to long wait times ( including one that announced it would be between 29-39 minutes. BOAs sleazy dissemblance about the time, 30-40 minutes, or between one half to three-fourths of an hour, just hanging on the phone, is revealing. It does not include more wasted time on the keyboard, which quickly make the total time wasted to use BOAs credit cards well over an hour with each operational failure, of which there are multitudes. BOAs corrupt corporate culture of deliberate consumer manipulation is so deeply ingrained that it pervades and is on display even in how it attempts to mask its long wait times. ) In addition to unreasonable wait times, I was subjected to irrelevant pre-recorded messages that I could not bypass. Eventually, after calling numerous times, I received 2 different temporary pass codes, neither of which worked because of other dysfunctions on BOAs online banking website. Eventually I gave up trying to access my accounts online.

Please note, BOA fails to manage its credit cards by forcing onto its customers its many operational dysfunctions and demanding that its customers spend hours on end trying to correct them. This is an unreasonable burden on me, yet it is one that BOA deems to be profitable because it faces no effective sanctions or loss of profitability for using its clients to clean up its operations, habitually.

When I tried to sign in online with the temporary pass codes, its website repeatedly failed to process data that I typed in. Nothing would happen after I hit return or a submit button on its website. When I tried to resubmit it, it provided all kinds of inaccurate responses.

The other credit card that BOA falsely advertised to provide  service on is an XXXX branded Mastercard ( Acct # XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ). A few weeks ago, there was a fraudulent charge on it which I called BOA about. The woman I reached was unable to understand basic questions and points about using the card. It was a waste of time trying to talk to her as she clearly was unaware how billing cycles worked for it. But she said that BOA would send me a replacement card. A week or more later, it did so. It did not quickly replace the card, as other credit card companies do. When I finally got the card, I followed the written instructions provided with it and called a telephone number provided to activate the new card. A recording said that I had successfully activated the card and that the card would be ready to use within 24 hours or so. This was an intentional, willful lie on the part of BOA. Many days later, I tried to use the new and activated card for a purchase at a retailer named XXXX and the card was declined. When I called BOA to ask why it lied to me, I was told that it just wanted to know that it was really you ( me ). So BOA clearly thinks there is nothing wrong with lying to consumers routinely, despite the fact that the victims of BOAs intentional fraud are prevented from making informed choices about which financial vehicles they may use reliably. This point was emphasized repeatedly when BOA declined 2 more charges even further from the date when I was told that the card was activated and several days after I was told and ready to use. Clearly, BOA habitually and wantonly violates reasonable standards of operation by embracing routine acts of deceiving and abusing its customers. Operations that are repeatedly unreliable because of BOAs routine lying, clearly adversely affect me and are unfair, since what it says and does repeatedly contradict one another. All attempted uses of this card were at places I have used the card at previously. As these two cards suggest, I travel frequently and have for as long as I have had each card. 

Finally, the lettering and printed script on BOAs cards remains poor, another sign of its shoddy operations and its desire to make a profit on the backs of an abused client base. It is especially poor on the Mastercard because the color of the script and the color of the background are too close, letters and numbers are too small, and, most of all, the resolution or clarity of the edges of script are poor and blurr into the background far more than any other comparable cards I have. It is one of many ways that BOA makes it difficult to reach its representatives about the cards. Telephone numbers for it on the card are barely legible. Like most problems described in this complaint, this is not the first time I have described the poor legibility of its cards to the CFPB, yet little has changed, despite any claims to the contrary by BOA.

The CFPB needs to : 1 ) Ensure that I am not charged late fees or interest due to BOAs intentional deception and barring me from reliable, easy access to information about my account ; 2 ) Ensure that there is no adverse impact on my credit report as a result of BOAs unfair, deceptive and abusive operations ; 3 ) Prevent BOA from opening new credit card accounts unless it cleans up the operations of accounts it already has ; BOA has worked hard for years to deserve this external discipline to its multi-year non-compliance with transparent and fair practices ; 4 ) Fine and otherwise sanction BOA to the fullest extent of the law for years of willful non-compliance that have not budged in the past to whatever the CFPB has done in the past, if anything, about these problems

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