Consumer complaint received 2021-03-14
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: ID
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Fees or interest
Sub-issue: Problem with fees

Complaint:
In XXXX of 2020, I had a bank account with XXXX XXXX XXXX " XXXX '' XXXX that I intended to close. There was one payment I still wished to make from it, to my Bank of America ( " BAC '' or " Bank '' ) / XXXX XXXXXXXX Visa card # XXXX, before finalizing that step. 

During the week of XX/XX/XXXX I initiated an on-line payment of {$160.00} from XXXX to BAC. Soon afterwards, an on-line check of my BAC account displayed : - a payment of that same amount ( " - {$160.00} '' ), and - a reduction in the " Balance '' column from {$1200.00} down to {$1000.00}, with a " Transaction Date '' of XX/XX/XXXX and a " Posting Date '' of XX/XX/XXXX. 

At XXXXXXXX XXXX  on XX/XX/XXXX, I received an e-mail from BAC entitled " Confirmation : Thanks for Your Credit Card Payment '', saying, " Hi, XXXX, we've received your credit card payment '', with a " Date posted '' of XX/XX/XXXX. 

Later that morning, I visited the local XXXX branch to close the account, receiving a bank check which I deposited with my new credit union that afternoon. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I received an e-mail from BAC saying that the payment I had been thanked for having made, back on XX/XX/XXXX, had NOT, in fact, been received ( " unable to withdraw funds '' ). I also was charged a {$28.00} " returned check fee '', which I called to request to be waived. 

On the call, I said that there was an error because BAC had informed me, in three different ways, that it had received my payment. Again : - the line entry " - {$160.00} '' ; - the corresponding reduction in my " Balance '' ; and - the e-mail stating, in plain English, " [ We've ] received your payment. '' Incredibly, two different phone representatives declined to waive the fee, despite it not merely being 100 % bogus, but all this also having occurred during a period of overt " forgiveness '' considering the spread of COVID, various racially-inflamed tension & riots, and what have you.

Now keep in mind that ALL I was asking the Bank to do was to waive an incorrectly-charged " fee '' ( not, say, to " forgive '' an amount that I *had* charged, but did not care to pay ). In fact, I had even made a payment from my new bank account before receiving that sky-is-falling message on XX/XX/XXXX, and had even made payments totaling nearly XXXX XXXX dollars within the previous six weeks or so. ( Words can not describe how painfully I subsequently regret having done this. ) Clearly, I had no intention to not continue paying down my outstanding balance, nor was I a default risk, or a non-payment risk.

And still, the Bank somehow declined to waive the fee, despite it being nothing other than a non-existent, made-up, arbitrary dollar amount.

Because it did not waive the fee, I was faced with three choices. The first was to essentially reward the Bank for its at least sloppy, demonstrably error-filled, and possibly even larcenous practices by paying the fee and the outstanding balance. The second was to litigate, which I researched and discovered was far too costly an avenue to pursue. 

The third was to refuse to pay, thus negatively affecting my credit ratings, and invoking higher and/or opportunity costs of any future financial transactions for quite some time. But for the sake of justice, fairness, and sanity for myself, this is the path I was forced to choose. 

So, if the English language is to have any meaning at all, and if I am therefore well within reason to conclude that the words " Confirmation : Thanks for Your Credit Card Payment '' and " We've received your credit card payment '' do, in fact, mean that the party sending such messages has received such a payment, there can be no question whatsoever that I was right, and Bank of America was wrong. 

Subsequently, in XX/XX/2020, I was miraculously able to reverse-engineer the VP of the co-branding program, Ms. XXXX XXXX ( believe out of XXXX ), who wrote that she agreed that the fee could be waived. 

But she wrote that there was nothing that could be done about the interest charges and whatever other penalty fees had been levied since the Bank 's original misdeed. And to be honest, I could not comment about the amount of such levies, because I have permanently ignored any communications from the Bank since then. 
One additional note : the attorney I ( briefly ) spoke to said that BAC was " notorious '' for its sloppiness in matters such as these. How that has been permissible, to the detriment of its customers, is beyond my ability to comprehend. As a result, I feel like a powerless, abused victim, and with a negative mark on my credit score to show for it.

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