Consumer complaint received 2021-04-02
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: CA
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Account status incorrect

Complaint:
To whom this may concern : When I severed my investment banking relationship at the end of 2019 with Merrill Lynch, I was informed by a Bank of America representative that I had no outstanding money that I owed and that the credit card account was closed. I then moved across the country. I was busy at graduate school. In XXXX when I checked my credit score I was absolutely shocked my credit had been decimated. I could not believe what had happened. The only credit card I was aware I had was an XXXX XXXX card and I continued to pay it back on time every month. Why would I pay a credit card bill more than what I owed to another company if I knew I owed it? I immediately paid the amount Bank of America claimed I owed, and ever since have been trying to reason with logic and facts with Bank of America that the demerits on my credit report should be removed as erroneous but to no avail. It is not on the customer to be aware an account he is under the impression he closed is still open. But the fact they miscommunicated and incorrectly informed me the account was closed doesn't even matter in this matter. Because, I never actually owed money to Bank of America. Every single representative who I tried to explain this to at the bank came up with a litany of falsities about why Bank of America took the action that it did. Every attempt I made to explain the situation was met with incredible rudeness and a logic and reasoning that felt like an intentional insult to my intelligence. Every time I tried to explain to them that I did not receive their billing statements they only ever offered to send me evidence they had sent them ; if I close an account with a company and I am doing anything, whether it be going to a college or not connected to the electric grid on a safari for six months in XXXX, it is not on me to inform that company of my current email and or mailing address if I was told I did not owe any money. The facts are the facts. It is indisputable that at no point in time did I ever owe Bank of America more than they actually owed me. If Bank of America needed to get in contact with me it should have been to pay me the difference between the credit card bill and the points I had which meant they owed me money. Instead of doing this, they claimed they were not authorized to use the points toward the existing balance that I was unaware even existed as the account was told to me to have been closed and I no longer possessed the credit card. At one point a representative made an absurd claim that I was still using the card for health insurance but that was automated billing from a previous health insurance I no longer had and that was likewise refunded. It is unclear to me how a bank could see someone spend and pay back in excess of {$120000.00} for more than three years always on time, have had every ability to pay back a bill they did not know about, and this person to be considered a " bad creditor '' because of wrong information provided on the part of the bank. It is likewise contrary to existing law that Bank of America believes they were not authorized to use my credit card points for a bill I did not know about, but were authorized to confiscate them. Not only did they destroy my credit, it took hours on the phone just to get back the nearly {$1300.00} that they owed me. When I pointed this out and that I intended to challenge this assertion in court, I was sent a check attached as proof that this amount was well in excess of the amount claimed I owed. The facts are the facts. My credit should be nearly perfect. I do not understand how any of this could have happened, and I do not understand how Bank of America refuses to take responsibility. I believe this kind of policy and behavior from a major bank severely negatively impacted my life, and not only this, but that this is terrible for the economy when people who can clearly afford to pay back a bill can have their credit destroyed and can no longer take out loans at affordable rates. It is beyond absurd that I was actually owed {$400.00} by Bank of America and because of {$900.00} on an account I was informed had been closed, that was less than the credit in the account that I had, I should have my credit card score completely destroyed because Bank of America couldn't get in contact with me. Additionally, XXXX XXXX can easily vouch for me that I would have had no problem paying the {$900.00} but I was the one who was owed money, and somehow I got my credit destroyed for that? I can find no more fair resolution to this matter than Bank of America admitting negligence and removing this from my credit report. I have already written to the credit bureaus and they simply reiterated to me that Bank of America says the information in my credit report was accurate so I have needed to address this to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

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