Consumer complaint received 2021-01-31
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: CA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Closing an account
Sub-issue: Company closed your account

Complaint:
I am a laid-off XXXX XXXX XXXX  receiving assistance for myself and my family of XXXX, including a XXXX-year-old daughter, via the California XXXX under the PUA provision of the CARES Act. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I went to Bank of America to withdraw money that had been put on my account by XXXX. The ATM said " transaction failed. '' I called Bank of America and they told me the account was ordered closed by XXXX. 

I received no text, email, letter, phone call, or any other notification from BofA prior to the termination of the account. 

I called XXXX and the person I spoke with said the XXXX did not instruct Bank of America to close the account. 

I called Bank of America and this time the person said BofA had no record of why the account was closed. The person said she would expedite an inquiry into why the account was frozen. She specifically told me the inquiry would be sent to someone from the XXXX, and an employee of Bank of America would coordinate with an XXXX  representative to resolve the issue. She said she could not provide information about how long this would take, and to keep checking my account for when it was reinstated. 

Not content to wait, I called XXXX back and asked if it was correct that BofA would be sending a request for information to the XXXX, and the XXXX employee said this was false. The XXXX would not be reviewing whether or not my account should have been closed by BofA because the decision to close the account did not originate with the XXXX. 

The XXXX employee also said, sympathetically, and I quote, " Bank of America is taking advantage of the situation to close these accounts. '' I called back Bank of America. I told the representative what XXXX told me. This representative gave me a different Bank of America phone number to call. I called that number, and yet another Bank of America representative gave me a different XXXX  number to call, promising that this was a direct number to XXXX. This was false. The number was an alternative number leading to the same robo menu. 

I went directly to a Bank of America branch, and spoke with the branch customer relationship manager. He gave me a direct number to call. 

I spoke with the BofA employee who answered the phone, and after I related the above the representative told me the estimated wait time for Bank of America to fix the problem and restore the funds they took was one week. 

This is absolutely unacceptable as we have exactly {$20.00} and pocket change available to feed and sustain a family of XXXX. We have auto insurance and state registration due. We are overdrawn on our other accounts. The representative put a supervisor on the phone. 

I have read accounts of the recent appearance of Bank of America 's financial officers ' appearance before the California State Legislature, and the supervisor gave the same sorts of circular and dissembling answers as the executives did during the legislative inquiry. 

He was unable to tell me why the account was closed. He was unable to tell me why he was unable to tell me why the account was closed. He had no answer as to why I was told the XXXX directed the termination of the account while representatives of the state agency are directly contradicting this information in their communication with me. He had to answer when I asked why I was not given a timeframe for resolution when I first expressed our desperate situation, nor for why I was given a timeframe after extreme run around and escalation of the complaint up the company 's chain of command. 

Only after I told the supervisor that I was filing a complaint with the Consumer Finance Protection Board did the supervisor give me a fax number to use to send on my complaint. He was unable to give a timeframe in which to expect a response from someone at Bank of America who is competent to reinstate the account. or reimburse the funds Bank of America took without any direction from XXXX. 

We understand the difficulties of pandemic. But Bank of America has a responsibility to our family to make this situation right without delay, because somehow the company failed somewhere along the line in its due diligence to provide transparent banking information to this customer and timely redress of a legitimate grievance. Moreover, and more importantly and to the point, its placing additional hardship on a family that has seen more than our share of it. Bank of America needs to fix this.

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 non-monetary relief