Consumer complaint received 2022-08-07
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: NY
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem when making payments
Sub-issue: Problem during payment process

Complaint:
The issue I am describing below is regarding my Bank of America credit card and an issue with their automatic payment system. 

I have had my main banking/savings/checking account with XXXX XXXX  for almost 20 years. When the account was first open I was underage therefore it was connected to my parents account. Now as a XXXX XXXX XXXX adult I have had the need to separate my account so that my parents no longer have access to my funds. In this situation XXXX XXXX requires a new account to be created, funds transferred, and the old account closed. On XX/XX/XXXX I opened this new bank account, and closed my old account on XX/XX/XXXX. During this week I updated all of my credit cards, utilities, ACH direct deposit, and any other automatic payment to pay to my new account. For Bank of America, I went onto the website via a PC and updated my banking information on XX/XX/XXXX, and confirmed it had been updated on XX/XX/XXXX via mobile app. 

Now to the issue at hand, I opened the Bank of America credit card in XXXX of XXXX as a balance transfer option. I set up the automatic payments on the XXXX of every month for the amount of {$150.00} and have paid on time without issue since the account opened. The due date for this account is the XXXX of every month, giving myself three days between the date I pay and the date it is due, incase there is an issue with the account. I also selected paperless option due to being a more eco-friendly option. Before each monthly automatic payment, I receive an email notification stating the payment is upcoming with the minimum amount due ( normally on the XXXX of each month ). Then I receive an additional email after that due date on the XXXX with the new statement. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I received the email of payment due, and on XX/XX/XXXX I received notice of my new statement. At this point, I assumed everything was paid out correctly with the new account since I did not receive any communication via email stating otherwise. The emails I received were just like every other email I had received previously. After the XX/XX/XXXX email I received XXXX other emails from Bank of America with promotional material as well information about my account. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I received my monthly email stating upcoming payment is due. Then on XX/XX/XXXX, I received an email stating my account was past due. I was very confused because I was under the impression that my account was up-to-date with no issues. I went on to the mobile app and saw there was a balance that needed to be paid from XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX and immediately and manually paid it on XX/XX/XXXX. The XX/XX/XXXX was 31 days past due and the XX/XX/XXXX was 1 day past due. I looked through my Bank of America account and saw my current new XXXX XXXX checking account was correctly on it so I was very confused since to me everything looked like it should have been processed correctly. On XX/XX/XXXX, during business hours, I called Bank of America and spoke to a customer service representative. I confirmed with them that the new bank account was added correctly, however it was not connected to my automatic payment. They recommended waiting until the payment goes through then reaching out to the CFPB for further assistance. 

I went back into the mobile application and looked around, no where on the application did it state that I needed to update my Bank of America automatic payment. Like I said above, I updated multiple other credit card companies without issue, where their system automatically updates the automatic payment with the new banking information added to the account. Therefore I found this website and mobile application to be extremely misleading. As a valued customer who has never missed a Bank of America payment I was shocked that they did not notify me at all of the payment issue, but also continued to send me other emails during that time. Even though I paid the late amount as soon as I was aware of the issue, the negative impact had already been done. My credit score dropped XXXX points which is detrimental to my finances. I am requesting that the derogatory remarks be removed from my credit report, due to misleading and unclear practices by Bank of America. 

Please let me know if you need any additional information, thank you.

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