Consumer complaint received 2022-08-12
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: PA
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Other features, terms, or problems
Sub-issue: Other problem

Complaint:
XXXX of XXXX  I receive a LETTER from Bank Of America stating I hav n't paid my invoice that was enrolled in " Paperless '' billing. I NEVER enroll in paperless billing. We have gone thru this back and forth with the XXXX XXXX XXXX already. They suggested we contact you. After receiving the letter we IMMEDIATELY called. paid the balance in full over the phone. the amount was approx XXXX dollars that had accumulated over 2 or 3 months. It was a new card we had just gotten the end of the previous year. we barely used this one. We pay off credit cards on a monthly basis totalling close to XXXX every single month used for our business and personal finances. XXXX dollars is a drop in the bucket to us. We certainly would not have left this go. We NEVER sign up for paperless billing. First We're older, we do things old school. We ALWAYS have a paper invoice sent to us so we can go over our statement to be sure there are no fraudulant charges. In Todays world it seems once a year we find a fraudulant charge. Second, we rarely check our E-mail. It's not something we commonly do. My husband takes care of the bills and still uses a flip phone. We rarely text because of this. We keep the paper invoices for a paper trail of our business expenses for our business. We explained this to Bank Of America Representative. They made us pay off and close the account which we found odd over the phone when we called in when we received the Letter in XXXX of XXXX. I asked that the late fee be removed which they agreed to. I asked if this was going to be on our credit report, they informed us that yes it was. We asked that to be removed as well and they refused. Again, we are old school and take pride that we have NEVER EVER had a blemish to our credit report. Because of this blemish another credit card reduced our total credit line which then adversely affected our business payments to our vendors we owe on a monthly basis that we had setup as AUTOPAY WITH PAPER STATEMENTS as well. We NEVER received a phone call or a paper invoice sent to us before this delinquent notice. They said it was our responsibility to check our e-mail and then pay the invoice. This is EXACTLY why we never sign up for this sort of thing. So I paid this off over the phone and asked them to review their mistake. In XXXX I receive a letter dated XX/XX/2022 stating after the review they feel it was not their fault. claiming that we indeed enrolled in paperless. At this point I asked for a paper copy of the invoices for the previous months that were not paid so I could see what these purchases were even for. there again, I was not enrolled in checking it online or thru email. I'm not even sure how to go about this. They did send us paper copies at this point. ( why didn't they before? ) AND I asked them to review their mistake once again. On XX/XX/2022 I received the paper copies of the invoices I had asked for to show us proof for our records. at this point I didn't even have paper copies for our records. then XX/XX/2022 I received another letter stating they still refuse to remove it from our credit report and they do NOT take responsiblity for the mistake. At this point we contacted the XXXX XXXX XXXX In the meantime, We enrolled for another credit card. It made us get online. we were going to enroll in AUTOPAY like we have other cards in the past. WITH PAPER billing to go along with it. We both watched VERY carefully to make sure we were NOT making any mistakes. The " PAPERLESS '' box was automatically checked off. we did NOT check this off. So we UNCHECKED the box and clicked on SAVE. before signing out, we double checked it. It did NOT keep our Saved info, and indeed enrolled us in PAPERLESS. I went in and did the same thing again a 2nd time. That time it saved it.... Then just 2 weeks ago we enrolled in yet another credit card and the SAME exact thing happened. The " PAPERLESS '' box was pre checked off. we unchecked it and hit save. when we double checked it, it had checked off the box again and made it PAPERLESS by itself. We had to go back in a 2nd time and uncheck it. and THEN on the 2nd attempt it SAVED IT. I'm sure this is what happened with the Bank Of America Card as well. It seems to me, Cards are purposely doing this to generate late fee 's. If a Million customers have this happen, they conveniently created XXXX XXXX dollars in late fee 's. based on a XXXX dollar late fee. This is obviously being done on purpose and I think is CRIMINAL. This NEEDS investigated. I want this blemish removed from our credit report all 3 of the credit bureaus. AND these companies need investigated for doing this. This is absolutely a type of FRAUD going on. Bank of America did get back to the XXXX XXXX XXXX but still kept saying it was not their fault. It indeed is. They are purposely doing this to customers all across the country. In fact I have mentioned this to friends and discovered this EXACT same thing has happened to 2 other friends. If this is NOT where I need to report this, PLEASE let me know where I need to go from here. The XXXX XXXX XXXX tells me they just have to accept their answer and can not MAKE the company correct any problem.

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