Consumer complaint received 2020-02-21
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: FL
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Struggling to pay your bill
Sub-issue: Credit card company won't work with you while you're going through financial hardship

Complaint:
This issue stems from a business credit card that was issued by Bank of America ( BoA ) to XXXX XXXX XXXX   XXXX, XXXX ( A Florida Limited Liability Company ). I contacted BoA two weeks ago through their online reporting feature and advised the business entity is in the process of closing, and there were no funds to make payments as the business is insolvent. This was an attempt, in good faith, to see how we may come to a resolution on the matter as I have been a BoA consumer for over 10 years. 

Without notice to me, on XX/XX/2020 BoA put through a charge ( debit ) on one of my personal accounts in the amount of {$670.00} using the following description BANKCARD DEBIT FDES NNF XXXX XXXX. 

Based on the above description, I had no idea that this was related to the business credit card. On XX/XX/2020, after several hours this morning on the phone and getting passed off to 5 - 6 different departments and service reps, it was finally disclosed to me that this charge was debited from my account to off-set the business credit account payment. 

Today, I received a letter from BoA ( dated ) XX/XX/XXXX. The premise of this communication was to advise me that my account is past due and to contact BoA to find out how I might be able to reduce my interest, lower my monthly payments and set up a payment plan. After speaking with the Bank again this afternoon ( Supervisor, Ms. XXXX ), I was advised in fact that BoA will not do anything that they described in the letter and the bank will continue collections in this manner. The letter issued by BoA is deceptive and misleading. This is a fraudulent and unfair business practice. 

Since BoA is the holder of my personal checking, savings and retirement accounts and the issuer of this particular credit card, they randomly selected any asset account that I had in their banking institution to collect a debit WITHOUT warning or an alert of the debit, WITHOUT notice the Bank was attempting to collect the debt, and WITHOUT my understanding of which account they intended to withdraw the funds. 

And since BoA is the administrator of all my accounts, there are no controls or safeguards in place from a consumer protection prospective from them debiting funds. 
If the Government has a separation between church and state, I believe the Banks and Credit Card Issuers should have similar separations. The U.S. Government gave the banking institutions billions of bail-out money for destroying the countrys economy, and as a small business man trying to make a better life and contributing, I get my throat stepped on for falling two ( 2 ) months behind on a credit card payment. The bank that I entrust with my money to live and eat, can at any time put their hand in my wallet and take out my money when it suits them. 

There are a few things that are truly disturbing to me in this case, i ) BoAs reprehensible approach they took to collecting funds, ii ) the deceptive nature of the collection activities based on the letter they provided and iii ) the law would allow for a bank / creditor to remove funds from an individuals account without so much as a notice or an alert of the collecting activity. 


Thank you for your time and attention in this matter. 
Sincerely,

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