Consumer complaint received 2023-01-11
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: OR
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:
This credit card has always been enrolled in Autopay set to debit the full statement balance each month. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, an unauthorized payment of {$4200.00} was debited from my bank account and applied to the card. Given that it was only 3 days prior to the autopay date, I didn't think much of it. I did not schedule this payment and had not logged into the app or webpage for several months since the account was just on autopay. On XX/XX/XXXX, however, an additional payment for {$4200.00} was debited from my bank and applied to the card. This was the scheduled autopay date but by this date, the full statement balance had already been paid. Having been double charged, I called customer service requesting that they reverse the debit. They said the process would take 10 days. Since it was never my intention to give Bank of America a free short term loan, I said this was unacceptable and required a faster resolution for the error they made. They refused so I asked to close the account and requested that the erroneous duplicate payment just be left alone and not refunded since by the time the refund processed, the next bill would almost be due anyway. At this point the month 's bill was double paid and the account was set to autopay. The rep reported to have closed the account and confirmed that the final autopay would clear any remaining pending charges on the account. 

On XX/XX/XXXX Bank of America returned {$4200.00} without authorization and did not process any autopay debits. I was additionally assessed a {$29.00} late fee and an interest charge of {$2.00}, which was confusing given that the prior month 's bill had been paid in full not once, but twice. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I called and was told the interest and fee would be refunded and that I needed to process an immediate payment because with the refund, the account became past due by about {$110.00} ( I can not recall the exact dollar amount here, as it was told to me over the phone ). I requested that the FULL REMAINING BALANCE be paid, less the interest and fees that were to be reversed. The customer service rep did a phone payment of {$4400.00}, which I confirmed several times was the full balance on the card less the interest and fees. I confirmed that this zeroed out the account and that it would be the final payment on the closed account. 

On XX/XX/XXXX Bank of America debited an additional unauthorized sum of {$4400.00} which resulted in the account showing a negative balance of that amount ( since it was already paid in full ). 

On XX/XX/XXXX I called to get this amount refunded. I was told that the additional payment including fees would be refunded, but that this process would once again take 10 days. After some complaints, they agreed to expedite the process but said they would only be able to have someone call me within 48 hours to tell me when to expect the refund. They were unable to tell me otherwise how long it might take. 

More importantly they were unable to tell me why they have been debiting my account for amounts I have not authorized. I have no real assurances that they won't do it again. In all I have wasted more than 4 hours talking with various service reps. Bank of America has been able to borrow more than XXXX XXXX dollars from me for the better part of a month in total at his point without paying me any interest ( though they would happily charge me interest had the situation been reversed ). They also somehow are able to debit funds from my account immediately but are unable to return funds in less than 10 days.

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 monetary relief