Consumer complaint received 2021-03-01
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: WA
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX I called to report to Bank of America that my wallet had been stolen and that two of their bank branches had allowed the thief to fraudulently withdraw cash advances of {$150.00}, {$4800.00} and {$1000.00} against my account. In addition to the cash advances, Bank of America had changed me bank fees for each transaction for an amount of {$10.00}, {$240.00} and {$50.00} respectively. 

I called to report to Bank of America that my wallet had been stolen and that two of their bank branches had allowed the thief to fraudulently take out the cash advances against my account. A claim was setup and the bank refunded the fraudulent cash advances and fees. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I was notified by Bank of America that my fraud claim had been denied and the original cash advances ( {$5900.00} in total ) were charged back to my account. The bank fees that were originally charged for these fees were not charged back to me after this denial. I found out through a later conversation with a representative from the BOA Fraud Department that this denial was most likely caused due to a clerical error from the person that setup the initial fraud claim. Apparently they failed to mark that my card had been stolen. I fought this denial via phone call and certified letter and requested all evidence used to review the claim as is my right per the XXXX. I wanted this evidence to add to the case that I had filed with the XXXX PD. To this date I have received no evidence from the bank. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I discovered that Bank of America had applied an interest charge of {$11.00} against the fraudulent cash advances. 

The fraud claim was eventually honored on XX/XX/XXXX after I officially disputed the denial via multiple phone calls and a certified letter that they received on XX/XX/XXXX. 
After honoring the claim, Bank of America reversed the {$5900.00} in cash advances yet again. On this same date, they also returned {$300.00} in bank fees that they did not owe me since they had not charged me for them after denying my original claim. They did not, however, reverse the {$11.00} of interest charges that they applied on XX/XX/XXXX. 

I contacted Bank of America via phone call ( sometime between XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX ) to inform them that they had refunded me for {$300.00} worth of bank fees over 3 transactions that they did not owe. I also asked them to remove the {$11.00} of interest fees. The representative informed me that the bank would automatically true up the fee refund and the interest within about 3 weeks. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I discovered that Bank of America had incorrectly issues 3 additional bank fee adjustments crediting the account yet another {$300.00} over XXXX transactions. This compounded the original issue described in the previous paragraph bringing the total refund overage to {$600.00}. I called again with the next day or so to inform Bank of America of their second error and was again told to wait and that it would be resolved. By the time I received my XX/XX/XXXX bank statement my account balance still remained at - {$580.00} XXXX {$600.00} of erroneous fee refunds less the {$11.00} of interest that I did not owe ). 

In XXXX of XXXX, nothing seemed to be moving. I had made multiple calls to the fraud department to try to reach a resolution on these issues but I just received constant canned responses. The account balance remained the same. The interest charge remained and the incorrect fee reversals remained. I scheduled a meeting with my local Bank of America branch to see if sitting across the desk from someone might help bring resolution to the issue. My in-person meeting was held on XX/XX/XXXX at the XXXX branch in XXXX, WA. The representative I met with reviewed the issue and understood my problem but ultimately just put me on the phone with the same fraud department that had been incapable of finding a resolution to these issues for months. The representative I spoke with on the phone promised me that the interest would be credited and the extra charges would be reversed very soon. No time frame was provided. 

At the end of XXXX Bank of America mailed me a tax statement ( FORM XXXX ) reporting to the XXXX  that I had income of {$600.00} due to these refunded fees that were credited in error. This created a tax situation form me that should not have existed. 

By the XX/XX/XXXX statement there had been no change from the XXXX statement. The account still showed a final balance of - {$580.00} and I felt that I was no closer to resolving the problem. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I discovered that the Bank of America XXXX Department had decided to start taking action the issues that I had been bringing to their attention for months. I noticed that there were XXXX charges applied to cover a portion of the extra fees that had been sitting in the account. This covered {$300.00} of the {$600.00} that I had asked them to take back. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I found that a second round of duplicate fee charge backs had been applied to the account. This should have been the end of the fee charge backs but instead Bank of America continued to create new issues for me. 

After charging back the duplicate fee returns on XX/XX/XXXX, Bank of America proceeded to then hit me with a new round of bank fees. I found that there were XXXX new transactions that populated after they had finally fixed the original fee issue. This put me {$300.00} in fraudulent debt yet again, taking me all the way back to the position I was in in XXXX. These fees should have never been applied and still remain to this day. I called the Bank of America Fraud Department and explained this to their representative on XX/XX/XXXX. He told me that this issue would be resolved in 3-5 days. As of XX/XX/XXXX it is still not resolved. 

Because Bank of America decided to charge back the duplicate fees before reversing the {$11.00} interest charge that they have forced me to carry since XX/XX/XXXX and that they have repeatedly promised to fix but haven't, the interest hit my account as 60+ days delinquent. The extra credit returns that had sat on the account for months had shielded this from happening but the second they reversed those fees their system decided to start dinging me. The worst of this is that they reported this to all XXXX credit bureaus as delinquent, which dropped my FICO score 109 points in a single day. I had already been hit by 30 points back in XXXX when they denied my initial claim and charged the cash advances back to my account. To date, they have trashed my credit score by around 139 points and it continues to decline. 

To date they are showing that I owe {$300.00} in bank fees and {$11.00} in interest charge on fraudulent cash advances when I have a letter from them stating that they honored the fraud claim back on XX/XX/XXXX and would credit me back for " any interest charges and fees that you were charged ''. I have contacted them 25-30 times via phone, sent 2 certified letters and have met in-person at a local branch. Bank of America has shown that they have no interest in clearing up this issue. 

I have attached the letter honoring the claim, a detailed breakdown of what has transpired since the theft in XX/XX/XXXX and labeled bank statements from XXXX through XXXX that correspond to the details laid out in the breakdown letter. 

This data proves that the bank has been negligent in their responsibilities to me as a cardholder as per the requirements laid out the the XXXX.

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