Consumer complaint received 2022-12-01
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: VA
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:
My account at Bank of America was closed in XX/XX/XXXX and will be charged off tomorrow ( XX/XX/XXXX ) despite my having contacted the bank every week from XX/XX/XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX only to be ignored or hung up on or responded with a generic copy-paste message telling me to call the hotline, which would then hang up or ignore my call. XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, was the first time I was connected with an actual agent since I started calling and writing weekly to the bank since XX/XX/XXXX. I am faced with {$11000.00} of debt ( including the - {$7.00} from my checking account ). When I spoke to the agent, I explained that I am a XXXX  XXXX  candidate that makes only XXXX per month after taxes. My rent is at least XXXX included utilities, food runs me about XXXX, and transportation costs me upwards of XXXX, not to mention other costs like doctors visits that are not taken into account here. There is, therefore, no money left for a safety net in case of need. 
In turn, the agent gave me three options : ( 1 ) either pay the entire amount in full ( all {$11000.00}, which was impossible ), ( 2 ) pay in several installments of over {$2500.00} per month ( which was almost twice what I earned monthly ), or ( 3 ) pay {$250.00} plus interest each month for the next 5 years, which would put me in negative at my bank here in XXXX. I explained how these options were unrealistic and not remotely possible. She confirmed that these were the only options. I asked if there were programs to support people like me who had a longstanding good history with Bank of America and who have just had an extraordinarily difficult year financially. She again restated that these are my only options, and that should I choose not to pay today, then the debt would be charged off, sold to a third-party credit lender, where I may or may not have to pay additional fees. 

Apparently, years of loyalty and paying on time every month for years are insignificant side-factors when faced with debt at this bank. I am deeply sorry for my inability to pay the debt. As I told the agent over the phone ( someone within the collections department ), two situations caused this fiasco. I came back from vacation in XX/XX/XXXX to no furniture in my apartment- my ex had taken everything. The $ XXXX of debt that I had paid off for months in XXXX had to be spent again on furniture to eat and to sleep. Then, in XX/XX/XXXX, my workplace 's director was caught embezzling money from all of his employees and from his company for the entire duration that I worked there ( all throughout the XXXX period ). In the two years I worked there, I only made minimum wage for the first two months ( working 40-50 hours/week ) ; he made XXXX per month even though he worked two days a week and was caught sleeping in his office on multiple occasions. This intense load of debt paired with an insufficient salary made it impossible to meet the monthly payments. I quit that workplace in XX/XX/XXXX, leaving XXXX and XXXX unpaid for me, meaning I had to scrounge to find money for food and rent. 
To iterate, I had been calling and messaging Bank of America since before the situation started in XXXX, but either my call was ended, ignored, the automatic voice ended my call, or even as soon as I said my name or my credit card number, the call was ended. It took 8 months to receive an answer, at which point the answer was Your account has already been closed. Pay everything now, or you'll be paying exponentially more for the foreseeable future. So, even though I have been endlessly contacting Bank of America, I was ignored. I do not believe that this is appropriate policy for a long-term good-standing client who is undergoing extreme financial hardship.

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