Consumer complaint received 2018-10-12
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: CA
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:
In XXXX I had purchased some gift bags for my upcoming wedding on XX/XX/XXXX. The total charge was {$100.00}. I used my Bank of America credit card. Once the gift bags arrived I realized the company was incorrect in the actual usable dimensions of the gift bags so we were not able to use them as gift bags since we would not be able to fit the candleholders in them that we were using as gifts. I contacted the company, XXXX XXXX. I contacted XXXX XXXX and advised them that their ad was misleading as far as usable space in the gift bags. They responded that since I placed the order that they were not going to refund me. I contact Bank of America to dispute the charge on my account, as I did not get what I had purchased. They sent letter confirming that they will be taking the charge and any interest off my account while they investigate. This was done XX/XX/XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX I received a letter at my residence advising that they needed verification that I contacted the vendor. This information needed to be in to them by XX/XX/XXXX and the letter was dated XX/XX/XXXX. Since it was received at my residence, the next possible day for me to put anything in the mail would be XX/XX/XXXX, since mail service is not available on XXXX. I received a letter dated XX/XX/XXXX stating my claim was denied as they did not receive my information in time. What else was I supposed to do? I literally put the information in the mail to them the next soonest mail delivery day I could. Bank of America clearly had no intention of investigating this claim fairly on my behalf and gave me unreasonable deadlines to meet their requests for additional needed information. The only way Bank of America chose to notify me of the additional information needed was by mail. Bank of America does have my cell phone number as well as my email address. Why weren't any of these contact methods used to reach me since we had a deadline fast approaching? When I asked them their response was " we don't do that, we are too busy. '' I begged and pleaded for them to reopen my claim and review the information I supplied to them, the information they requested that they needed to continue their investigation. They refused and simply said since they did not receive the information on time they are denying. After about half an hour on the phone with them they agreed to reopen my claim. I received an email on XX/XX/XXXX advising I have a new message about my claim. I checked my message and it was a letter telling me that they are denying my claim because they did not receive my information in a timely manner. So, what I am understanding from Bank of America that they can not send an email to me to tell me they need additional information and they need it quickly, but they sure can send me an email to tell me they are denying my claim. Again, they did not even look at the information I sent them. They continue to deny the claim on the sole basis that they did not receive the information on time. When I asked them to reopen my claim and they agreed, I would expect them to review the additional information I provided to them, information they requested. Instead they chose to not even look at this information. What this tells me is that Bank of America never had any intention to fairly investigate this claim for me and basically looked for any excuse they can to deny the claim and put the money back on my card. I've been a customer of theirs for over 30 years and this is literally the first time I have disputed a charge on my account. Bank of America never had any intention of fighting for me, a long time customer of theirs.

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