Consumer complaint received 2017-11-29
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: WA
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Other features, terms, or problems
Sub-issue: Problem with customer service

Complaint:
I have a credit card with Bank of America. 

Over the summer I accumulated a large balance on this card, about $ 27K. 

At some point in late XX/XX/XXXX/early XX/XX/XXXX, I wished to pay off this balance from my Wells Fargo checking account, because I finally had the cash to do so, and was having to pay high interest on this balance. However, I initiated their online bill pay, which is the source of the confusion that follows. Once you select bill pay, Bank of America is not entirely clear about when exactly the bill pay will activate. Nor do they make it clear that once you start it, you ca n't stop it, and it 's very difficult to adjust/fix/reverse obvious mistakes that it might make. 

My statement as of XX/XX/XXXX was provided, now showing a balance of {$28000.00} plus another {$600.00} in charges, but the transfer payment did not occur. After waiting several days to make sure that they were not going to initiate the automatic bill pay transfer, I decided to manually pay the bill ( electronically ), in the amount of {$29000.00}, on XX/XX/XXXX. This brought the balance to XXXX, and ( i had hoped ) ended any interest payments. 

On XX/XX/XXXX ( day after XXXX vacation ), I got my next statement and while in the middle of vacation, Bank of America initiated a bill pay ( from my checking account ) in the amount of {$28000.00}, reducing my checking account to a negative position. I was on vacation and there was no way to fix this, thus I was not able to use my ATM card to buy anything including gas or food. I called Bank of America 's customer service, only to be told repeatedly that there was nothing that could be done. They would not be able to reverse the $ XXXX charge until the charge cleared the bank, which would be 7-10 business days. Instead of waiting, I called my bank ( XXXX XXXX ) and disputed the charge. By the next day ( Saturday XX/XX/XXXX ) I had a positive balance in my account again. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, Bank of America AGAIN deducted {$28000.00} from my XXXX XXXX account, leaving me with no source of funds to do anything ( XXXX XXXX ATM card is denied for lack of balance ). I again made phone calls to Customer Service, which amounts to an extremely maddening " phone triage '' service that attempts to solve or identify a problem using a variety of voice prompts. I spent well over an hour answering phone prompts, talking to a representative, transferring to a new representative, new phone prompts, etc. 

Realizing that nothing could happen over the phone, I entered a Bank of AMerica branch only to learn that the employees at the branch likewise have no authority to repair an obvious glitch, no ability to make me whole. The result was that they were forced to call the same phone system, to no avail. 

Summary : Bank of America has a very wooden system for making and changing transfers and their employees are not able to fix a problem of this nature. I wish a BofA executive could understand how frustrating it would be to try to get work done if I kept calling him and sending emails saying that his banking account is negative, that his automated transactions from other companies are bouncing and that the company responsible for this would like him to wait 3-5 business days, at which point we would then reverse the charge and wait another 3-5 business days for the refund to clear. 

Banks should be required to staff their branches with people who have the authority to repair or fix OBVIOUS system errors. 

Lesson to others who read this : do n't use a BoA credit card. If you do, be very careful about the automatic bill pay feature. If you use it, it 's like a Terminator Robot, you ca n't change it, no one at BoA can.

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