Consumer complaint received 2020-01-28
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: FL
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:
This documentation is part of larger complaint having to do with Bank of America 's refusal to accommodate my XXXX XXXX. To be clear for BoA 's comprehension, not yours the ADA is fiat, not a suggestion, and BoA is compelled to follow this federal law. 

Please see the attached documentation for a day by day account of this situation which has been going on now for two months. This furthering of the complaint is prompted by the email from Bank of America employee XXXX XXXX, who subsequent to my previous written statements, and my enjoinder to NOT contact me unless it was to provide an active response email for herself. Not only has she not done so and flagrantly refused to accommodate A VERY SIMPLE REQUEST, she has sent another anonymous responder email. I consider this now to be, in addition to everything else, stalking and harassing communication from BoA. 

See below for the previous explanation and narrative. 


This documentation is in response to your email of XXXX XX/XX/XXXX and the complaint number above regarding the conduct of Bank of Americas XXXX XXXX Card service division. 

As you can see from the attached exchanges through XXXX direct message there was no yield on BoA 's part. The refusal to provide an email address as a contact method is egregious and in my opinion a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. As I  mentioned in my initial complaint to you, I was in a serious bike accident in XXXX which, while I have recovered from to some extent, XXXX XXXX XXXX and resulted in permanent issues with my XXXX XXXX XXXX. XXXX or other XXXX XXXX are not helpful to me ; I need to communicate in writing, via email, and this is an entirely REASONABLE request for accommodation with which BoA refuses to comply. 

I set a travel notice on my BoA/XXXX card before a recent trip to a remote area which was disregarded by BoA and cost me an excess of time and money. I was under no obligation to disclose to BoA why I am not able to speak on the phone, even if it were possible to reach me, which in this case, it was not. 

Please see the attached documents which show the " receipts '' from this episode with BoA 's XXXX credit card division. I set a travel notice on my card well in advance of a trip which began on XXXX XXXX and lasted through XXXX XXXX. I indicated that the countries I would visit included XXXX, XXXX, and XXXX, and that as a researcher I would be at sea and unreachable a good bit of this time. I had also previously asked BoA to REMOVE two-factor authentication from my account as any sort of contact option. I have had this account for more than 20 years and never paid a bill late ; there is no reason to expect any malfeasance on my part. 

During the trip, not only would BoA not honour my attempted purchases, they insisted on XXXX, which, begin as I was in the middle of the ocean, was not possible As you can see from the text messages appended at the bottom of the document, I eventually had to implore the ship 's crew to allow to use a ship to shore connection ( let me reiterate this was IN THE MIDDLE OF THE XXXX XXXX DURING A HUGE STORM ). This digression was costly, and also disrupted my research trip. I had attempted to book a ticket using my XXXX XXXX membership from XXXX to XXXX at a price of $ XXXX. Because of the length of time it took to sort this matter, when I was finally able to get authorisation, there were no more XXXX XXXX tier tickets available, and I was forced to book at a $ XXXX increase on the XXXX allotment in order to make my appointment the day follow disembarkation in XXXX. 

Additionally I was forced to pay for the air and online time on board the ship to be online with BoA ( this also raises the question of what if I did NOT have a XXXX account at all and could simply have not contacted BoA at all? ). 

You can clearly see from the responses from the agents that the non-answers are intended to be obfuscatory and nonsensical. You would think that BoA would have learned from the penalties from the Countrywide case assessed by the DOJ in XXXX that deceit is not a valid business practice, but apparently this is not the case. I am asking BoA to refund the difference in the ticket price of {$200.00}, the online airtime cost of {$57.00}, and to compensate me for my subscription to XXXX XXXX XXXX which I was not able to renew online using the bill to the same card as always, since they simply had frozen the entire card, even back on land, at a cost of {$60.00}. ( BoA will have a record of all the declined charges. ) If one can not set a travel notice, for, you know, when one is TRAVELING ... what is the point of this activity? Additionally, the use of forced XXXX is invasive and in my case I have already asked the bank NOT to use XXXX for my purchases. This is not a consumer protection but rather the bank 's efforts to mitigate its loss potential, which is not my problem and perhaps should have been given some though by BoA executives before stealing people 's homes. The other purpose of this complaint is simply to document this institution 's ongoing malfeasance. 

This ruined my trip, and is now wasting even more of my time. 

To add insult to injury, in addition to the frustrating text exchange, in the past two days I have received two emails from Bank of America personnel, again refusing to communicate via email thats right, BoA sent emails saying that they dont communicate viaemail. ( I should add that BoA certainly has no difficulty in sending bills via email, or accepting payments electronically online ). 

Thank you.

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