Consumer complaint received 2018-01-31
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: TX
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Account status incorrect

Complaint:
I'll start with background context from the past 6 months, as briefly as possible. My wife and I have been trying to consolidate our credit debt since XX/XX/XXXX( when she started her first full-time job after finishing school. We have XXXX kids ( a XXXX XXXX and a XXXXr ) and we both work as XXXX XXXX XXXX. 

We own our home and have significant equity on our property ( about 30 to 35 percent of the est. market value ). We looked into home equity products and ran into problems because banks could not loan us money based on my income alone and would not loan us money based on our joint income because my wife 's credit score is around 500 ( she went through a bad divorce eight years ago and it destroyed her credit ). After four months exhausting any borrowing opportunity and taking multiple pings on my credit report with loan applications, I turned to a non-profit debt management service to help us consolidate our credit debt ( from two accounts ) into one payment. 

Around the same time, I received an offer for a XXXX XXXX from Bank of America. I have been a customer of Bank of America since XX/XX/XXXXand so I thought this could be a good opportunity to get a small limit card that I could share with my wife and put a tank of gas on every month and pay off to help her start rebuilding her credit. Everything I have read about credit repair recommends this kind of action so I applied in late XX/XX/XXXX. I was approved for a {$4000.00} limit card ( the account ends XXXX, and the limit is way more than I wanted or asked for ) and Bank of America said they were mailing me cards. 

After a few weeks the cards arrived in my mailbox in XX/XX/XXXX and I tried activating the card on like XX/XX/XXXX. The automated system would not allow me to activate the card because of some issue with my account and said I had to call another number, so I called this second number and the automated system told me it couldn't verify the account because it wasn't activated and so I had to activate it first. A week later,XX/XX/XXXX, I finally got through to talk with a person at Bank of America. The CS rep tried to activate the card and couldn't so he referred me to a Bank of America debt collection rep because he said the account was flagged for non-payment or some kind of credit issue. I was surprised because this is a {$0.00} balance card that I never even got to activate so I talked with the debt collection rep at B of A and they said the bank had revoked my credit on the card and closed the account and asked if I wanted to speak to somebody about reopening it. I was pushed up the chain to a manager who told me they would not reopen the card and she was unable to repair the damaging report to my credit, and her supervisor told me that because I was working with a debt management program on a different account that I was deemed a risk to the bank and my credit was revoked on all accounts. What's worse, is I actually talked to a person from Bank of America around XX/XX/XXXX who called me about my old account and I informed them at that time that I was working with a DMP. They had an opportunity right then and there to ask me to close my new account if they didn't want to honor it as they agreed to at the end of XXXX. They didn't, they chose to send me the cards and then revoke the account before I could activate them, hurting my credit. 

I said on XX/XX/XXXX that I was fine if B of A didn't want to do business with me, after 16 years, and I requested that they at least honor the good faith of our agreement and let me close the account or edit my credit report so it doesn't look like I defaulted on my credit for an account that has no balance and was, indeed, never even active. I have never missed a payment or even been late in a decade and a half of doing business with B of A and I feel like they are maliciously hurting my credit ( first by pinging it to approve me for a card and then again by revoking the card before the account is even activated ). Their answer was that " they reported accurately to the credit bureau. '' This is my dispute - Bank of America has revoked my credit and closed an account as if I defaulted or refused to honor our agreement. This looks bad on me, and I do not feel I deserve this. I applied for an offer they specifically delivered to my house by name through the mail. They checked my credit and approved me for an account. Days later, without contacting me, they decide I am now a credit risk and so they revoke my account causing harm to my credit report. I ask what harm I have done to Bank of America? I owe them {$0.00} on this account, and indeed the cards that they sent me were revoked before I even had the chance to use them. I have contacted them, months ago to talk about reasonable options to consolidate my debt and get them paid back for what I own on all my accounts. I have contacted them to try and get assistance for my family and to start rebuilding our credit. I have applied, and been accepted to an offer they specifically prescribed to me by mailing it to my house in my name. I have approached all of these interactions with integrity and good faith. Bank of America has been unable to offer me any reasonable assistance to help my family accomplish our financial goals, and as ofXX/XX/XXXXhave even gone as far as to cause unwarranted harm to my financial reputation and my family. 

I have done absolutely nothing to deserve this, and I argue that B of A has no reason other than malice to allow the credit harm they have unfairly caused to me to stand.

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