Consumer complaint received 2023-01-28
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: NJ
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Other banking product or service
Issue: Problem with a lender or other company charging your account
Sub-issue: Transaction was not authorized

Complaint:
Last XXXX I bought a defective e-bike on XXXX from XXXX XXXX, and when riding the ebike, I lose control of the wheel. I started a return of the e-bike, but the merchant prevented me from returning the bike due to their fault ( telling lies ) and their refusal to take the responsibility of organizing the shipment. I spent more than 100 extra hours on returning the bike- the company slaved me on doing the return, and it severely impact my health and freedom. 

I disputed the charge with Bank of America, the card company. I sent all of the materials to them. They never take it seriously, and made decision without proper investigation. They just wanted to close the claim and pay me nothing. 

I set up my claim on XX/XX/XXXX. I was told the claim will be resolved within 45 days. I receive a notification on XX/XX/XXXX, telling me the claim was sent to the merchant 's bank, and I didn't need to take any action before they get back. They will notify me if I need to submit more materials. However, I never receive any other notifications in the next 45 days. The claim was still not closed on XX/XX/XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX, the claim was quietly closed and marked as " resolved '' without any information provided. The claim status was : " resolved - claim not paid ''. 

I was astonished, and I called Bank of America for explaination. The BoA agent seemed to know nothing and couldn't find any record, because nothing was in the message center, and nothing was in the mailbox. Finally, the agent promised to send the paperbased decision document to me again ( they said they send it before, but I didn't receive anything ). 

Then I got the paperbased decision document. The claim was rejected by the merchant, and the merchant wrote to Bank of America and told lies, blamed me in a very illogical way. Bank of America didn't record this, didn't inform me of this when this happened, and they even didn't verify their words with me and my evidence, or to ask me prepare more materials to fight against them. I was NEVER informed of anything.

I was angry and I called Bank of America, and the agent told me that whatever had happened, I need to fax them documents so that they could consider reopening the claim. They avoided talking about their negligence. So I faxed all the helpful document, including a summarized timeline, a whole copy of the transcript between the merchant and me, and a document that presents the evidences against merchants ' lie line by line. Then, the next day, I called Bank of America to check the file, and the agent reopenned the claim. I was told that 60 days will be the deadline for them to investigate the claim. 

XX/XX/XXXX, again, I was informed the claim was closed again, with the status " resolved-claim not paid ''. The latest information was called " unable to pay ''. Again, no explaination was provided- the notification only said : " We made this decision because : Based on the information available, we were unable to determine that an error occurred. " This absolutely makes no sense. Every error was clear enough in the material I sent them, for example, a full set of evidence against the 2-page lies of the merchant from the first rejection letter, but Bank of America didn't mention anything in the material, didn't provide any proper explanation about their decision, and just simply closed the claim.

This is unfair. Bank of America never take my claim seriously and made unfair decision without even having basic investigation.

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