Consumer complaint received 2016-08-19
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: NJ
Product: Bank account or service
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Making/receiving payments, sending money

Complaint:
On XXXX/XXXX/2016 I posted an ad to sell my car in XXXX website for XXXX . Got a response from XXXX XXXX ( XXXX ) XXXX on XXXX/XXXX/2016 saying he is interested in purchasing the car for the full listed price. He mentioned that he is in XXXX and would send a check for the entire amount to secure the vehicle and will stop by in a day or two and pick it up. Received the check via USPS ( XXXX ) on XXXX XXXX. Deposited the check in my Bank of America checking account on XXXX XXXX itself. On XXXX XXXX I verified with my bank and they said the check is cleared and the funds are available for expense. XXXX called me on XXXX XXXX and asked me to deposit XXXX $ back to " XXXX XXXX XXXX '' XXXX ( Bank of America ) to cover his furniture expenses which got delivered early and he promised to pay me back the XXXX $ when he picks up the car. Since my bank ( BOA ) said the check is cleared and funds are available I went to the bank and did a transfer from my checking account to the account he specified. On XXXX XXXX XXXX again called and asked for XXXX $ to be sent to XXXX XXXX ( BOA ) to cover his furniture expenses. I checked my bank accounts to make sure that the funds are available and since they were available I first transferred XXXX dollars online but XXXX insisted on transferring them via bank I went to bank and transferred again so total of XXXX $ was transferred on XXXX. As of now I have transferred back XXXX . On XXXX morning he again called and asked me to transfer the remaining money to another person XXXX XXXX ( BOA ) and I pushed back saying I am not going to do it. He then mentioned that he will not be able to buy the car from me due to personal reasons and wanted me to transfer the remaining money back. I went and checked my bank accounts and saw that the initial check that i deposited from him for XXXX $ was put on hold and my checking account balance has gone down by XXXX . From then on I have tried to contact him multiple times via phone and chat and he keeps saying he will pay me back but have not received any money so far. Bank Of America though initially acknowledged that the check got cleared and funds are available is now saying that the check bounced back due to insufficient funds and left me in limbo. He still calls me and txts me saying he will pay when he gets money but I strongly feel that this part of a big scam. I went and updated my ad in XXXX and the same person called me as XXXX using a different number XXXX. I confronted him immediately saying that I have already spoken to u regd. my car and he immediately hung up on me. These scammers use XXXX XXXX to hide their real phone numbers and scam people. 

I wan na file a complaint against BOA as well. If they would have told me that the funds are available because we deposited it on behalf of the sender but the check is not actually cleared then I would n't have transferred the money back to him in the first place. Normally when a big amount of check is deposited they will hold the bigger portion of the check until the check get 's cleared which they clearly did n't do in this case. On XXXX I deposited a check for XXXX dollars which they have put on hold till XXXX which they did n't do for the XXXX dollar check which was deposited on XXXX and the entire funds were made available on XXXX. When called the agent said check is cleared and need not worry about anything.

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