Consumer complaint received 2020-03-08
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: CA
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem when making payments
Sub-issue: You never received your bill or did not know a payment was due

Complaint:
This company does NOT make it clear that you can not set up auto-pay from your own account to pay the monthly bill. 

I'd gotten this zero interest Bank of America Platinum Mastercard to help me pay down debt. After setting up my online account, I could never find the auto-pay section to set up monthly payments. So I would manually pay each month. After tiring of this, I called in and they walked me through setting up an auto-payment from my credit union account. 

I was concerned that the usability of the site was quite confusing, but was happy to get my problem fixed. The person on the line said I would be set-up to automatically pay the minimum moving forward, but would have to manually make the XXXX payment. As long as I paid within a certain window of the due date, there would be no hit to my credit, etc. I manually paid the bill on XX/XX/13. ( Unfortunately, she didn't mention that I would still be charged a late fee. ) Low and behold when I go into the website today, I see my auto-payment has NOT hit and I'm behind as of XXXX ( today is XXXX ). 

When I call in, the automated menu now says a B of A checking account is required to set up auto-pay, and so no, I can not set up auto-pay after all. This was not explained AT ALL when I called in in early XXXX. This is quite misleading. 

In fact, to me this is quite deceptive and a way to collect on fees. Although I thought this zero-interest account would be quite beneficial, it's actually taken me this long to figure out that I can't make an auto-payment from my own account. Seeing as I have an XXXX and consider myself pretty web-savvy, I would say that the issue here is that B of A is subtly hiding the fact that you can't auto-pay from your account ... hoping perhaps that you'll fall behind and need to pay fees and interest. 

I called in twice today and the phone tree is also very impossible to navigate. Speaking to a manager is not an option. I'd asked for and scheduled an automated call back. Nothing. I called back a few hours later and it's interesting as the phone-tree options have also changed. Now I'm required to type in my entire account number whereas before, I just needed the last four of my social. No luck with the phone tree as it's stopping me from speaking with a representative since " I need a B of A checking account to set up auto-pay ''. 

I have a feeling B of A has already gotten in trouble for the above practice, and is now trying to make their limitations more explicit. The website still does not make it clear. 

As a financial institution with a large global footprint, I feel should B of A and this practice in particular should be investigated. Auto-pay is such a great way for busy consumers to set up payments and ensure no late fees and interest. For a credit card NOT to allow this, and to hide that fact, should be illegal.

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