Consumer complaint received 2022-07-28
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: NY
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
I have been struggling to resolve a dispute with Bank Of America for over a year and would immensely appreciate any help I can get. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I made a purchase of {$44000.00} on my Bank of America credit card ( see figure 1 attached for credit card statement ). I made this purchase on behalf of my father, not myself ( see figure 2 : payment invoice and link from which I paid ). As this was for a large purchase amount, I split the payment up between my Bank of America Card for the total of {$44000.00}, and the remainder I paid on my XXXX XXXX Credit Card ( {$7400.00} ). To save myself some interest, I transferred a balance of {$11000.00} on XX/XX/XXXX to my XXXX XXXX credit card ( see figure 3 : XXXX  XXXX credit card statement ). 

Shortly after my payment, my father was told by the merchant that the credit card purchase had not cleared ( despite that amount being clearly deducted from my credit card available balance ), and he instructed the merchant to refund the credit card company while he paid instead by wire transfer. 

After a week or so of not seeing a refund on my account, I reached out to the merchant personally, where I was told by the merchant that they had not received my credit card payment. It would be weeks of going back and forth with the merchant, trying to settle it with them as is advised by Bank of America, before I would formally file a claim with Bank of America to dispute the transaction. It would be months before the merchant would inform me that they figured out the issueXXXX ( XXXX XXXX ), the platform that I made the credit card purchase through, had held and not released the funds. This was confirmed to me in a three-way phone call between me, the merchant, and a XXXX representative on XX/XX/XXXX ( I have a recording of that conversation as well as additional recordings from conversations with the merchant that I will gladly share with you if you need ). I explained this to Bank of America and asked them to reach out to XXXX to resolve the issue, which Bank of America claimed they could not do. 

Meanwhile, I had already made several claims to Bank of America that were denied for reasons that were unclear to me ( see figure 4 : my Bank of America message center displaying several claims I filed, all having to do with the same transaction in question ). It would take several hours on the phone with Bank of America over months to finally learn that the reason my claims were being denied was supposedly because I had not shown valid documentation that the {$44000.00} were paid by an alternative method of payment despite the fact that I had sent them a screenshot of my fathers wire transfer to the merchant several times included over 4 faxes to their representments department. When I was told on one of my many phone calls to Bank of America that the reason my documentation was being marked as invalid was because it didnt read well when scanned in to their system or sent by fax, I even mailed over a copy on XX/XX/XXXX and asked that a representative read the document, but this was not done though a representative had promised me it would be. 

I later acquired a formal receipt ( see figure 6 ), and not a screenshot, of the wire transfer details from my father, and faxed that over, and was again denied ( see figure 5 ) on XX/XX/XXXX. 
Bank XXXX XXXX handling of my dispute also contrasts drastically with that of XXXX XXXX I was refunded both the initial purchase amount as well as any interest accrued on it with XXXX XXXX in a timely manner, and without nearly the same number of phone calls or requested documents. 

In having to deal with this, I have accrued so much unwarranted debt, wasted so much time and energy. As just one ( nonexhaustive ) example, see below a log of my calls to Bank of America disputes department over just the past few months : Call Log with Bank of America XX/XX/XXXX - 14 min XX/XX/XXXX - 32 min XX/XX/XXXX - 16 min XX/XX/XXXX - 1 hour, 12 min XX/XX/XXXX - 4 min XX/XX/XXXX - 3 phone calls : 22 min, 37 min, 23 min : went to BOA branch on XXXX XXXX and faxed another copy of screenshot Dad sent me ; spoke to rep XXXX on phone XX/XX/XXXX - 15 min : disputes department says the page with wire transfer info is blacked out, requesting another copy XX/XX/XXXX : spoke to rep XXXX who confirms that all my documents were properly submitted and that I should hear back within 72 hrs via expedited review. Also confirms that I will get back the interest with the charge. 

XX/XX/XXXX - 25 min XX/XX/XXXX - 8 min XX/XX/XXXX - 8 min XX/XX/XXXX - XXXX min XX/XX/XXXX - 14 min XX/XX/XXXX - 6 min XX/XX/XXXX - 12 min, 4 min The reason Im submitting this complaint is because I strongly feel that I have been wronged by Bank of America and am owed at the very least my refund, all interest accrued on that transaction waived, as well as all the interest I am now accruing on my balance transfer to XXXX XXXX paid for. I am asking this because : - Bank of America purports to be on the side of the customer when it comes to claims. That is, they reach out to the merchant, and if they dont hear back, the claim is resolved in the customers favor. I confirmed with the merchant myself that the merchant did not respond to the Bank of America claim, and yet my claim was not resolved in my favor. 
XXXX Bank of America refused to reach out to XXXX even when I explained what the merchant told me was the issue with my payment on their end. 
- Despite my requests to expedite the subsequent re-fillings of the same claim, Bank of America refused to do so, stating that they dont do expedited claim resolution, even though a previous representative had told me that they do, and had in fact reviewed one of my claims on an expedited basis. 
XXXX XXXX XXXX did not exhibit a moments effort of wanting to help me with my issue, of wanting to solve the issue in a timely manner, or of wanting to do any additional investigation to get to the bottom of my dispute. 
XXXX XXXX XXXX exhibited total lack of transparency in dealing with my dispute, even to the extent that I would often not receive notification that claims had been denied, or that further information was requested of me, despite my requests to be called or at least emailed with updates/notifications, which only added to the length of time that it took for me to even get to this point. 
-I dont think any banking/credit card customer should have to spend this much time, effort and endure this much debt and damage to their credit report for an issue that could so easily be fixed by the bank, which XXXX XXXX was able to do for me, but Bank of America was not XXXX 

I hope that no other customer has to go through what I have to get a claim resolved. 

Please let me know if you need any additional information about the mishandling of my claims ; I am more than glad to provide whatever evidence I have.

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