Consumer complaint received 2021-11-20
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: TX
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Other banking product or service
Issue: Closing an account
Sub-issue: Company closed your account

Complaint:
Im XXXX 2021 I received a Visa direct credit insurance claim payment on my Merrill edge XXXX account. It was approximately {$8700.00} I think I cant remember I dont have access to the account. I also made a cash deposit for I think {$750.00} that night In my Bank of America account and transferred those funds into my XXXX account at Merrill. These funds were to go towards replacing my car that had been deemed a total loss. I had just received them after a long XXXX week insurance claim. My plan was to get up in the next day or so and take those funds and purchase another car so that I could get back into my work pattern which had been severely hurt without a vehicle. The next day goes by and I logged into my account make America but it said that my XXXX account at Merrill was locked or blocked. I got on the phone with XXXX it took me about a little over an hour to speak with someone who told me that my account was locked because I just changed my address to my address that Im moving to this week and not to worry it will be unlocked the next day so Wednesday goes by and I get up Thursday and I called again and a gentleman tells me it looks like everythings fine its just some lock has not ibeen finalized. On XX/XX/XXXX I call into Merrill and was sent directly to Customer Service and ustomer service and the customer service I said all I needed was to take my identification into a branch and have a Merrill employee verify me since I just change my address. I went over there and the XXXX XXXX told me that I was not verified he got my information so everything should be fine that it was a password reset and finally discovered that my entire account was locked and that they were closing it and it was an unknown amount of time before they were going to hand me my funds. I havent had this account open for a month maybe six weeks. The funds that went into that account were obviously deposited from an insurance company it is the deposit even showed the claim number. My complaint today is the back office employees told the bank the branch employee that its an unknown amount of time before they close out the account so I am held her hostage by Merrill Lynch with money that Ive only had in there a couple up at all of a day and then they lead me all over the place with all these misconceptions of what was going on with my account being just locked or needed to be verified and the whole time theyre closing my account down. I literally spent XXXX hours on the phone and XXXX hours at a branch to find out they stole my money and were gon na get it back whenever they want to. So right now the money that I was using to buy a car this week has left me to rent a car and I cant rent I cant afford a rental car. I had to pay {$700.00} just this week for my rental car. So what I need is a Merrill Lynch to unlock my funds And I need a reimbursement for the rental car since I did not have my funds to go purchase my car

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