Consumer complaint received 2017-03-08
Product: Mortgage — Conventional fixed mortgage
Issue: Loan servicing, payments, escrow account — 
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION (GA)

Hello. 
I like to pay my mortgage in advance and recently tried to increase the period I pay from one month to two months paid in advance ( Which means my normal payment would be due today for XXXX but instead I have already paid XXXX and want to pay XXXX ). 

I do this because I travel frequently and for long periods and do not want to forget to pay my mortgage, or have difficulty because I am out of the country. 

After I recently paid XXXX successfully I received a cryptic letter ( attached ) from a debt collector (! ) stating that payment was not applied as a regular monthly payment. Logging onto my account I could see that the payment had been reversed and ( I assume ) applied as principal. 

Calling into the Bank of America phone number provided ( XXXX ) I was led through a phone tree that offered irrelevant " Payment Options '' with no option for live help, although I was finally transferred after screaming every variation of " Operator '' ( and a few other words ) I could think of. 

After being transferred, I was finally told that Bank of America does not allow payments XXXX months in advance because " Regulations ''. And possibly " Escrow ''. I was also informed that I could have this waived by faxing a letter asking for it to be waived. ( E-mail would be nice, but maybe next decade ... ... ) My complaints are : 1 ) Their website allows me to pay forward XXXX months and I 'm reasonably certain I 've done it successfully in the past before long trips. However it appears that, at present, once the money is transferred they change the allocation internally. This would be a problem if I had actually missed future payments and assumed my mortgage was secure through the month of XXXX. They need to either change their " Regulations '' or their website so that payments can not be made for future months and then automatically misapplied 2 ) The only notification I received of their change in how they allocated my payment came from for profit debt servicer - which is also where the phone tree appears to have taken me. While monthly payments are free, the other, weekly options all incur charges ( See attached .PDF ). Here 's the verbiage from their website ( .PDF Attached ) " PayPlan 24 has no transaction fee when drafting from a Bank of America checking or savings account for payment. If you are drafting from a non-Bank of America account, there is a transaction fee of {$4.00} per draft. For example, PayPlan XXXX allows for XXXX drafts per month. Each draft will include a {$4.00} transaction fee at the time of deduction. '' It 's difficult not to resent having advance payments misapplied and then being steered into a costly and unnecessary service. BoA needs to chance their notification when they change payment applications so that it clearly states the problem, and not try to confuse it with a profitable service. 

I will work out my issue out by " faxing '' them a letter, but as a service to others who may miss the junk mail notice from them, I wanted to call out this behavior. 

I would also love to know if their refusal to easily accept advance paymentss began at the same time they started charging for " PayPlan '' ( And yes, its free for BoA customers, but this example does n't make me want to leave my credit union for them ). 

But for now I have an extra {$2200.00} of paid principal and no XXXX payment, although I expect to have it fixed once I find the time to write and fax the letter ( and find a fax machine )