Consumer complaint received 2021-04-04
Product: Debt collection — Credit card debt
Issue: Written notification about debt — Notification didn't disclose it was an attempt to collect a debt
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION (FL)

Hello CFPB team. My situation is with Bank of America ( BOFA ). I had a credit account with them since XXXX. I always had a good payment record with them and I always went personally to the bank to do these payments. 

Around XXXX BOFA offered me another credit line free of interest for a year, which I took to completely pay my current credit line that has a high interest rate at the time. I ended up paying my old credit line with high IRA in one payment and close it and right away started making payments on my now new credit debt line with no IRA for a year. I also switch from making low payments of {$100.00} peer month on my old credit line to now paying in between {$400.00} to {$500.00} payments in order to pay the debt before the 1 year free of interest on my new credit line finished. 

Here is where the problem began, at the end of XXXX BOFA started a verification of all their accounts and right after I did my verification for which one had to go personally to the bank to complete a questionnaire, BOFA decided to close my credit account when I still had around {$800.00} something dollars in debt. I even received 2 letters from BOFA telling me that my credit account was close and that I was not allow to do : payments, transfers, deposits or withdraws of any kind. In other words I can't do anything with the account. 

Even though I went 2 separated times to the bank once again personally to make my payments before the due payment cycle, like I was doing since XXXX because I was sure that it got to be some kind of mistake. No bank close your credit debt if you still owe them money. I presented the situation to the same personal that month after month was taking my payments but their answer this time was that they could not take my payment because my credit line was close. I asked for an explanation and they just simply concluded that they could not take my money. 

What happened next is that 2 weeks after the payment cycle date, they send me another letter now telling me that I was overdue on my payment and so I had a charge of $ Xs cos of it. Then my reaction was again going to the bank and once again asked for an explanation and now is when they told me that in order to pay the remaining amount of my credit debt I had to call the Bank of America credit department. They could of told me this before I got overdue on my payment but they didn't and it got me overdue. Now the real problem since then its been that when I talked with the BOFA credit department and even after I explain them the situation and offer them to continue paying the remaining of my debt ( $ XXXX ... ) they refuse to dismiss the charge for overdue payment. 

I believe this is unfair so I refuse to continue paying unless they take the overdue payment charges out of their equation, but unfortunately BOFA simply continue applying overdue payment charges the next month and then again the month as well and so on and so forth. Then by XXXX what it was a perfectly payable amount of $ XXXX become an over $ XXXX credit debt stuck in this dispute. 

Once again I'm very willing to pay what I owe no matter the institution but I find it unfair that I have to pay more cos of bad management and unfair treatment to a loyal client up until that point. I'm willing to pay the original debt ( $ XXXX ... ) that I had with BOFA when they closed my credit account still owing them money, cos since XXXX this little problem is affecting my credit score, but I can't get BOFA to reasoning and this is why after 7 years I had it and I had to write to CFPB for mediation and negotiation of a fair deal. 
Thank you so much CFPB!!!