Consumer complaint received 2019-02-07
Product: Credit card or prepaid card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Fees or interest — Problem with fees
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION ()

On or about XX/XX/XXXX, I walked into a local Bank of America branch ( XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX, NC XXXX ) to pay off, in full, a total balance of {$980.00}. I requested immediately after to close the account, and I was informed by the till agent that it would not be possible to close it until after the payment went through and the balance was {$0.00}. 

I made a concerted and diligent effort to ensure that I had paid off the full amount and that there would not be any more fees or interest charges associated with the account. The till agent, as a representative on Bank of America, assured me that this was the case. I further asked if there was the possibility that I would be charged at a later date. I was told again that this was not the case. 

I destroyed the credit card and went through the initial process of closing my account. 

I was alerted via email this morning, XX/XX/XXXX, that I had an outstanding balance on this same account and have been assessed {$20.00} in fees based on an interest charge that was assessed after I paid off the entire sum. To my knowledge, Bank of America had made no reasonable attempt to contact me prior to this morning to alert me to this fact. 

When I called the customer service number and entered my account number and identifying personal information, I was transferred not to customer service but to the internal debt collection agency. I spoke with an agent named XXXX XXXX ( possibly spelled XXXX ) who instructed me that I should pay this sum immediately and then they would possibly work with the credit reporting agencies with whom they had filed a delinquency complaint against me to see about resolving the damage that has been done to my credit score. 

From a purely logistical perspective, I am an American working and living abroad in the XXXX XXXX ; I am paid in pounds, not dollars. But further, I told them that I would not pay anything to Bank of America on principle. I requested that I be allowed to speak with someone from compliance but was told that it would not be possible. XXXX XXXX said she had sent an internal report to the compliance department, but when asked for a reference number she refused to provide one saying she had given me her name. 

Based on what appears to me to be deliberate obfuscation and, frankly, predatory behaviour from Bank of America, I have no reason to believe that their internal policies are structured in such a way as to be acting in the interest of consumers. I do not trust them to resolve this dispute internally. As such, I am filing a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 

From my perspective as a consumer, deliberately or not I was misled by an agent of Bank of Bank America at the XXXX XXXX branch in North Carolina when they told me I would no longer be assessed fees having paid off the entire balance. I took their word for it, as one expects one could. Further, that no reasonable attempt was made to contact me until several months after the fact strikes me as deeply unethical. What is more, it was very clear to me that XXXX XXXX was essentially asking me to settle with Bank of America so that they might negotiate something with credit reporting agencies. This is nothing more than thinly veiled extortion. 

While I realise that the amount they are unethically soliciting from me is relatively small I am not the first person to fall victim to this sort of behaviour from Bank of America, which among the large, U.S. commercial banks is one of the worst in terms of engaging in this sort of behaviour.