Consumer complaint received 2023-10-23
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Closing an account — Company closed your account
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION (CA)

Hello, Id like to bring your attention to a situation, when Bank of Americas irresponsible way of doing business jeopardizes the small businesses in XXXX XXXX and puts their ability to pay their employees under a huge risk. 

XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX 
XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX 

On XX/XX/XXXX, Bank of America froze all our business accounts without any prior or proper notice ; we use these accounts for our daily transactions, payables and receivables. 

The BofA representative told us the legally polished line that the bank has the right to make a business decision to refuse service to anyone and is not obligated to provide an explanation, that " a formal letter dated on XX/XX/XXXX is mailed out '' and that when you were signing ton of disclosures when opening your accounts, you signed that disclosure too. The only accommodation they could offer, was to request a temporary lift on the accounts, that would allow me to withdraw the cash from our accounts within 24 hr. 

This created an operational chaos on top of the emotional distress, pressure and fear of how we are going to facilitate this whole operation in timely manner, so that my payable obligations are made, so that the store receivables get deposited to our new bank accounts, and most importantly so that we have everything ready and set to run the payroll for our employees. Some of my employees are unhoused or have temporary housing and they need their paychecks. I have to complete 35+ account set-ups per store for our normal operations, and 90 % of my receivables and payables are on autopay, which did not go through, and I am going to incur returned check fees, lates fees and I will have to call our vendors and give them explanations. This is extremely exhausting, humiliating and not fair.

I am not questioning why they closed our accounts. I understand their right to do so, although I'd love to have an explanation.

But I am questioning and complaining on HOW they are doing it. There must be a better way of treating their business clients. The banks must give their client a reasonable notice and time to transfer their accounts to another bank. they should not just freeze and close the business accounts, so that we cant pay our employees and meet our financial obligations. This is not right. This is not good business practice, and I question if this is legal at all.

When I was speaking with one of their representatives today, I mentioned that I am going to complaint about this way of handling their business with XXXX  and I am going to bring this issue to the attention of our legislators. Right after that conversation, another representative called me back about my claim, which signaled that there was something that BofA should either have not done, or they remembered about customer service when the client was already gone. 

Either way, once I am done with my operational havoc, I am going to reach out to legislators, and will explore my chances to bring in legal action against them or at least bring larger awareness about such issues. Someone needs to talk about it. The banks can not treat their business clients like this. They just cant. 


Sincerely, XXXX XXXX