Consumer complaint received 2024-07-04 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Advertising and marketing, including promotional offers — Didn't receive advertised or promotional terms
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: AR

Complaint narrative:
In mid XXXX I applied for and was approved for a Bank of America XXXXXXXX XXXX credit card that came with a XXXX XXXX XXXX  balance transfer offer. The terms of which are below : 0 % XXXX XXXX for XXXX billing cycles for purchases, and for any balance transfers made in the first 60 days of opening your account. After the intro APR offer ends, a Variable APR that's currently 16.24 % - 26.24 % will apply. 3 % Intro balance transfer fee for the first 60 days your account is open. 

After receiving the card, roughly a week later, I attempted to make the balance transfer in the amount of {$16000.00}. I was asked for an address, without any specific instruction as to what type of address, to send the payment to. I provided the address of my local bank branch at XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX  ( XXXX ). The transfer showed up in my online ledger at Bank of America and I proceeded to wait for XXXX to receive the check and process it. 

Roughly a month went by and XXXX hadn't received the check nor processed it. The transfer no longer showed up in my online ledger. I called Bank of America to inquire about the status and was told they didn't know what was going on. The bank must have received it and lost it. At that point the BOFA XXXX asked me what address I provided and, upon hearing it was my local bank branch, he recommended that I call XXXX about a payment processing address to send the transfer to. 

I immediately called XXXX and procured such an address and called BOFA back next day to start a new transfer. XXXX placed a stop payment on the first transfer check and submitted a new transfer to the new address. I then proceeded to wait a few weeks for XXXX to receive and process the transfer. 

After said weeks, XXXX reported that Bank of America declined the check that they themselves sent to XXXX when XXXX tried to cash it. In confusion, and with merely a week left in the promotional period, I called BOFA to understand why. Nobody knew why they declined their own check. I am not 100 %, but I believe the rep on that call speculated we tried to submit a transfer too soon after the stop payment on the first. So she recommended we send ANOTHER transfer. With only a week left in the promotional period I asked if the transfer, likely to be cashed by XXXX XXXX the period ends, would be honored under the promotion and was told yes ; that the transfer would be sent/initiated prior to the promotional period ends and thus would be honored ; so we sent a THIRD check. 

Unfortunately this check ultimately was declined by BOFA when XXXX tried to cash it as well. I called BOFA once more and was told the payments were being declined because apparently Bank of Americas system looks at the amounts of the transfers for stop payments ; and that since we had been requesting to transfer the same amount of {$16000.00} with every request, the system was seeing it as the same request and thus applying the stop payment. So it was recommended that we submit a request to balance transfer {$16000.00} for it to go through. However we would need to escalate it. I wasn't able to answer the phone when the escalation supervisor called me but I have the voicemail she left saying that they could process the transfer, that they could retroactively apply the promotional terms to the account, and she made it sound like its a thing that happens. In this circumstance, since I had done everything in my power to obey the promotional terms and provided the information in timely fashion and followed up that it could be done. 

Now the promotional period was far over by this point. I called BOFA to do as the supervisor said and make the transfer request and get it retroactively applied by the promotional terms. The rep I ended up with on this particular call said it couldn't be done. So I argued a bit, but ultimately asked for another supervisor. BOFA won't direct transfer to a supervisor so it had to be another call back. I am in a lot of meetings and never am able to answer when the supervisors call. This supervisor left a XXXX just saying to call back in to address the matter. So I did. 

Upon calling back I was greeted by a woman who, after telling her this story I have had to repeat XXXX times by this point, said the previous rep didn't know what he was talking about, that it could be done, and that she would process it. She worked with me to make the transfer for {$16000.00}. She said she would try to get the promo retroactively applied but there would be a chance that I would have to call back in once the transfer was received and processed by XXXX so it would be official in their system to work with. 

Unfortunately it appears the latter was true. Finally, the transfer went through. XXXX received the check, was able to process it, Bank of America did not decline it, and all was good. However fast forward a month and on my statement with BOFA I see an interest charge on my balance transfer when it shouldn't be there as I should be under a 0 % interest promotion that was supposedly retroactively applied. So I called in XXXX. 

This time I was told that it couldn't be done, that I should explore a HELOC ( yeah right ), and that was it. I said that wasn't acceptable, that I would be filing a CFPB complaint, and that I wanted to speak with a supervisor. I was told one would call me within XXXX hours. I can't verify one did. I didn't receive a voicemail at least if they did. 

So I am saying Bank of America has committed XXXX against me. I have wasted so much time on the phone, saying the same story, getting different versions of truth, and etc. It has been so XXXX. They need to honor my promotional balance as they were the ones declining their own checks and not knowing how their system works. I did all steps correctly within the original timeline. In addition, I am demanding my balance transfer fee be refunded to me as a good faith credit for all the XXXX  shoddy customer service system design, poor service itself, and thusly fraud.

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 monetary relief