Consumer complaint received 2026-04-10 00:00:00
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Problem with a lender or other company charging your account — Transaction was not authorized
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: FL

Complaint narrative:
Bank of America repeatedly processed refunds on completed international trade transactions and extracted the refund money from other customers ' production capital. Bank of America refused to defend a contract it was obligated to defend and used its position as both my merchant processor and my bank to extract money from me for disputes it had no lawful role in resolving that way. And Bank of America successfully defended this exact same contract on my behalf XXXX times over the past XXXX years. My customers traded money for a product. They got the product. They own it. Bank of America let them keep the product and take the money back and then took that money from other customers whose vehicles were still being built. 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 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 XXXXXXXX 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 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 Bank of America accounts were in good standing for 13 years all the way through the first half of XXXX. In XXXX, XXXX, and XXXX of XXXX, both my primary operating account ( ending XXXX ) and my XXXX account ( ending XXXX ) were functioning normally. The collapse that followed was not caused by my business. It was caused by Bank of America 's decision to stop defending a contract it had already defended successfully on my behalf XXXX times. Buyers filed chargebacks claiming " merchandise not received. '' I gave Bank of America the signed contracts showing XXXX delivery terms, the bills of lading, the certificates of origin, and the chargeback waivers. On XX/XX/XXXX, I sent the bank a fifteen-page rebuttal letter explaining that the buyers already owned the vehicles under XXXX XXXX XXXX, that delivery had been completed at the factory, and that any shipping delay was the buyers ' risk under international trade law. The bank never substantively responded. Across XXXX, XXXX, and XXXX, the bank adjudicated XXXX identical chargeback cases on identical documentation and ruled in my favor on XXXX and against me on XXXX a 71.4 % win rate that proves the XXXX defense works. The bank won XXXX cases for me on the exact same contract, the exact same force majeure, and the exact same documentation it later used to lose XXXX. The XXXX losses were not the bank being unable to defend the contract. They were the bank choosing not to defend it. XXXX additional case ( XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX ) was won at the chargeback level on XX/XX/XXXX, then escalated to pre-arbitration and remains pending. The bank can not do what it did. In its own words : Bank of America 's SEC Form XXXX for fiscal year XXXX ( filed XX/XX/XXXX ), Note XXXX ( Merchant Services ), states that " the bank XXXX be held liable for reversed charges that can not be collected from merchants. '' The same filing, Item XXXX ( Risk Factors ), states that merchant services risk " primarily relates to circumstances where a cardholder purchased goods or services for future delivery '' and that " continuation or escalation of tensions between the XXXX and XXXX including tariff increases could reduce trade volumes and result in supply chain disruptions. '' The bank told the SEC it had modeled, priced, and reserved for exactly this category of loss. XXXX 's own XXXX XXXX ( XXXX XX/XX/XXXX, still in effect in XXXX ), XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX, explicitly authorize merchants selling " Custom goods or services '' to collect full advance payment before delivery. XXXX XXXX provides that goods held in customs are not valid grounds for a Reason Code XXXX " Merchandise Not Received '' chargeback. My goods are held on XXXX export hold and XXXX import hold. The XXXX XXXX XXXX ( XXXX XX/XX/XXXX, still in effect in XXXX ) states that where the cardholder signed a waiver absolving the merchant from responsibility for non-receipt, the chargeback " is not available. '' My buyers signed exactly that waiver. The bank 's own XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX contains a mutual force majeure clause : " Performance under this Agreement XXXX be delayed to the extent necessary due to a cause beyond a party 's reasonable control. '' The bank can not invoke force majeure to excuse its own performance while simultaneously punishing me for the same force majeure events that are still ongoing. XXXX XXXX XXXX places chargeback-absorption risk on the acquiring bank when the merchant can not honor the chargeback. The bank collected merchant discount fees on every transaction to compensate for this exact risk. The XXXX account was the account the bank used to extract refunds against international trade transactions that had already been completed. In a custom-manufactured import business, customer prepayments are not working capital to sit in a bank account. They are production capital. When a customer pays me, that money is wired to my manufacturer in XXXX within days to begin building that specific customer 's vehicle and to pay the freight to move it. I deliberately kept the XXXX account balance low because every dollar sitting in that account would have represented a different customer 's order already committed to production. The bank knew this the account 's historical activity pattern showed it. Starting on XX/XX/XXXX, the bank began pulling chargeback losses directly from the XXXX account and paying them through into overdraft. The bank 's own overdraft notifications document this pattern in its own words : XX/XX/XXXX : {$2200.00} electronic payment paid into overdraft ; balance driven to - {$4200.00}. This matches the exact amount and exact date of my first XXXX chargeback loss. XX/XX/XXXX : {$2000.00} electronic payment paid into overdraft ; balance driven to - {$4400.00}. This matches the exact amount and exact date of my second XXXX chargeback loss. XX/XX/XXXX : {$1800.00} electronic payment paid into overdraft ; balance driven to - {$6300.00}. These were not accidental overdrafts. They were affirmative decisions by the bank to push chargeback extractions through into overdraft on an account the bank knew had minimal funds. The bank could have returned these transactions for insufficient funds. The bank chose to pay them through and convert them into a collectible debt against my account. Every dollar the bank extracted from the XXXX account was money that belonged to a different customer a customer whose order was still being built in XXXX. The bank did not claw back the disputed customer 's money. The disputed customer 's money was already a physical vehicle the disputed customer legally owned under XXXX XXXX XXXX. The bank clawed back the next customer 's prepayment. The bank was forcing me to refund Customer A out of Customer B 's production capital leaving Customer B 's vehicle unfunded or face overdraft charges, charge-offs, and account closure. The bank was laundering XXXX customer 's still-in-production order into another customer 's refund, on transactions where the refund-seeking customer already owned the vehicle. By XX/XX/XXXX, the bank formally notified me that the XXXX account was " overdrawn by {$6300.00} for at least 73 days '' a XXXX clock that started exactly when the XX/XX/XXXX chargeback extraction hit. On XX/XX/XXXX, the bank charged off the XXXX account at- {$6300.00} and sent a collection letter using the language " This is an attempt to collect a debt and any information obtained will be used for that purpose. '' On XX/XX/XXXX XXXX months later the bank sent an identical second collection notice for the same amount. The bank is still actively attempting to collect this debt as of the date of this complaint. The bank terminated my merchant processing and placed me on the XXXX negative-merchant database, blocking me from obtaining processing elsewhere. The chargeback extractions on account XXXX also destroyed my primary operating account ( ending XXXX ) through a cascading mechanism. Because the bank was draining working capital from XXXX, I was forced to take {$100000.00} in emergency XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX maintain operations. Those loans were deposited into XXXX, and the automatic loan repayments were also drawn from XXXX. As the bank continued extracting funds from XXXX, I could no longer sustain the loan repayments from XXXX. The XXXX XXXX payments began bouncing. Each bounce generated fees. The account spiraled into a permanent negative state driven not by chargebacks directly, but by the bounced payment fees on loans I was only forced to take because of the bank 's conduct on XXXX. The XXXX account damage is a downstream consequence of the XXXX conduct and it continues to accrue in real time as bounced payment fees keep compounding. The cascade of damage : revenue collapsed 65.3 % ( from $ XXXX average to $ XXXX ), I was forced to take {$100000.00} in emergency loans to stay operational, XXXX of those loans are now overdue with an outstanding balance of {$59000.00}, and the business is facing collapse. Documented actual damages total {$200000.00}. With pre-judgment interest and estimated statutory attorney fee-shifting under Florida law XXXX the fixed demand is {$260000.00}. I formally repudiate the validity of any debt, deficiency, or negative balance currently claimed by the bank. The underlying chargebacks were contractually barred and substantively invalid the buyers already owned the vehicles under international trade law, the buyers had signed explicit chargeback waivers, the buyers had assumed the risk of transit delays, and the force majeure was the result of sovereign government action. The bank had every piece of this documentation in its files. The bank chose to process the chargebacks anyway and to extract the losses from an account holding other customers ' production capital. This complaint is filed under XXXX XXXX. XXXX ( a ) and CFPB XXXX XXXX. Per the Circular, using boilerplate contract terms and unilateral account offset to shift legal liabilities that the institution has already modeled and reserved for constitutes an unfair, deceptive, or abusive act. Since XXXX, federal regulators have imposed more than {$1.00} XXXX in combined penalties and consumer redress against Bank of America for analogous unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices. A formal pre-litigation demand letter has been sent to Bank of America through the bank 's secure encrypted portal. That letter is attached to this complaint and contains the complete evidentiary record and legal authorities.

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 explanation