I Hate Bank of America

My client paid me with a bad check today. As a loyal Bank of America customer for 19 years, they still slapped me with a $12 fee. After spending 30 minutes on the phone with them, they were unable to refund the fee.

Why is it that if I want to transfer money from my Bank of America account to my wife’s Bank of America account, I incur a fee; however, if I transfer money from my Bank of America account to my Discover Bank account and then to my wife’s Bank of America account, there is no fee?

I found out recently that Discover Bank offers 1% APR on their online savings account. This is contrasted with the 0.09% APR that Bank of America offers on their Preferred Client Money Market Account. (Money market accounts generally have better interest rates than regular savings accounts.)

It was very satisfying when I got to walk into the local banking center and tell the personal banker, “I am closing my account. GIVE ME MY MONEY!”

This year I had to go away for military training from July 04 thru August 01. During that time, I had no access to telephone or Internet. Notice that the time period crosses the end of the month, and therefore a billing date.

Anticipating a problem, prior to leaving for training, I set up auto-pay for all three of my Bank of America Visa cards. (I’m not a big spender, it’s one card for each business and one personal.) I knew that a billing period would end on or about July 12, and by then I would be cut off from communication until after the billing due date of July 31.

When I received my cell phone and laptop back at the end of training, I noticed that Bank of America took it upon themselves to only auto-pay the minimum balance on each credit card. That worked out well for them because then they could charge me the 20+% interest on each balance. Plus, one of the payments didn’t transfer until the day after the end of the billing cycle, which meant that I was charged a late fee on top of it.

Now, since I have had a credit card, I have always paid the entire balance at the end of the month because I don’t believe in paying interest, period. However, Bank of America thought they knew what was best for me, and by me, I mean them, by only paying the minimum balance so they could then tack on a finance charge even though there was enough cash in the bank of completely cover the bill.

I ended up getting all of the fees refunded as well as the finance charges, but not before wasting an entire afternoon on the phone with two different customer service reps (because they don’t have the same customer service reps working the personal accounts as they do the business accounts.)

Guess which credit card didn’t have any problems while I was away at training – Discover.

I decided to open up a separate checking account for my business to simplify accounting. I never wanted Bank of America’s “Online Business Suite”, however when the rep at the local banking center told me it was “free” I told her, “Fine, sign me up”. A month later, I was charged a $15 fee for the service I never wanted. I called up Bank of America, spend 45 minutes on the phone with them, and finally got the $15 back. Now, how do I get the 45 minutes of my life back?

I deposited a check at a Bank of America ATM machine. Unfortunately, after the ATM took the check, the screen read, “System Error: Please go into Banking Center”. Well seeing as it was after midnight and going into the banking center might result in a felony charge, I opted not to.

A month later, when I noticed the deposit wasn’t credited to my account, I had two options: ask the person to write me a new check and trust that her account wouldn’t get overdrawn, or, call Bank of America customer service, argue with them on the phone for an hour, wait 30 days, and then see a credit to my account.

I opted to just get a new check.

I closed one of my accounts at my local banking center. I was inside the center for two hours – the first hour waiting in chair and the second working with the customer service representative. When I closed the account, the representative transferred the entire balance into another account. She made the transfer as “cash transaction”. Later that day, I was charged a $130 “cash transaction fee”. Why would they charge me a fee for depositing cash? The bank makes its money by lending out cash that they have on hand.

I am making an undisclosed large purchase for a business investment. I borrowed the cash from a lender who wrote me a check. Not knowing any better, and doing as I normally do when I get a check, I deposited the check at the ATM.

Bank of America, believing that the check was fraudulent, put a two-week freeze on the deposit. Could they have called me? Yes. Could they have called the other bank to confirm that the check was good? Yes. Could they have refused the deposit at the ATM? Yes. Did they do any of these? Of course not! They would rather just hold onto my money without giving me access to it.

Two weeks later, the cash was un-frozen. Unfortunately, the business opportunity was already lost, as was my $5,000 deposit on the investment and two days of my life.

I’ve been using Bank of America since before it was even Bank of America. I opened my account when I was in second grade (age 7). Originally the bank was called Maryland National Bank. It then merged with Nations Bank, and eventually Bank of America. 18 years later I needed to get a letter from them stating that I had 16 accounts in good standing. They charged me $10…per account.

When I first opened my business credit cards with Bank of America, they started mailing me statements. Now, I haven’t used paper statements in about a decade. I tried to go paperless online, but the feature wasn’t there for business credit cards. Then I called them up to ask if I could go paperless.

Bank of America Rep: “Bank of America charges a fee for paperless statements on a business credit card.”
Me: “Let me get this straight, I am going to save you money by not requiring you to print statements and mail them to me, and you are going to punish me by charging me a fee?”
Bank of America Rep: “I’m sorry, but that’s how we do things here at Bank of America.”