What Bank of America has done to me and my credit over the past two months has finally made me realize the dangers of corporations becoming so large that they no longer have to care about the common consumer.
In February while in Las Vegas I was the victim of pickpocketing. I had two Visa debit cards stolen from me - one was a personal account and the other a business account.By the time I realized the cards were gone about 12 hours later, my accounts had been drained over $2,500 each for a total of about $5,500. Both accounts were overdrawn.
I called customer service and cancelled the cards, had new cards sent and filed fraudulent charge claims for all of the theft. I was told by the customer service rep (CSR) that my accounts would be credited temporarily for the full amount of the fraud and an investigation would ensue. I received affidavits in the mail and faxed them to the claims department FROM MY BOFA BRANCH as recommended by the CSR.
I thought that my part in the process was complete and waited to hear from the Bank that my claim had been resolved, as there was no doubt in my mind that the claims would be confirmed as fraudulent. A while later after being declined trying to buy gas with the card from my personal account, I discovered that the temporary credit had been reversed and $2,500 had been removed from my account.
I immediately called the claims department only to hear their claims that they had never received the affidavits. This was peculiar as this was the only one of three credits that had been reversed. After an hour of being belittled on the phone by a CSR manager, I was told that my paper had actually been "misplaced" and had just been discovered while I was on the phone with them.
The woman apologized for the error and said that she would expedite the claim and that I could expect to see the credit reappear within 48 business hours (this happened to be on a Friday which meant that "48 hours" was actually more like 5 days). The following Tuesday when no credit appeared, I called customer service again only to hear them claim AGAIN that they did not have the affidavit.
I was told to fax the affidavit again. When I asked how I could confirm that the fax had been received, the answer I received was basically that I would just have to hope.
I went to my local branch once again to fax this paperwork for a second time. Keep in mind that my other two claims that were faxed at the same time as the first were being processed, that the Bank had admitted error in losing the paperwork, and STILL offered no apology or route of expediting a resolution.
The following day I called to confirm receipt of the second fax. When I was told that the paperwork was still showing as not received I nearly had my first heart attack at age 26. How could a bank be this incompetent and still maintain such a large clientele? The real kicker was that I was now told that once they received the paperwork I WOULD NOT BE RECEIVING THE CREDIT AGAIN UNTIL THE CLAIM WAS INVESTIGATED AND RESOLVED.
All I could be assured of was that the claim would be resolved within 45 days. For someone like me, who had already missed payment of a credit card bill, car payment, college loan payment, and am two day from my rent being due, this was absolutely devastating. They were basically telling me that they were not honoring their terms of theft protection because of an error THAT THEY HAD ADMITTED TO MAKING!
The advice that I got from the girl at the branch (who was actually friendly and helpful, but no more powerful than I when it came to dealing with the CSR's) was to withdraw the $200 I currently have in my account and just start writing checks to overdraw my account again. She couldn't even assure me that they would not bounce, but that was the best she could do.
My advice to everyone is DO NOT EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER OPEN AN ACCOUNT AT BANK OF AMERICA!!! They are a great bank until you have to do something other than deposit and withdraw money. Their layers of bureaucracy run DEEP. You will NEVER find anyone willing to take responsibility and their customer service department is appalling! I have made approximately 10 calls to customer service, spoken to a manager every time and still haven't gotten the same one twice.
No company should ever be allowed to operate like this. As soon as my claim is settled, I will be a FORMER customer.
Eric
San Diego, California
U.S.A.
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