My husband and I have been customers with Bank of America for a couple of years. We had a CD, two checking and two savings accounts. Our accounts were all open at the Pembroke Pines branch on Pines Blvd in Pembroke Pines, FL.
In September of we began to have several problems with the bank. We had filed a claim, which had been reversed due to paper work being sent to an old address. As a result, we were charged several NSF fees, which we reluctantly accepted.
The paper work was sent to our correct address (yes, we had notified BOA of our change of address.) However, the same thing happened again in November. The same claim was once again REVERSED because BOA had AGAIN sent the paperwork we needed to fill out to the WRONG address! The bank admitted that these errors were their fault, credited the initial claim back to our account, but refused to address the over $2,000.00 in NSF fees.
We were given the run around, basically. Customer Service told us to call Claims. Claims told us that they would send the info to their "Investigator", but no one ever did anything. Needless to say, we were unhappy with the bank and used them as little as possible. We proceeded to file complaints with whatever state agencies would listen. We were using BOA very minimally for just a very few direct pays and making the odd deposit or withdraw.
On February 6 I noticed that my husbands ATM/Debit card was missing. I had just seen the card a few days prior so I wasn't too concerned. I did report the card missing to the bank on February 6. A new card was sent within a week. Bank of America closed the account the same week.
When I called to ask why, I was simply told that after an account review, they could no longer assist us with our banking. We had never received anything in writing closing our account, nor had we had any contact with any banking official to alert us that this would happen. We had another account with Bank Atlantic and were much happier with this bank. On March 22, my husband's debit card with Bank Atlantic was declined. We knew that we had quite a bit of money in the account.
I called Bank Atlantic and was told that Bank of America had reported our previous account to Chexsystems for banking fraud. They also let us know that because of this, they could no longer keep our account open until we could clear this matter up. I then spent the next day and a half contacting people at both Bank of America and Bank Atlantic attempting to straighten this matter out.
Bank of America finally told me that the reason they had reported was because the ATM card (which I had reported missing on February 6) had been attempted to be used at a few different ATMs in which empty envelopes had been deposited during the first week of February. We confirmed that the card that had been used was in fact, the OLD card that I had called to cancel. I was mortified and dumb founded.
Even if someone HAD found/taken, etc. This ATM card, how on earth did they have the pin # to access our account? The customer service rep explained that if I or my husband had inadvertently left the card in the ATM that it was quite possible that the person who pulled in behind us could have immediate access to our account. I asked why I had never been notified about this, but no one could give me an answer. Granted, there wasn't much in the Bank of America account, so not much money could be taken out.
The money wasn't the problem. It was now the black mark on our ChexSystem report affecting our current account. I proceeded to dispute this report with Chexsystems and continue trying to find someone, anyone, who could help us with this mess.
On Friday, March 23 my husband went into the Bank of America branch in Sunrise, FL to speak with the manager. He was extremely helpful, printing out the previous records and explaining that we would just need to contact the Bank of America Security Department on Monday and explain what had happened. He also told my husband that this type of problem was not uncommon. He himself was very distressed with the lack of customer service.
We were very surprised to hear a manager voice the exact same concerns that we had. He even offered to try and clear this up on his own but was uable. On Monday, March 26, my husband contacted Terri in the Security Department for Bank of America. He began to explain the situation, only to be rudely interrupted by Terri. She informed him that there was nothing that she could or would do. When he attempted to explain again, she simply said, file a police report and hung up.
Both my husband and I were appalled at the disrespect that we received this from a bank that we have had over a couple hundreds thousand dollars filtered into within the past year. The lack of customer service support was inexcusable. Bank of America attached this stigma of a fraud alert on our chexsystem file without any proof that we had done anything, without recognizing the fact that we had cancelled this card, without recognizing the fact that we had filed a police rpeport or without any way in which to resolve this situation. We have now had our primary bank account closed, and had our lives basically thrown upside down by the days and hours we have been required to devote to this matter.
We do not believe that the business practices of Bank of America are fair or ethical. Both my husband and I feel that we are being bullied in a sense by this bank. They have ruined our rating on chexsystems without any proof or without any suggestions on how to make our situation better.
At this point, I have contacted a few attorneys about class action law suits, sent letters, bank statements, etc. To ChexSystems, Bank of America-Main Office, Bank of America-Corporate Office, Bank of America Jacksonville Branch (which is over the BOA banking for the state of FL, Ken Lewis, CEO for BOA, Office of Consumer Services in FL, FL Dept of Financial Services, FDI Ofc of Bank Customer Affairs in Washington, D.C., Federal Reserve System, Comptroller of Currency, my local and state congressmen, and of course, BankAtlantic trying to salvage all of this.
Let me know if you have any other ideas on who I can contact.
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