I first used Bank of America when the military issued me a BOA credit card to use only for neccessities while on deployment near the end of 2000 through 2001. BOA would hit me up with all kinds of fees and charges that I didn't authorize, which would eventually get me into trouble with my command, and I had to pay them back for them.
When I got out of the military, I had to open up a bank account with a local bank when I started school, so having already had an account with BOA, I decided to open a personal account with them. Long story short, I was told that having a direct deposit would wave the monthly fees and minimum balance requirements, so I set that up.
I realized that as long as there was a sufficient amount of money in the account, they didn't mess with it. I did start seeing that deposits would sit for more than a week or so before they would actually post to my account, even though the money had already been drawn from the checking account in which the deposits where written from. Of course a withdraw or check-card purchase would post almost immediately. I never was charged a $15.00 maintenance fee until my account was below $15.00. That of course invites a $35.00 overdraft fee. Its amazing how I could check my account one day and have $14.00 in the account, with no pending transactions, then the next day be more than $35.00 overdrawn.
A few times they even hit the same maintenance fee twice in one day, just in case money miracled itself into my account within the previouse 20 seconds since they did the first maintenance fee. This of course made the fees total for that day reach over $100.00 (over $100.00 overdrawn now)."For What?" I asked, about the maintenance fees, in which the teller replied, "The periodic maintenance fee is a random action where the system checks your account for fraud. This is to protect you". I said "protect me from what, having any money? The only fraud is this bank itself!" I was ir-rate and decided to close the account. I realized that the "Periodic" maintenance fee was only applied when there wasn't enough money in your account to pay for it.
I would not be able to close the account until the negative balance was paid in full, which I could not do right away, so the overdraft only grew, even though I had not withdrawn any money or made any transactions at all. When I finally came up with the exact amount of dollars and cents to close the account, Lo and Behold: There was a fee for closing the account too! I was stuck, and this was never going to end! Hundreds and Hundreds of dollars in scammed fees later, I finally closed the account. Believe it or not, they had the gall to call a few weeks later and ask me why I wasn't banking with them anymore, then got nasty with me when I told them exactly why.
Thats just the personal bank account trouble I had. Unfortunately I also had a credit card with them too. The card in disscusion had a $1500.00 limit, in which I maxed out (partly by paying their other fees). I have been paying on that $1500.00 for over 7 years now, and have almost paid it off twice. I closed the card out after I reached the max limit the first time. Every time I would get it paid down to within $200.00 or so, something would happen, like get laid off work, or have some other emergency, and get a month or two behind on the payments. Of course after missing 1 months of payments, the interest rate skyrocketed and a plethra of fees was added. Making the situation spiral out of control, back up beyond the cards origional limit.
After having paid the card down to within $200.00 (on the original $1500.00 debt) it happened again. This time I decided to call and plead to customer service to work out a payment arrangement, where they would automatically withdraw the payments from my checking account (not with BOA) and the fees would be reduces. Well, the payments came out on time, but the fees still continued as visciouse as ever.in the end, I have paid over $3000.00 on a $1500.00 debt, and I'm still pating for it, 7 years later, with the balance back over $1000.00 again. Any advise on how and when this will ever end, without me having to pay Bank Of America 4 times the amount I originally owe?
I have dubbed them Thieves of America!
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