On July 28, I wanted to take money out of my Bank of America (BOA) account and make a deposit into my Federal Credit Union account. I had, on July 28, $1,437.00 in my BOA checking account and $21,000.00 in my BOA savings account.
I forgot to make the transfer of the $19,000.00 from my BOA savings account to my BOA checking account (admittedly my error). What transpired as a result has become a nightmare.
I deposited a check for $19,000.00 into my Federal Credit Union account on July 28. On July 28, the BOA did an overdraft protection draft in the form of a cash withdrawal of $18,000.00 from my BOA credit card and $1000.00 from my BOA checking account.
My BOA savings account still had $21,000.00 in it but was never drawn against to cover the check. The cash withdrawal charge was $540.00. My BOA checking account then had $437.00 remaining.
I bought groceries and made bill payments thinking I had over a $1000.00 in my checking account. However, not knowing that my BOA checking account had been drawn against by BOA in the amount of $1000.00 to cover my $19,000.00 Credit Union check, the BOA again made a cash withdrawal from my BOA credit card and deposited $100.00 into my checking account to cover the checks written against a now $437.00 balance.
I immediately went to my branch and explained what had occurred.
The Assistant Bank Manager was like a robot, expressed no sympathy at what had occurred, and continued to spout out company policy in regard to my dilemma.
I questioned the manager as to why BOA had not gone first to my savings account to cover the check and then charged me for a transfer. The reply was that I had opted to have overdraft protection taken from my credit card.
I did not even know I had overdraft protection. So I must have signed something sometime in the past 12 years opting for this protection without my knowledge of doing so upon signature (not reading the fine print). NOTE: Had I not opted for overdraft protection, the check to the Credit Union would have bounced and I would have incurred a $36.00 charge.
I proceeded to close my savings account and was assured that ALL monies to include any interest accrued on the account were transferred to my checking account. This was accomplished on August 4.
Imagine my surprise when I received a low balance alert through my email that my savings account balance was low in the amount of $2.11.
I am assuming that the monies were deposited into a closed account by the save the change program that I neglected to close and was not informed by the BOA that I should close to avoid further activity on my savings account. I have not been to the bankheaded there tomorrow.
When I went to my online account, my savings account statements were goneno trace that I had ever had an account with the BOA. I waived the paper statement and now I have nothing to refer to for taxes or history or anything unless I pay a fee to have the bank print and mail me copies of my savings account statements.
Three valuable lessons learned. One, do not opt out of paper statements. Two, call, write, or pay strict attention to what and from what account are you given overdraft protection. Three, print out all your statements if you have opted out of paper statements BEFORE you close an account.
This is becoming a nightmare. Although the bank transferred my savings account to cover the credit card balance I have not received a new credit card statement to see how far my interest rate has risen. At the beginning of all this, I had a balance of about $2500 on the credit card. I was unable to pay this amount off at the same time I transferred the $19,000 from my savings account.
I used to take all the complaints against credit card companies and banks with a grain of salt when I heard about scamming and rip-offs and blamed the consumer for not keeping tabs on their spending and account balances. I sincerely and wholeheartedly apologize to each and every consumer that I lumped into my way of thinking at the time.
BOA is a rip-off and is unprofessional. BOA borders on unethical in their practices.
Federal and State Banking authorities should look into their set-in-stone policies and practices. I would venture to believe that most other banking institutions would have forgiven some of the expense and hassle that I have had to put up with in dealing with the BOA.
I live in Arizona and would like to see BOA banned from practicing in the State of Arizona.
Kathleen
glendale, Arizona
U.S.A.
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