In summary, I was the victim of bank account fraud five years ago. I worked with Bank of America to credit back my account and open a new account. Five years later the bank abruptly closed my account based only on the fact that they closed an account in the past as a result of fraud. On top of this, they charged my account $50 before refunding my balance.
I live in Seattle, WA and in 2005 I discovered a withdrawal from my Bank of America account from a bank machine in Alabama. I contacted Bank of America and they informed me that my mailing address was changed to an Alabama address in their system. Understanding that I had not been to Alabama and did not live there, the bank worked with me to close the account and create a new account for me. They credited my account and that was the last I heard about it, until now.
Over the next five years we were very good banking customers. We conduct most banking electronically; we did not run overdrafts, owned a premium credit card and even owned a savings CD.in 2010 we opened new business checking and savings accounts. Bank of America also issued us a business credit card. Everything seemed fine as we started using the account for a new business. About two months later, we received a letter in the mail concerning the business accounts.
The letter stated that Bank of America “has elected to close your account in accordance with the provisions of our Deposit Agreement and disclosures providedâ€. It goes on to state that Bank of America “may report the account to Chex Systems, Inc., an account verification service. This may adversely impact your ability to open an account at another financial institution for up to five years.†There was no explanation for the account closures; however it included a phone number for questions.
Instead of calling the phone number, I decided to go into my local bank branch. The banking center manager told me there was nothing wrong with any of my accounts and did not know why the new business account would have been closed. The manager contacted the Bank of America Risk Identification Center and was told that the reason for the closure was due to a 2005 incident involving “electronic transfersâ€. They had no more information except to say that “any time an account is closed by the Risk Identification department, the customer can no longer conduct business with Bank of America.â€
I explained the event to him and he proceeded to tell the bank branch manager that she could try speaking with bank management. Two days later I received a voice message from the branch manager apologizing for the policy, but that they could not reinstate the accounts. I went to the branch and visited with the manager again.
The manager told me that the Risk Identification department was formed only two years ago and was not in existence when the incident happened. She told me that if I had information from 2005 to show what happened, they could review it and possibly reopen my accounts. I told her that the bank investigated this back in 2005 and should have all of the information already. It’s apparent that the bank has very little information from five years ago wants me to provide it again. Bank of America handled the matter in 2005 and did not provide me with any follow up correspondence as to the details after. She mentioned that there was no risk to any of my personal accounts (the accounts I re-established in 2005).
I called the Risk Identification department again to ensure that there were no other reasons for closing a perfectly good account. The woman on the phone reassured me that the reason for the closure was only the event to my personal account in 2005 and it is their policy to close all customer accounts that for whatever reason, were closed by their Risk department. I told her that in 2005 I worked with Bank of America to close the account and reopen a new account. Again, she had no details about my specific event and indicated that the details did not matter. Obviously this department was not around in 2005 and they are creating blanket policies that affect all past customers with banking incidents.
The Risk department representative also had no idea about my current personal accounts (created in 2005 after closing the breached account). She was not even aware that I had other accounts. When I told her, she looked my personal account up by account number and stated that this account is probably in the stages of closure as well.
With policies like this, Bank of America is passing the blame for security breaches to their customers. When this happens, the bank will blame you even if you are not the cause for the fraud affecting your account.in these circumstances, the Bank of America will close your accounts with no warning, post a notice on the Chex system for all banks to view and will even charge you a $50 fee to thank you for doing business with them.
Bank of America Consumer Blog
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