Why Bank of America is Bad

On January 29th, I called Bank of American and told them I wanted to pay off my account in full and close it.  I did this over the phone so that they could tabulate my accrued interest and add it in to the amount paid so that I wouldn’t have to deal with them again after this.  They charged me an additional $15 fee for the phone payment [which is absolute crap all by itself].  At the end of the phone conversation I asked point-blank if my account was now paid if full and would be closed.  The woman said yes.

Last week I received a statement from Bank of America [for an account that is not closed] saying that I owe an additional $88.67.  It also showed that after my phone payment there was a remaining balance on my account of $46.93.  This means that when I told the lady that I wanted to pay off my account IN FULL they charged me an amount, knowing full well, that the account would NOT be paid in full but would leave that balance.  Additionally, the $15 pay-by-phone fee was not added into the amount I paid [like the woman explained it would be] but was charged later.  And of course, interest was added on top, like icing on this proverbial cake of shit.

I am contacting customer service, and if I have not severely pissed off at least one person by the time that I am done then I won’t have done my job.  Here is how my phone call with start: “Hey, you’re about to have a really bad day.  Just how stupid are you people?  Do you know what the words “in full” mean?  How about “account close”?  I know you didn’t personally screw me over and blah blah blah, but your company lies to and steals from its customers and you should be ashamed of yourself for working for them.”

But more than that, because I know I am going to have to pay this ridiculous bill, I want to get the word out.  Your money is not safe with Bank of America.  Your business is not safe with Bank of America. All you have to do is listen to one day of finance-guru Dave Ramsey‘s radio broadcast to hear a slew of horror stories people have experienced with this despicable company.. Most importantly, why would you ever trust a company where lying is a commonplace practice–not only to its customers but to its own shareholders?

“Regulators claimed that BofA had said in its proxy statement that it would not pay out bonuses to Merrill employees in fiscal year 2008, when, in fact, the bank authorized bonus payments of as much as $5.8 billion.  Of that allowance, $3.6 billion was paid out in 2008 to more than 39,000 Merrill employees, averaging $91,000 per bonus.  Rakoff said he understood BofA’s actions to mean the company ‘effectively lied to their shareholders’.”

Or how about…

“Now a judge has…stated flatly that BofA lied to shareholders before they voted to approve the $50 billion merger with Merrill Lynch.”

In my attempt to spread the word, I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.  Then I looked up the Bank of America page on the BBB and was not at all shocked to see:

BBB processed a total of 8266 complaint(s) about this business in the last 36 months, our standard reporting period.

These complaints concerned:

99     regarding Advertising issues
6863    regarding Billing or Collection issues
189     regarding Contract disputes
440     regarding Customer Services issues
18    regarding Delivery issues
7     regarding Guarantee or Warranty issues
46     regarding Product issues
172     regarding Refund or Exchange issues
4     regarding Repair issues
74    regarding Selling Practices
354     regarding Services issues

This is in the last three years, people.  If you use Bank of America, I strongly urge you to reconsider your financial options.  Banks are not too big to fail, and I say Bank of America should be the first one to prove it.