Why You Shouldn’t Choose Bank of America
Tags: Banks
So a few weeks ago, I decided to go online and setup a new checking and savings account. I ended up going with Bank of America since they are almost everywhere, plus I have a loan through them so I wanted to use automatic bill pay.
Anyways, I created the account online and everything went smoothly. I received a new debit card in the mail and activated it as soon as I could. The savings account showed up shortly after, and I was surprised at how easy it all was. The only thing I had to do on paper was sign a form they mailed me and return it to them.
The Problem
The problem I had was when I decided to start using direct deposit to that account from work. I wanted to send some money to my old account, and some to my new account.
So I logged on to my work website, updated all of the information I needed to, and submitted it. I even called Bank of America to get my routing number since I did not receive any checks with that information on it.
Payday came up this past Friday, and my stub showed that some of the money was deposited to my old account and the rest was sent to my new Bank of America account. So far, so good I thought. But I was totally wrong.
The money that was sent to my Bank of America account just straight up vanished. It wasn’t in my account, and it sure wasn’t in my old account. So I got on the phone with my HR department here at work, and asked them about it. They said they would call me back shortly with a resolution.
About 30 minutes later, someone called me back and said everything went through from their side. The paycheck was successfully sent out as planned and I should just give it some to see if it shows up by the end of the day.
End of the Day
Friday came to an end at work, so I took off and headed home. Once I got home I logged on to my account again and still, no money to be found. I called up Bank of America, but could not get someone on the phone to save my life. Voice machine after voice machine, I just kept getting put on hold listening to some crappy ass music.
I thought I would trick them by calling one of the Bank of America’s right by my house. But guess what? Even that number gets redirected back to the same 800 number I had tried calling previously. Once again back to the crappy ass music.
Time To Go To The Bank
After I got sick of all that, I decided to physically go to a Bank of America to talk to someone. So I walked in and gave the teller my information. After a few minutes of silence, the guy responds and says he doesn’t see an account for me anywhere.
I told him I knew for a fact I did and showed him my debit card. I told him it was rather new, and that I just logged into it a few minutes earlier. He then started looking some more but still did not find anything. He turned to me and said:
What State Are You From?
This was the question he asked me after looking for my account the second time. “Arizona”, I told him. “Seriously, where else would I be from, I am standing right here.” He asked me about logging in online and asked what state I had to choose from the drop down menu. Once again I told him Arizona, and that my street address on the current account was also from Arizona.
The Problem Was…
The teller finally found my account, but said it was registered in Virginia! I told him it wasn’t, and that I had never even been to Virginia. As it turns out, any account opened over the internet automatically get registered as a Virginia account. I thought this was the stupidest thing I had ever heard.
When signing up for an account, it even asks you which state you bank in along with your zip code. So from now on, I have to use an out-of-state deposit form to cash checks there. And If I want to move it over to an Arizona account, I have to completely redo the whole account. UGH!!!
What About The Direct Deposit?
As it turns out, the routing number was for an Arizona account. Apparently I have to route my money to Virginia now which takes a different routing number. The thing that really bothered me, was the fact that I called Bank of America and specifically asked which routing number I needed for my account. They asked me what state I was from and I told them Arizona. How was I supposed to know my account was listed under Virginia?
Plus now I am stuck trying to figure out where a good portion of my paycheck went. Not exactly something I want to spend doing with my free time…
My advice, go with Discover for credit cards. They blow Bank of America away.
Related Posts:
Update: I decided to send this link to a few people over at BOA, let’s see if I hear anything back…
Added. Nice work on this one. Btw, my blog is dofollow, stop by and grab a link. Walter
I’ve found that anytime I try to do anything over their website (other than to pay bills or check my account balance), I always have problems. That’s why I just go to the bank itself. In the long run, it saves a lot of time and headache.
Believe it or not, the e-mail I sent managed to get through to someone. I received a voicemail from someone over at the executive offices. Let you know how it goes…
I think the bank need some good management and also need to read your this post.
Thanks for the link. Sounds like interesting read
I have had so many problems with Bank of America. They’re horrible to deal with and honestly, in Phoenix at least, 1/2 of their representatives barely speak english. I sat down with a personal banker that I couldn’t understand and it only pissed me off more. I couldn’t explain the issue I was having and get it resolved because we couldn’t communicate. It’s not that I’m against someone that’s from another country, but if you’re in the service industry you should speak english and comprehend the frustrations of customers.
I was just Googling long trying to find a bank that does NOT require me to choose English.
I found out today that a Bank of America employee accidently deleted all my personal financial data stored under “My Portfolio”.
When I called and asked for help (it has links to my remaining retirement funds, passwords, and account numbers), I was told they will instruct the employee not to do it again.
When I asked to have the data restored, they told me, “maybe – it will take 7 to 10 business days to see if the data is available.”
Do I have any rights or expectations to this data? it is a multi-year history of my financial transactions and is valuable to me.
these guys are fucking pricks
Well, BOA will do well to outlive the crunch
I MADE MY CREDIT CARD PAYMENT THE DAY IT WAS DUE AND THEY MADE THE DATE TO BE POSTED THAT MONDAY AND SO THAT MADE IT LATE. ANY OTHER CREDIT CARD PLACE YOU CAN MAKE THE PAYMENT THAT SAME DAY.AND IT WILL BE POSTED WITH THE TIME … IF THERE NOT OPEN YOUR PAYMENT WILL BE LATE EVEN IF YOUR PAYMENT IS DUE ON A SATURDAY AND WE DON’T GET PAYED UNTIL THAT EVENING IF YOU SHOW UP FOR WORK.
I’M NOT HAPPY WITH THEM
Their online customer service is HORRIBLE. They promptly transferred my credit card to a new account when unauthorized charges appeared last March, which was fine. They issued me a credit for one large amount, which then got duplicated when the originator of the charge also issued me the same credit amount. Now, in the new account, which I haven’t even used, is an extra credit for almost $700 which I have been trying to get BOA to take back since March. I’ve sent over a dozen e-mails, and I keep getting canned responses which tell me that they don’t understand me whatsoever. I finally got one reply nearly 2 weeks ago from someone who said the credit would be removed in 3-5 business days, 13 days later it was STILL there, and when I sent another e-mail telling them, they replied to say that it was being REVIEWED by their Billing Disputes. WHY? It’s THEIR money. So, I replied AGAIN, telling them that, and what do I get for a reply? They ask me if I want the credit mailed to me or transferred to another account. 90% of the replies are from employees with foreign names, which I have nothing against, but it’s obvious they don’t understand English. All I want is for them to take back their own money, give me a zero balance, and be done with this. 2 months, about 14 e-mails, and they still don’t understand that there’s an extra credit in my account that they need to take back. What planet are these people on?? I’d never recommend them to anyone after the nonsense I’ve been dealing with. I worked in a bank for 21 years before I was laid off, and our customer service wasn’t even this bad, at least we understood what a customer was saying and didn’t give them a runaround for 2 months. It’s a good thing I have another card with another bank that I can use, because I have no intention of using the BOA card unless my other card gets compromised, and at this point, I don’t think I’d even want to use BOA’s card anyway, after the way they’re handling a simple request to take a credit back. My only consolation is doing an online search and finding out that I’m not the only one having problems with BOA. Sounds to me like they need to get their act together!
I too am a VICTIM of these LIARS!
How they re-arrange items to fall after other charges is amazing.
I had money to cover 6 charges, I knew two days later a check would go through and bounce, Things I paid for on the 9th and 10th ended up posting on the 11th. If I pay for something at 7PM it goes through at midnight, not pending for days and be placed to be done on a later date, so as to benefit BoA’s income.
These people are so illegal and incorrect and even discussing it with a CS person yesterday, she had NO ANSWER for me, was silent. Like I’m supposed to just accept it
PLEASE PEOPLE, these are not made up stories by any means!
AVOID BANK OF AMERICA AT ALL COST!
OMGsh! All I want to do is PAY MY BILL!!! Are you kidding me that the website is down and so I tried to pay it over the AUTOMATED phone system and they want to CHARGE ME $15.00 to make a PAYMENT to them?!!!!! That is silly nonsense they’re gonna CHARGE me to give them money?? So I finally (after 10 mins on hold) get through to someone and she said that the internet division which could help me is closed and she could take my payment over the phone, but it would still cost me $15. RIDICULOUS! I asked her if she could tell me why they would charge customers to take their money and she said “Well I guess it’s like any other business just trying to make some money” (OH NO SHE DIDN’T!!!!)OK, so I’ve had companies charge me to have a real person take my payment over the phone and that is slightly understandable because they have to pay that person a wage, but an automated system??!!! COME ON! Now you’re just being greedy….D.U.H!!!