Complaint Review: Bank Of America - Internet

I was reading what happened to you. I have worked in the banking industry for over 7 years (all with credit unions) and I think that this is why your check was returned to you. You had a thrid party check that was deposited into the ATM. A lot of banks and credit unions do not accept 3rd party checks to be deposited in an ATM, you would have to deposit it with the teller. The reason being is, and I am not saying that it was, that someone can steal a check and deposit it in an ATM and the financial institution can not properly identify the person that the check was written to. I know that you state that the information is on file, but when you are processing the checks from that ATM, you do not have time to verify if there is information on file for a 3rd party check. When you called the rep. you should of been told, if this was the case, that you could not deposit the check in an ATM. I hope that this helps you. If this is the case, then I do not understand why BofA would not tell you this. Brett Fulton NY

Obviously, it is impossible to know exactly what was going through the mind of the person from BOA who closed the account - regardless of what the official company response may be. However, if I had to guess, I believe they closed the account because there was probably already a red flag due to the check she tried to deposit. That, along with the fact that the account was new, probably sent the bean counters into panic mode. However, this doesn't really speak to BOA as much as it does to the general banking industry. I have had friends and colleagues say the same thing happened at other banking institutions when they made mistakes using their new accounts. The banks closed their accounts immediately. One thing I HAVE learned about Bank of America is that they are counting on sheer volume to drive their business, and therefore are less concerned with cutting a customer loose than a credit union might be. Bank of America is one of the few nationwide chains that do not run a Chexsystems or Equifax report before it opens new accounts. I know this because a friend of mine had awful credit a Chexsystems report that was littered with NSFs...yet he opened checking and savings accounts with BOA with ease. They had a debit card in his hand within a week. I can only assume that they are pushing for volume - then cutting some people loose as soon as they make a mistake like Juanita did. They are also charging multiple NSF fees (I think they're anywhere from $20-35 each) to customers, allowing deposits to cover those fees, THEN closing accounts quickly and pocketing the fees. Bottom line: it is probably best to invest and do business with a credit union, which has a vested interest in successful membership in the institution. They will be more likely to look after your best interests than a money roller like Bank of America.

Edward, I agree with your post %110! Well said! I would like to see an explanation as to why the account was closed. And not by the lurkers and same ole suspects but by someone from B of A that can speak for B of A. If there are facts missing, bring them out or explain why the account was closed.

Edward, I agree with your post %110! Well said! I would like to see an explanation as to why the account was closed. And not by the lurkers and same ole suspects but by someone from B of A that can speak for B of A. If there are facts missing, bring them out or explain why the account was closed.

Edward, I agree with your post %110! Well said! I would like to see an explanation as to why the account was closed. And not by the lurkers and same ole suspects but by someone from B of A that can speak for B of A. If there are facts missing, bring them out or explain why the account was closed.

Edward, I agree with your post %110! Well said! I would like to see an explanation as to why the account was closed. And not by the lurkers and same ole suspects but by someone from B of A that can speak for B of A. If there are facts missing, bring them out or explain why the account was closed.

Erikson, Yes I am a consumer advocate. Not because the consumer is always right but because on so many past ROR's the consumer was ridiculed and insulted usually by the same ole suspects, who turned out to be not so flawless themselves and sometimes guilty of what they were condeming the ROR authors for. But they seemed to get a kick out of throwing around unwarranted insults because they felt they could get away with it, until they were exposed. Fortunately that is not the case in this ROR and those usual suspects seem to be scarce these days. I wonder why? Getting back to this ROR, Stile's and Cory's points are well taken. But they only address the issue of not accepting the check, I understand that. But the issue of closing the account still hasn't been addressed and as I said earlier, this is where I can understand the customer feeling ripped off. Please save the responses that the bank has the right to close any account and it's in the Deposit Agreement. On which page does it say the bank has the right to do this because the customer followed instructions given by it's own reps? Is that fair? This is a repetitive complaint in many ROR's about BofA customer service. I swear if you call 5 different reps and ask them the same simple question, you will receive 5 different answers. And I'm not referring to subjective questions and answers. I'm referring to plain policies and procedures printed in the Disclosures. It seems that the reps themselves seem to be guilty of not being familiar with procedures themselves. Many customers are scolded about not reading and understanding the Deposit Agreements. But what else are they to do when do don't understand something, then they call and get an answer from someone, they follow those instructions accordingly but then they're punished because they were given a faulty response?

My wife has 30+ years experience in the banking business. 90% of the time the rules/regulations can be "bent" to assist the customer. In most cases, the manager of that branch, will "bend" the rules besed on his/her judgement of the circumstances. Every wonder why the manager disappears behind the counter for a few minutes? They go back to a computer screen and review the customer's history. NOW, in this day and age, the big banks and credit unions are taking that "call" away from their managers. The managers are no longer "managers", they just supervise the tellers and such doing their day to day thing. There are some classic cases of managers "bending" the rules for "good" or "special" customers and it coming back to bite them in the a*s. Over the years many have been fired and I know of cases where it has cost the bank/credit unions thousands of dollars. In one case over $60,000 because the manager bent the rules. He got fired for it and almost went to jail. The FBI were involved and the credit union had to take the loss. All because a manager wanted to help a customer. Juanita was this an example of a stupid business practice? Yes. Would this have come back to bite BoA in the butt? No. But not in this cases. In our society today, with anybody willing to sue at the drop of a hat, businesses have to protect themselves AND THEIR CUSTOMERS. Heck, even you said "You wanted to sue the crap out of them". They're just doing what they're suppose to do legally.

Even though your husband signed the check over to you, banks are increasingly rejecting these third party checks as valid deposit items because of the rise in counterfeiting. From page 22 of your deposit agreement: We may refuse to accept for deposit to your account items payable to another person. And from page 25: Third-Party Endorsements We may require that checks and other items you want to deposit or cash be endorsed by all parties to whom the items are payable. We may require verification of any endorsement either through an endorsement guarantee or personal identification. Without an endorsement guarantee or personal identification, the bank was under no obligation to accept the deposit of your husband's check since he wasn't a signer on the account. Once he is added to the account, this will no longer be an issue. No ripoff here.

Oh I have definitely said things when I was angry...no question about it. I'm sorry if I fired back a little too roughly. I suppose that the tired mantra of "I'll just sue" has probably just hit critical mass with me. Not because I don't think people should sue when there is cause, but because I think that frivolous suits make the success of legit lawsuits less likely when judges and juries grow weary of hearing them. As far as this case goes, I know you're frustrated and feel upset by the chain of events and subsequent outcome. I would only ask that you look at this from the bank's standpoint. They have the unenvious task of covering a customer's (and their own) a** where these types of issues are concerned. I remember an instance where my wife had opened an account and her bank would not allow my DIRECT DEPOSITS from my employer unless I was a co-holder of the account. Imagine that...a bank refusing my money...money that I don't even want to withdraw! But that is the reality of business these days.

Oh I have definitely said things when I was angry...no question about it. I'm sorry if I fired back a little too roughly. I suppose that the tired mantra of "I'll just sue" has probably just hit critical mass with me. Not because I don't think people should sue when there is cause, but because I think that frivolous suits make the success of legit lawsuits less likely when judges and juries grow weary of hearing them. As far as this case goes, I know you're frustrated and feel upset by the chain of events and subsequent outcome. I would only ask that you look at this from the bank's standpoint. They have the unenvious task of covering a customer's (and their own) a** where these types of issues are concerned. I remember an instance where my wife had opened an account and her bank would not allow my DIRECT DEPOSITS from my employer unless I was a co-holder of the account. Imagine that...a bank refusing my money...money that I don't even want to withdraw! But that is the reality of business these days.

Oh I have definitely said things when I was angry...no question about it. I'm sorry if I fired back a little too roughly. I suppose that the tired mantra of "I'll just sue" has probably just hit critical mass with me. Not because I don't think people should sue when there is cause, but because I think that frivolous suits make the success of legit lawsuits less likely when judges and juries grow weary of hearing them. As far as this case goes, I know you're frustrated and feel upset by the chain of events and subsequent outcome. I would only ask that you look at this from the bank's standpoint. They have the unenvious task of covering a customer's (and their own) a** where these types of issues are concerned. I remember an instance where my wife had opened an account and her bank would not allow my DIRECT DEPOSITS from my employer unless I was a co-holder of the account. Imagine that...a bank refusing my money...money that I don't even want to withdraw! But that is the reality of business these days.

Oh I have definitely said things when I was angry...no question about it. I'm sorry if I fired back a little too roughly. I suppose that the tired mantra of "I'll just sue" has probably just hit critical mass with me. Not because I don't think people should sue when there is cause, but because I think that frivolous suits make the success of legit lawsuits less likely when judges and juries grow weary of hearing them. As far as this case goes, I know you're frustrated and feel upset by the chain of events and subsequent outcome. I would only ask that you look at this from the bank's standpoint. They have the unenvious task of covering a customer's (and their own) a** where these types of issues are concerned. I remember an instance where my wife had opened an account and her bank would not allow my DIRECT DEPOSITS from my employer unless I was a co-holder of the account. Imagine that...a bank refusing my money...money that I don't even want to withdraw! But that is the reality of business these days.

In this case, I think that the bank had to protect itself and the customer. Reasonable people can have miscommunications at times, but as a bank, I would not have deposited or cashed that check (particularly for a new account) for fear of potential retaliation as Cory pointed out earlier. This case may indeed be an unpopular "judgment call" on the part of the bank, but does not constitute proof that BOA are "Cheats! Liars! Frauds!" as the OP stated.

Cory's post sums up best the problem here. BofA get's yelled at by the ex-wife because she's left holding the bag because of her ex-husband cashing counterfeit checks against her account. Then on the other hand BofA gets yelled at here by Juanita because they won't honor husband's check whose not on the account yet. And as you can see all of the different posts give great arguments both ways. But for me here's the rip-off. For those of you very familiar with BofA procedures you know they type notes and keep logs of EVERY CALL made by the customer. Let's say you call and speak to someone about a problem with your account and it's not handled to your satisfaction. When you call back to speak to someone again, whether it be hours later or days later, when that second person pulls up your account, they immediately see the last time you called and notes entered by the previous rep. If Juanita had taken it upon herself to do what she did that's one thing. But she did so ONLY AFTER getting the consent from the phone rep that it was okay. So whoever pulled up the account and closed it, should have seen this call and notes. Is that fair to PUNISH the customer for simply following directions? What about the employee who told her to do so?

Okay, Cory read slowly....I said he had been out of state until recently. His job had moved us to where we are now. I went ahead to enroll our kids in school etc. I had opened up the account w/out him because I had already secured employment and wanted direct deposit. I had copies of all of his information (Drivers liscense and SS Card). I tried to add him so I could order checks and debit card that had his name on it. However, w/out him being there I could not. So, yes it was my account because mine was the only name on it at the time. However, it (the account) was for our benefit. He did sign his check. I am not a thief and am not a disgruntled ex wife. I noticed you post to a lot of these threads so I don't know if you work or just set at home on the computer all day replying to peoples threads. We both work full time and opposing hours so to get to the bank together was a difficult thing to do. I took it upon myself having read the disclosures recieved to call and someone at Customer Service assured me it would be okay if I deposited the check. I had done it before when we first was married. Maybe I am at fault for trying to make sure our bills where paid. However, my husband had even made the attempt to inform BofA that everything was fine and he had given me permission to deposit the check by endorsing the back of it. They still chose to close the account. You are most certainly entitled to your opinions. I read the other post about the lady and her husband that cashed stolen checks. While I understand the need to compare it is not totally the same. As far as suing the crap out of someone, okay, I know there would not be a legitimate case but your saying you've never said anything out of context when you are angry?

Deposited it to her account, thereby taking responsibility for said check. Since her husband endorsed it , she has every right to deposit it. It doesn't matter if his name was on the account or not, SHE, as the account owner, is the one responsible. She didn't even get cash back, it went INTO THE ACCOUNT! It's pretty bad when you can't even deposit a check anymore....... As for the soon to be ex, he cashed checks in HIS name, and he was on the account. Yes, she's responsible too, but it's not the same situation. If it had been deposited, it would have been caught sooner (which, in reading the post, you'll see that the wife wanted to know why they hadn't held it until it cleared, instead of cashing it). In THIS case, if there were truly a problem with the check, wouldn't they have discovered this the next day when hubby went in to sign his portion of the paperwork???? Thank heavens I don't have BofA!

There is no ripoff here...oh and for the record, threatening to "sue the crap out of someone" makes NO ONE quiver with fear. Play that card when you actually have a worthy case to file. You attempted to deposit a check that was not yours before the checkholder was on the account. You said, and I quote, "I deposited his check on Wed the 29th and he was added on the 30th to the account." The bank was absolutely correct to proceed with caution.

We had the post today where the husband, ex-husband to be, goes in and cashes some counterfeit checks aganist his wife's account and she gets left holding "the bag". She's on the hook for the bad checks, to the tune of $1400+ and she posts about how bad the bank is. You, on the other hand, post about how bad the bank is for returning a check, that you deposited into your account, made payable to someone, who wasn't on the account AT THAT TIME. You're in the wrong, not the bank. With all the divorces going on right now, I wonder how many spouses attemp to cash their spouses checks? This is a perfect method of depositing your husband's check without him knowing about it. Then he's gonna come crying about how the bank allowed his wife to run HIS check through her account and he's not even on it. You state he was out of state so he couldn't have signed the check. I also notice you state you deposited the check into MY account, not our account. Sue the crap out of who? For what? For doing the proper and LEGAL thing. Give me a frickkin' break. As a note I hate BoA. Was with them 20 years ago and would never suggest anyone use them BUT when someone is at fault, they're at fault.

She said they both endorsed the check. That should be sufficient!

Why would they not honor the check and then go so far as to label it a questionable deposit when it was endorsed by both? That's ridiculous. Her name was on the account and she endorsed the check after her husband did-last I knew, that's the way it worked.

To answer your question.. No, I could not wait. We had just moved and we were relying on the funds. No, I wouldn't want my money put in some strangers account but this was my husbands check not a stranger. Having read my deposits and disclosures I realized that it might be an issue but we had done this at our previous bank w/ out conflict. However since we had the same last name, the same address info and his willing signature I thought it wouldn't be an issue. Just to clarify I called the lovely people at the 800-432-1000 number and spoke w/ one of the well trained employees who insisted that as long as he and I endorsed it and I placed my account number w/ "For Deposit Only" on the check it wouldn't be a problem. He indicated to me that the only issue would be if I wanted cash back. Which I didn't. Okay, that's exactly what I did. Had I been instructed any different I would have acted differently. I deposited it in the ATM because that was a convenience I felt I had the right to use. I didn't realize I would be treated like a common theif off of the street for wanting to put money in the bank. However having read some of the other ROR's I obviousley am not alone in my opinion of this bank.

Would you want us to deposit a check paid to YOU into someone else's account? It's called ck fraud! Couldn't you have held off 1 day and make the dep. when you went in with your husband?