Complaint Review: Bank Of America - Internet

Just because you never had a problem with bank of theives don't mean other people don't have problems with them. You are just has guilty defending bank of theives & all the other lovers of bank of theives who continue to screw with people & there credit & there lives. Just cause you never had a problem don't mean they don't give other people trouble.

Hold on to your hat. I'm going to agree with Steve. There is more to the story here. But more from BofA's standpoint, not the OP. I have certainly read many BofA reports in my day and I have never seen a BofA report like this one where the issue is double charges, or more specifically, HOLDS that are not removed even after the transaction has been submitted by batch and posted. Now I ask, should I read anything into this by the fact that BofA just began the procedure last year of charging fees based on HOLDS? And now a report like this surfaces? And we're lead to believe those systems are certainly not programmed with sneaky and predatory algorithms and code, right? Hmmm.......

It usually happens when I purchase on the weekends or holidays, when my CU is really closed. If I purchase (or even an ATM withdrawal) Saturday afternoon, and the merchant submits their batch Saturday night, the swipe from Saturday afternoon is held and the batch submitted is "memo" posted and subtracted from the available balance (the one after the hold). It was explained to me that the computer is not programmed to take off the hold until the charge "hard posts" but charges cannot "hard post" until the bank opens. So if the merchant submits the charge when the bank is closed, it cannot hard post, but it does come off the available balance. And the swiped hold does not come off until the bank opens, resulted in a double negative. Did you get all that? I first realized this at Christmas of 2007. I had $1000 in my checking account, made around $470 worth of charges on Christmas Eve and I only had $60 available for the rest of the holiday. Now, I'm using round numbers here. It wasn't exactly $470, but the hold was exactly double my charges. A few weeks later, I made a charge of around $11.88 and my available balance was immediately reduced by $11.88, but later that night when the merchant submitted it, my available balance was reduced by another $11.88, for a total of $23.76. I took these snapshots to my CU every week to show them how it keeps happening. I'm a numbers nut and it really bothers me if my own register and the bank balance do not coincide (taking into account unposted items). I like to balance to the penny! My CU does not charge overdrafts based on available balance so they said it didn't really matter. It does matter. It's the principal of it.

I banked with BofA for more than 14 years and in several states, and never had the issue you are describing. There must be more to the story here. However, if you feel your story is accurate, you MUST file your report in WRITING and by CERTIFIED means to Federal Banking Regulators, as well as State Regulators. Be very specific, and include ALL evidence.

Again I have double charges on my account. The transactions for charges are listed in the bottom section as cleared & paid, yet they remain in the top portion as pending. ( which lessens my balance by double what it should be) Fortunately, considering my previous experiences, I kept an extra amount of money in the accounts & decided to watch the situation. They can't overdraft me, because I have the extra money, & I have captured screenshots to document this. I need to know if anyone else is experiencing this, as it seems to stay double posted for a full 24 hour period before the paid transactions disappear from pending & my balance increases to where it should have been. Please post if you have had similar experiences. Thank you.

You were lucky that you not only connected with someone who was willing to listen, but someone who was competent enough to understand what happened. With Bank of America's 'DECISIONED' system, had you connected with someone who simply did not understand and their INITIAL decision was to deny you the fee refunds, then you would have been in for a long, tough fight trying to find someone with enough security clearance to override the DECISION, even if it was a bank error. When it comes to refunding fees, you're guilty until proven innocent. With DECISIONED, Bandits of America's intent is to hold on to the fees, even when they do realize they goofed up. Even when it's wrong, the DECISION is final, or at least that's what they want customers to think. And sadly enough, many customers probably unknowingly believe this. Glad it worked out for you.

Desiree listened & was able to see where the transactions were double charged against my balance & corrected the matter. She assured me that this doesn't happen often, but I still have a 'confidence' issue and I guess I always will until I can afford a fat cushion to ride out the delay when charges are in the pending & cleared sections at the same time (which IS doubled charged against your balance). So in the future, I fear I will need over $200 in my account if I want to buy $100 worth of groceries to avoid an overdraft fee...something doesn't seem right about that, but at least they fixed it this time. What a BIG hassle though.