Complaint Review: Bank of America - Nationwide

I recently quit my full time job to pursue a new career. This meant some strict budgeting and watching closely over my money, something I honestly did not do diligently when I had a weekly paycheck coming in with plenty of money to cover all my bills and anything else. A few months ago I was doing some bill paying and calculating exaclty how much money I had to work with and how much I owed for rent, car payment, insurance etc. I am not great at math but I used a calculater and found that I was able to pay all my bills while retaing a balance of around three dollars in my bank account. I did my diigence and went on with life not worrying about my B of A account, knowing I would not want to use my account to avoid overdraft charges and fees. After a few days I checked my account as I had become used to monitoring my acount closely. When I opened the account BofA showed me with a negative balance of around 150 dollars.

Looking over my account and tracking what had gone wrong, I found B of A was responsible for the overdraft. All of my bill payments had gone through as I had calculated. I was able to pay every bill I needed while still retaing a positive ammount in my account. The overdraft occured when B of A charged me a "Monthly Maintenance Fee". Hmmmm.... I do not ever remember authorizing or being notified of a "Monthly Maintenance Fee". I was puzzled as to why B of A charged this fee to my account. I could not remember past instances of this fee in ten plus years of my account, however as I mentioned, I never really monitored the account like a hawk. After I looked into it, I found this fee had started about six months prior to the overdraft (as far as I could see), again without my consent, knowledge, or a heads up from B of A.  So my account went from positive three dollars to negative thirty five for the overdraft, and then steam rolled into around 150 dollars.

When calling B of A, the initial represatative told me it was my fault. After explaining to him I was never made aware of a "Monthly Maintenace Fee", nor had I seen it on my account prior to that, I had no way of knowing the account would be debited twelve dollars, off setting the math I had done initially to retain a positive balance. The customer service rep seemed he could care less and told me that there was nothing that he could do. I asked to speak with a supervisor. This supervisor fought me on the phone, telling me that the document I had signed when initially opening my account ten plus years ago had the information in it. This could be true but I deffinelty do not know where it is and after ten years deciding to charge it now was questionable. I explained to this gentleman I had been a customer for over ten years and had only a few instances of overdrafting, always taking responsibility and paying the fees. Generaly a good customer, but was now upset that not one of my past bank visits did a BofA representative mention to me that there was a "monthly maintenace fee" being debited out of my account and how I could avoid this. Of course they went on and on about how and why it was going on but after the fact and a few hundred dollars later this was of zero value or help. I fought and fought with the supervisor and he deemed it fair to deduct $117 from the $150 leaving me with a negative thirty three dollar account balance +/- a few dollars. After fighting so long with them I figured that was all I would be able to recooperate.

Defintion of stealing : "take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it"

While they may legally had the right to do so because of a document I signed ten plus years ago, they did not decide to do it until ten plus years later nor did they ever offer to tell me they were doing, and how I could avoid it. Bank of America had one day decided to charge my account a "Monthly Maintenace Fee" of twelve dollars a month and I never caught it. Shame on me for not watching it more closely, but there was no reason for me to be concerned. Shame on Bank Of America for not revealing this fee until it had cost me money. I feel that I payed thirty three dollars for no reason, but had to to get the account back to zero; and ontop of that however months multiplied by twelve dollars was taken from my hard earned money.

I recently drove from my home in the Southwest up to the Midwest. When doing so I stayed at a Best Western in Iowa. Unfortunatley the Best Western charged me for a two night stay when I only stayed one night. This again overdrafted my account. I called bank of america, and though they can see this Best Western debited, then credited my account and was their fault, they had no sympathy for me. I am fed up with Bank of America. I had a friend who worked for B of A and they said that ultimatley B of A does not care about you, especially if you have an account open with small ammounts of money. They said most of the time if you have lots of dough in the account, you call and get whatever you want. When people call who do not have lots of money, they could care less about you.

It is so unfortunate that in todays world you have to be constantly looking over your shoulder, especially at a coporation like B of A who advertise themselves as being so very helpful and concerned for the well being of their customers. Just look up B of A on google and you can see how many frustrated people have been mislead by them. 800 million dollar lawsuit against B of A for selling services that where never rendered and threats of being sued by groups of customers and the United Sates who have all had problems.

I am twenty six years old now and opened the account when I was eighteen. I needed a bank account like most people do. When at the bank, I sat down in the customer waiting area and another customer seemed very upset. We started to talk and she, the upset customer, asked me what what my bank visit was for. I told her I needed a bank account,  so I was opening an account. I asked her about her visit, she told me she was there to close her account and that I should bank somewhere else. I wish I had listened to her advice... I am writing this to inform and warn you of Bank of Americas greasyness and to STAY AWAY!