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Bank of America Online Banking

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Jeff of Garland TX (06/14/08)
I have my BOA checking account set up to send email balance alerts. On the evening of May 30th, I received a balance alert that stated THIS BALANCE IS AS OF THE END OF PROCESSING ON MAY 30TH. I immediately went to my online statement to verify and my statement balance was several hundered dollars off from the email alert. All transactions I had posted in my personal ledger were showing on the online ledger and they matched. I emailed online customer service and recieved a reply that had absolutely nothing to do with my question. The reply was dealing with what to do if you receive a fraudulent email claiming to be from BOA.

I emailed again and again, I get a standard form reply that had nothing to do with my question. Finally, after several more emails, I get the reply. Notice this reply states: We neither guarantee the delivery nor the accuracy of the contents of any alert. You also agree that we shall not be liable for any delays, failure to deliver, or misdirected delivery of any alert; for any errors in the content of an alert So if BOA sends the alert but is is not responsible for the content of the alert, WHO IS? AND, what good are they if they are not accurate?

I've sent several more emails to BOA and called their cusotmer service. To date, I still have no answer as to why the online alert balance was different from my online ledger balance. No harm done this time but I am closing my account

Gerald of Albuquerque NM (06/11/08)
I wrote a rent check on Monday and gave it to my landlord and I looked at my online bank statement Tuesday night and it hadn't hit or I would have been overdrawn. Both the check and my paycheck hit the bank at 12:01 am on Wednesday and when I checked the online account the check was lsited inred and deducted and I had over four hundred dollars still in te bank. That afternoon I checked again and the check had been sent back as insufficent funds and I had over $1000 in my account.

This is not the first incident with them, but the last for me. Thaey are fee crazy and adjust the debits and credits to make money from fees. I find them to be one of the most unethical businesses I've ever dealt with. I even had an incident where I complained about the branch I was at flying a dirty and tattered US Flag that should have been properly burnt.

When I asked to have it lowered and respectfully burnt the manger told me to leave the bank or she would call the police. I siad go ahead and suffer the news spectacle that I hoped would prevail. She then had the security guy talk to me and he said he would lower the flag and burn it, but please leave becuse the manager threatened to fire him if he coldn't get me to go. I said I would go out with him to make sure the disgace to the USA was lowered and we did that. The flag hasn't flown over that branch since.

The check boucing will cost me $25.00 plus the bank's $35.00 fee. I will have to have my automatic deposits changed to a new bank and spend time researching a bank that respects its customers.

Jeff of Garland TX (06/07/08)
I have email alerts set up with Bank Of America that send my balance directly to my email every day. On Friday, May 30th at 11pm, I received an Alert stating This is your available balance after processing was completed on 5/30/2008. I happen o be online so I went to my account to verify and the balance was nowhere near the amount shown on the alert. In fact, it had never been that amount.

I went to the BOA message center and sent an email asking why the figures didn't match. I recieved what appeared to be a standard form message regarding fraudulent emails. I sent a second messsage and received a second reply (again, standard in appearance) explaining the difference in ledger balance and available balance. After FOUR tries. I finally received the following reply:

Thank you for your inquiry dated 6/4/08 regarding your available balance alert. Your concerns are very important to us and we will be happy to assist you. Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience you may have experienced. The Online Banking Alerts from Bank of America allow you to receive specific account information through e-mail. The Alerts offer you complete control over your alert preferences, including what type of alerts you wish to receive and where you receive them. Please be advised the Online Banking service agreement that you agreed to states the following: You understand and agree that your alerts may be delayed or prevented by a variety of factors. We do our best to provide alerts in a timely manner with accurate information. We neither guarantee the delivery nor the accuracy of the contents of any alert. You also agree that we shall not be liable for any delays, failure to deliver, or misdirected delivery of any alert; for any errors in the content of an alert; or for any actions taken or not taken by you or any third party in reliance of an alert. Again, we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. We value you as a customer and appreciate your business. If we may be of further assistance, please contact us again by e-mail. Thank you for choosing Bank of America.

Notice the clause: We neither guarantee the delivery nor the accuracy of the contents of any alert. Now I ask you BOA, what good is having the alert if the content is not accurate? BOA customer service and their services in general are a joke. I am closing my account! I was really disappointed to see a Bank Of America banner on the front page of this site.

Luckily, no damage was done this time however, I recieved more than my share of abusive fees from BOA.

Deborah of Thousand Oaks CA (06/04/08)
Yesterday I logged onto my online account and the first thing that caught my eye was that my account balance was about $1000 less than it should be. I pulled up my account there were 2 pending charges, one for about $900 and another for $72 at Macy's in Ohio. First off I haven't been shopping at Macy's for years and secondly, I live in California. So I call B of A and explain my situation only to be told that they are pending charges and there is nothing they can do unless it actually goes through.

The very next morning I pull up my account online to see if the charges cleared. To my astonishment now there is a 3rd. charge for $72 at the same Macy's. So again I call. After I had put in my acct. # and PIN the automated voice tells me that I am now over drawn nearly $700. While I am waiting to talk to someone I refresh the online account and now there is a 4th. charge at Macy's for over $1300. This representative tells me the same thing. He said they are just pending authorization and my response was Well, if they are pending authorization then deny it! He said he can't and I explained how it's wiped out my account and I have checks yet to clear, I will need access for crying out loud it is MY MONEY! He said he could remove the pending charges and free up my account and his suggestion was to yank money out IF the Macy's charges actually do go through.

So, I decided to call Macy's in Ohio but that was to no avail. They could only help me if it was on a Macy's charge or Macy's Visa. Even though they are not charged through and are only pending, that effects my available balance which is now $0. I write checks for mortgage, school, etc. and they will all bounce yet there is NOTHING they can do about it. Incidentally, on their FAQ page it says that if you see an error in your pending transactions to contact them. Whoopie, that did a lot.

They are sitting on $1700 of MY money. I have checks I have written which more than likely will bounce and there will be fees. If those Macy charges do go through how long will it take to reverse this situation. What happens if I was on vacation unable to see this activity and I went to pay for my hotel stay, or dinner, etc. and was denied because of pending transactions that had nothing to do with me.

Amanda of Brandon FL (05/30/08)
3 days ago I looked at my checking account online and noticed that pending transactions had brought the account into the negative. So, as I have always done in the past, I transferred money from my savings account to cover the transactions before they actually posted to the account, to avoid any overdraft charges. The next day I had 5 charges for $35 apiece. When I called the bank to get this straightened out, I was told that there was no bank error, every charge that comes through when the account is negative incurs these fees. I spoke with several associates over the phone to get this sorted out and even went into a local branch to try to plead my case in person, to no avail.

Later that evening, there were 3 more charges for $35 appiece. I called the bank and asked to be told the exact transactions that these each of these fees were for. I spoke with 2 separate individuals who did not seem to have a way to figure this out, they both gave me different transactions. This morning I went back in person to the branch and the teller refunded 3 of the fees. I thought the situation was taken care of. My account was back in the positive. This evening, there were 2 more charges for $35 each and apparently, the nice teller who refunded the fees opened up an unauthorized credit card account for me. We never even discussed credit cards and I certainly never authorized that.

So I had to call the bank and have them close out the credit card account, which I'm sure will affect my credit report. Needless to say, I do not understand how a business can treat consumers this way. It would make the most sense that if I don't have funds available in my checking account, decline debit card transactions. Meanwhile I don't even know when this will end with the fees. They could keep charging me, since I have no idea what each charge was for. I'm just supposed to take their word that it happened.

I have incurred $350 in overdraft fees and a credit card with a limit of $4,500 was opened in my name without my authorization. This will definitely have an influence on my credit history, even though the credit account was immediately closed.

Albert of Los Angeles CA (05/15/08)
The online banking BofA uses is misleading, the way they have it set up leads you to believe that pending items are not counted until the end, by stacking them all in one area labeled pending. In actuality, they consider the charge to be real on the DAY IT HAPPENS. So in my case, I was charged 2 overdraft fees although my balance on the online banking was never below 300 dollars. Their reason was that because on that day, 5/13/08, their system showed an authorization for an amount that put me negative. But according to my online statement, it was still pending.

There is no visible disclaimer on the online banking site that the running balance IS INACCURATE. This is a very questionable practice, and I think many people have experienced the same problems, BofA needs to change their online banking setup and let people know that it should not be used as an accurate means of tracking their account. I was never told this until today.

I was charged 2 overdraft fees and will be closing my account with them.

Andrea of Charlestown MA (05/12/07)

On May 1st I went on line to pay a bill. I filled in the information and authorized the payment. On May 9 I was informed the check did not arrive. At this point I called Bank of America and was told the check was mailed on May 2 according to their records and must be lost. I stopped payment on the online check that was issued and then asked why the funds were taken from my account on the 7th if the check sent was not cashed.

My second question to them was when the money will be placed back in my account. They said 1-2 days. On May 11th the check showed up. The envelope and check were both dated May 7th.

Nil of Wilmington, MA (07/28/06)
My niece and I had been Fleet Bank customers for many years. With Fleet I could transfer funds from my account to her's as online bill payment.  I had setup a recurring payments to my niece's account and it had been working for a couple of years until Fleet was bought out by BOA.

For whatever reason, the BOA system stop depositing the fund to my niece even though it continued to deduct from my account - both of our account numbers remain the same.  It has been nearly two months now and we still have not received our fund back.

I have been calling nearly daily and all I have been told is it will be resolved by Monday.

Larry  of Incline Village NV (03/17/06)
I use B of A online banking and one day I transferred 27.40 from my checking account to pay my credit card balance. Whether it was my error, or theirs, $2740.00 was deducted from my checking account rather than $27.40. I now had a credit in excess of $2700 on my credit card account. That simple mistake took over two weeks to correct and required dozens of phone calls, 3 letters, and 5 visits to my local branch.

The online banking site has an email component (they guarantee a 12 hour response) and I immediately emailed advising them of the error. 3 days later I received a reply from them and all it said was they were "sorry about my inconvenience" and they appreciated my business but nothing about correcting the problem. I sent a dozen more emails to them which they apparently ignored because I never received another reply.

After two weeks of non-answers from the online email source and dozens of calls to their customer service line, I contacted the local branch and dumped it in their lap. I gave the branch manager copies of all my emails and the lone reply along with 3 letters I had written to customer service which had never been answered. I also gave her a log showing the times I had called customer service trying to correct the problem. The branch manager was very helpful and guaranteed me she would look into it and have the money returned to my checking account. She did eventually correct the problem but even as a branch manager it took her two weeks to get it straightened out.

During this whole nightmare I had a credit in excess of $2700 on my credit card. On one of my calls to customer service, the bank representative had a simple solution for my problem. He suggested that I could use up the $2700 credit by buying things with that card which would eventually bring the account to a zero balance. I suspect zero was also his IQ.

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