Dear Bank of America

well mary iam sad that you had to find out about boa the hard way. i just enjoy ANY chance to bad mouth boa. they let my exwife steel $36000.
from my 401k retirement acct. i cant wait to see them go belly up. i will go and pee on there sidewalk.

From the number of message you have posted here, I can see how upset you are. How BOA gave your ex the money without a court order or some sort of legal authorization? This is a serious legal issue, hope you can deal with it.

My problem with BOA is their bad service and collection of inapt individuals working there. That says a lot about the bank management and managers. However, if I become Victim of identity theft , i know who to go after..BOA and the two associates that no longer work there. They have all my personal information. I have placed an alert on my SS# to make sure they don’t use it to get BOA credit card! !!! Other than that …life goes on….Of course, I would never ever recommend BOA to any one not even my worse enemy.

Ah B of A! Not one of my favorite places. My problem goes back years when I lived in Phoenix, AZ and opened two accounts, business and personal, at B of A and they had the nerve to charge me a fee to open an account. A fee to do business with them! Can you imagine? And then of course their fees were outrageous, charging for everything from an ATM withdrawal to even coning into a branch to do a transacton with one of their wonderful people. I wasn’t long in closing the account and would never go back. From the comments it sounds like not much has changed at good old B of A. And now we the taxpayers give them money to stay in business. There is something wrong with this picture.
Tom in NJ

I had read every article on this Blog and I found a lot of them interesting, but I think a lot of people have missed 2 important points.
1. Banks are in business to make money. They are not community service organizations. As long as they can get away with it, they will charge fees for everything. The only time you will really get them to listen is when it affects their bottom line. Their priority is their own customers, not people who do not bank with them, as you do not contribute to their bottom line. Granted, the person who gave you the business check banks with them, but you have the right to refuse to accept the check.

2. Which brings me to my next point. We all have choices. If we do not like their policies or choices, then we can take our business elsewhere. They are not the only game in town, and we live in a free society. If you do not like their check cashing policies, then take the check elsewhere, or do not accept their checks. You have options. You have choices. You may not like the choices, pay $6 and leave a fingerprint, or deposit in your own bank and pray it does not bounce, or open an account with them, but you do have choices.

Although some of the practices that the banks have are socially reprehensible, they are not illegal. If you want change, surely you can call your Senator or your Congressman to change the law. That’s what we elected them for.

For the person whose ex-wife stole $36000 from his 401(k), why are you not suing the Bank? If they did something illegal, you have recourse. But to my point, you are complaining about the procedures that the Bank has put in place to prevent fraud and theft (someone mentioned that theft is only 1% of the transactions processed, but you would not like it if your account was in that 1%), and yet you are complaining that the procedures are too lax because you got taken for $36000.

Sorry for the rambling, but I have never blogged before. I could actually go on forever on this subject, for I have been on both sides of the desk when it comes to B of A, and although they do nickle and dime you to death with their fees, they always give you options that will avoid most of them. And, believe it or not, customer service is important to them. They regularly poll their customers about the service they received, and the branches are visited by secret shoppers, and their employees incentive pay, particularly the tellers, are tied to their customer satisfaction rating and the results of the secret shop.
This will probably illicit responses that I would welcome, but I would ask that they be civil, and not a personal attack on me, (as I have seen in other responses), as this is just my opinion, and not the gospel.

Anon has a few good points. You are right, they have charges and the have ways to avoid them. However, I have had mortgage loan application with them…..that was my bad experience. The people in the front line customer service (e.g. 800 #s) are ok but they cannot do anything about a bad system of the mortgage department. For example when the mortage associate assgined to your case leaves, there is no system of follow up/ or informing the customer, unless the customer gets tired of waiting and keep calling. Than they recognize that the application has not been assigned to another assoicate. To me it is a serious management problem….has nothing to do with the service you receive from a teller in the branch. Even they cannot tell me exactly when he left and what had happened to all the document that are now missing from my file (documents with personal information that I have the records of fax, email, etc.). Ok, here is another example of mismanagment…I have given them authrozation to withdraw $X from my BOA checking for the mortgage application. I check my account online and noticed they took a lot more. They didn’t noticed (didn’t want to notice) untill I called. They say sorry it was an error, but it is a complex procedure to correct the error and takes time. I don’t understand why taking money is so easy, and giving it back is a complex procedure? I am lucky that I noticed it, otherwise I could have been charged for not having sufficent fund for the checks I had written! I wonder how many phon calls this will take to get my money back?! You said their employees incentive pay, particularly the tellers, are tied to their customer satisfaction rating. In my opinion, that is wrong. Usually tellers do what the bank allows them to do. Most customer dissatisfaction has to do with BOA management or lack of. When the system does not allow a teller to refund the money that had been taken because it has to go through a “complex” process… most people get mad at the teller….while that is not teller’s fault. If BOA (or any institution) is serious in customer service…they need a real assessment of their system and management and establish some quality control process that point to the source of the problem rather than blaming tellers for customer dissatisfaction. In my life time (long life time), This is not the first time I have applied for mortgage. I have done it too many times to count. i have done through small banks as well as big banks, via my own mortgage broker as well as 100% on-line. I have never had any experience like the one with BOA.

Mary -

You have hit the nail on the head. The quandry at Bank of America is that, as a whole, the associates are all good people, and given the choice, they would refund or waive every fee that upset a customer. But the Bank, being in the business of making money, does not want that to happen, so the power was taken away from most of the associates. Like most big corporations, if you really want satisfactory resolution for a problem, you have to go up the ladder. Whenever I have an issue with a company, and I get told by the person who answers the phone that they cannot help me, I do not ask a second time, I ask for their superior, as they usually have the power to do what I need. It is no different at B of A. Next time you call them about this issue, ask for the head of the Mortgage Division, and I guarantee you your problem will be resolved.

Anon:
Thanks for your comments and suggestion. It had worked for me any time I had difficulties with an organization, BUT not with BOA. I went as high as VP, many issues remained unresolved. When an financial institution gets so big, not though a normal growth of the core business but by acquisition of other banks and financial institutions, they end up to be some thing like BOA, collection of disconected offices, no one knows who is doing what? Changing a sign at the door of a bank and calling BOA is not enough. What is seriously missing from BAO is a cohasive managment and leadership. Joining “twitter”, hiring a VP of PR and “customer experience”, calling for customer satisfaction, investing in fancy web page result to nothing unless there is a committed leadership to bring required changes. Most businesses who engage in satisfaction surveys, they already know that the customer are not happy, but they call anyway , perhaps, hoping they are wrong about their inclinations. When an institution suddenly hire PR professionals, they know they are in trouble, but hoping they are not and the problem is only a problem of perception! A 500 pound gorilla, is a 500 pound gorilla no matter how you paint it. BOA is not very unique in that respect, that is why we are where we are….frenzy economy.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I hope that, in the economic correction we are experiencing at this time, the 500lb gorillas out there, including B of A, are realizing that they are not invincible and start going back to the fundamentals of good business – Excellent service at a good price. One quick suggestion. Call Ken Lewis himself and let him know of your situation. They’re his policies, so he should answer for them. My mother always said “Nothing beats a try but a failure”.

Anon:
Did you see Ken Lewis in “60 minutes” and hear his interview with Lesley Stahl? The guy was in absolute refutation. That was Oct. 2008. Than there were 100s of blogs and sites criticizing his leadership or lack of. He luanched a bunch of no substance PR campains. They were all only PR campains. A few of loan programs such as “mortage plus”, we now call it “pain plus”. Things changed but only for the worse. He still has his job.

I hope that, from the current economic situation, we all learn to value our small local businesses …..they don’t growth very big but they are there to give their customers good services. After that experience with BOA, I am back to dealing only with local banks…they are still doing fine in spite of all mess big guys created. Every community has one or two of them. They may have a little higher interest rates, but they don’t have all those hidden fees of big banks. They check your credit twice before handing you the loan, that is why they don’t have foreclosure problem. While waitting for BOA to locate my file and missing documents, I got two other mortages from one little local bank and already closed the deals.

yes Anon its fine for a bank to make money. BUT when a real bank acts like they want my business sorry iam with them!!

Mary:
I am glad to hear that you got your mortgage from another bank, and that proves my point. If enough people go elsewhere to get products and good service that they want, I think that B of A will get the message and change the way they do business.

It’s all about whether you have money or not. I pretty much live paycheck to paycheck. When someone stole acheck out of my mailbox and deposited it into their bank of america account (I also bank with Bank of America) I took the cancelled check (the person who had written the check gave me the copy) to BOA and showed them the cancelled check, told them it had been stolen, and asked if that was a current account they would not tell me anything. They even got mad at me for trying to find out which atm it had been deposited at because I was trying to report it to the police and they wanted to know which atm it was so they would know who had jurisdiction. They acted like I was the criminal. But when a friend of mine had a bank card stolen and someone had taken money out of his account (he had a lot of money) the bank was more than eager to help him out. Within hours of him reporting it, the bank had faxed him a picture of who had taken the money out at the atm. And immediately put the money back in his account that had been stolen. So, it’s all about whether you HAVE money or not.

Denise:
Did your friend also have BOA account? My daughter’s bag was stollen in NCY with two ATM cards one with BOA and another with Chase and a Citibank credit card (all three connected to my accounts). The ATM cards were used as credit cards and the charges were directly taken from the accounts. I called both banks. With Chase, I had no problem. Within a minute of my call, the account was closed, the report was generated to show in what stores, for how much with exact time the card was used. My account was credited within 24 hours…no question asked…Chase took the responsibility of investigating. The citibank credit card unauthorized charges were resolved as soon as I informed them. They too took upon themselves to investigate. However, that was not the case with BOA, I have to prove that I did not use the card, took much longer to get any information as where the card was used…and took months before I saw the money back into my account!

BOA is doing a loan for a property I have under contract. Original closing date 1/30/2009, then 2/6/2009, then 2/13/2009 and then we’ll close Tues. today. When are we going to close ? It’s a guessing game with them. They don’t seem to understand a contract has a beginning and an ending date and you close on or before the ending date. Appraisal wasn’t even ordered untill after 1/30/2009. I was told Friday 2/13/2009 we could close as soon as the appraisal with a correction was in,if it was in by 1:30PM, that everything else was done. They had it all by 10:10AM and now say not likely today. This seems to be a really common problem with BOA. Many Realtors groan if they know BOA is the lender.

Bank of America robs its customers for their money! They have stolen 500 dollars from me and will not let me spend my money that is in my account , further more if i did not have a family i would rob them!

like i said when a REAL bank comes along, iam with them. and i did. when boa goes out of business ill go pee on there sidwalk

Vie Bottger : That is what we are experiencing. Delay after delay and finally we were told that closing will be on Feb 18, This morning the Loan office said we are all set, and 10 minutes ago the attorney said it is not 100%. It is now about 5:30 PM most banks already closed, I don’t know if tomorrow is the closing or when ?…has been changed too many times… I have my application with them since Dec. 2008. I don’t understand the intention of keeping you there but not finishing the deal. We feel now stuck……if we had an answer, we could have gone some place else……IF YOU STILL HAVE TIME ON YOUR CONTRACT>>>GO SOME PLACE ELSE.

While waitting for BOA to locate my file and missing documents, I got two other properties for which I already got the loans from one little local bank and already closed the deals.

IHADCALLTHEBANK OF AMERICA FOR HELP YOU KNOW WHAT THEYDID THEYTOOK MY CREDIT AWAY.

INESRIVE: Did they give you any reason? I know BOA has done that to few others that I know, mostly because they were not using their credit cards as often.

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