Bank of America Checking Accounts Consumer Reviews - Page 5

Like many others, I've been stung by BoA's bad fee charges. I am on a fixed income, with direct deposit. As others have mentioned, they withhold pushing charges through until you make a purchase big enough it'll push you into overdrawing. Then if you don't pay them up FAST (in 5 days), they charge you AGAIN! Now, with a week or two left in the month, and they know my money won't be there until the third, how do they expect I'm going to come up with a lot of cash out of nowhere?

I've had nothing but problems with them from DAY ONE...the 'if someone refers you to us, you each get $25'...they don't tell you that takes 3 months...and even then, I didn't get it. It took NINE months. Then they encourage you to do your banking online. Well, one day you check and everything seems to be in, then something from weeks before will suddenly jump in and throw everything off!

During a recent incapacitation, I was able to keep an eye on my account, online, for three weeks. Other than a couple grocery charges, there was NO activity, the amount stayed the same, except for the store charges. As soon as I wrote a cheque for over $100, it seemed all sorts of things came flying out of the dark, and not only did they not pay the cheque, they still charged me $35, which overdrew me (without the $100 cheque) about $6, so a couple other charges that came in after that went into the red, as well...charges that according to my online watch should have been covered!

Now they're charging me $35/ea because they weren't repaid in that 5 days!!! And this is LEGAL? I am going in first thing in the morning, taking my (now direct deposited cash) OUT of the ATM, and telling them they can close the rest... That way they can't freeze my account or tell me they can't close it until they make sure nothing is outstanding! I will tell anyone and everyone NOT to use this bank, and if anyone has any way to take action against them, please let all us victims know!!!

Okay, so let me tell everyone how BOA screwed me over and what they told me afterwards. This all started last September when I lost my job. At the time, I had two checking accounts and a savings account with BOA that had always been in good standing. Shortly after I lost my job, I lost the card to one of my accounts. Someone, of course, found the card and drained the account leaving me $417.00 overdrawn.

I disputed the charges and the dispute was denied. Now BOA prides themselves on their willingness to help you out in situations such as this one so when I asked why the dispute was denied, I was surprised to hear them say "because you lost your card." this should have been my first clue that it was time to get out. Anyway, without a job, there was no way that I could pay it back right then so I made arrangements to make payments on as soon as I started working again.

Now, we jump forward to current day. I've been unemployed for over eight months now and I was about to loose everything. I FINALLY FOUND A JOB! my first weeks pay was direct deposited into my other checking account. It was just over $400.00. I went out and paid a little bit on several bills including BOA. Now, the total amount of the overdraft on the other account was $417.00, and the total amount of the deposit was $408.00. The total amount of bills that I paid out of the $408.00 was $258.00 leaving me with $150.00 to last me until my next check.

BOA (without notifying me) decided not to stick to our agreement and they took the full $417.00 out all at once. They did this while all of the other bills that I had already paid were pending. This caused a lot more problems than I started with. By the time they were done, I owed them an additional $280.00 in overdraft fees. I was charged so many fees that by the time my next check ($770.00) was direct deposited. I only saw $453.00 of it. When I asked them to refund the overdraft fees, they refused saying "you shouldn't have let your account get overdrawn." When I explained that my account wouldn't have been overdrawn if they had stuck with the agreement, they said "that's how we do business."

REALLY!!! Needless to say, I closed my accounts. When I went to open an account with a different bank, I could not. It seems that I am still in Chexsystems from my BOA account. When I called BOA to get them to clear me from ChexSystems, they refused because apparently, I still owe them $103.00. You do the math. SUCKS RIGHT? SCREW BANK OF AMERICA!!!

CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA -- I recently went to cash a check at BoA. The cashier informed me that the check would take extra time to clear because my account was originally out of state and encouraged me to open a new one. Well... the first disappointment was that an account can not simply be transferred from one state to another. Right of the bat, we were looking at closing down the old account and opening a new one. I probably should've walked out right then, but I am a fool.

So as the account manager was doing his work, I started to feel comforted knowing that this would be a pretty automated process. I was wrong... again... So I logged into BoA online site about a week later and noticed that the outstanding charges had finally cleared... on the wrong account. The overdraft protection didn't work. The account manager never set it up. There was an overdraft fee of $35 per charge. I was charged $105 in one day because of each of those cleared charges... But that wasn't even as shocking as what I would hear next.

The call center responded to it very well, and without even having to ask for it, they made the offer to waive those charges. I might even go as far to say I was happy... Until she informed me about the importance of updating any third party billing that was on auto-pay. You see if a checking account is closed out, it doesn't exactly stay closed. From what they told me on the phone, third party billing can activate a closed account.

Maybe this person didn't know what they were talking about and this isn't true, but if it is, that's pretty scary. That means that we are not sole owners of our accounts. We don't have sole authorization. Others do as well... I'm trying to find more information on this, but if anyone else has heard of this please provide some resources (articles, policies, etc.).

I tried to start a free checking account online after being reassured by a chat account specialist that there is no direct deposit required and the minimum fee is waived too. (Addendum to: Personal Schedule of Fees Effective February 1, 2008 This Addendum amends the Personal Schedule of Fees. It applies when you open one of the following accounts online. MyAccess® Checking: If you open your MyAccess Checking account online, we waive the monthly maintenance fee.)

After undergoing verification, the representative on the phone swore that you still have to pay the $5.95 fee if you don't have direct deposit set up from your employer. So much for the free checking special promotion. (To clarify, I had every intention of making deposits but I liked the notion that there would be a waiver of maintenance fee in case you cannot maintain a certain amount in the account.

I could not set up direct deposit yet since I am in grad school and there were some payees that could not be paid using the online bill pay with the Campus Checking Account; so, I wanted to get the MyAccess Checking with the promotion they had.) It turned out to have too many discrepancies and was "too good to be true." My third and final discussion with a different phone representative acknowledged and apologized for these problems and said he'd make sure that the BOA supervisors know in an upcoming meeting since several people also encountered the same issues.

Needless to say, I don't feel so secure with this bank and am looking into other banks. One of my checks that was supposed to have deposited funds into my account (and the account number was correct--I have the receipt) was put into a different account. The teller was reprimanded by her supervisor at the bank since it was clearly her mistake. Please do not buy into their claims of free checking. I cancelled the application right away. It's still lingering in my online accounts. I had to call again since the request to have it closed the first time was not heeded.

I would like to commend Bank of America on the excellent customer service that is provides its customers. Associates do the best that they can to fulfill customers needs. It is the account holders responsibility to understand every aspect of their own account. That includes overdraft fees. Overdraft fees are charged for one reason only. Customers like me are at fault for overspending more than what they actually have available in their account.

It is too bad that other customers call and all they do is complain to a Bank of America associate about their overdraft fees that they caused themselves. Those are the customers who don't know how to manage their own money, in other words, they never have learned how to do it.

Those customer give Bank of America a bad rap for no reason but their own fault. I manage over 12 accounts. I have the account numbers for everyone of them and know what each of those accounts have and everything about each account. Free Checking doesn't mean free checks. Every bank in the United States will tell you that. Free checks are ordered as a courtesy for customers.

If a customer doesn't receive their overdraft fees back, they tell others not to open accounts at Bank of America and because of that reason and they want to close their own accounts. Remember it is the customers like me at fault. The customer who calls an associate should be smart enough to know better than to whine on the phone about fees to an associate.

Bank of America is one of the largest banks in the United States and does its very best to serve its customers. Each Account is opened with great care and information about their account is given to them when they open their account. It is not the banks fault if the customer won't read the Depositors Agreement and schedule of fees or doesn't know their own account number. So I give high marks to Bank of America. 10 out of 10. If customers know how to save their money wisely they would not cry about fees on the phone.

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS -- Recently I have seen my account go from 250.00 With no outstanding balances to negative 250 in one day. This bank is moving the amounts of balance in their favor so that they can get their 35.00 Fees. Yesterday I had a savings account removed because it showed up out of nowhere and I owed 9 dollars. That same account was cancelled out 8 months ago with a 0 balance. Someone forgot to cancel the monthly fees. Imagine that. At this time my account was 257.00. I received a .61 Credit to it making it 257.61 As of 12;00 yesterday. I had 1 bill automatically being withdrawn that day for 100.00.

That night I checked to see if it was paid and saw that all my cleared transactions were moved into different dates and positions making my account go negative 5 times. Now I have five 35.00 Fees attached to my account. What the heck is going on! Doesn't anyone else see how they are screwing us all. This is the 5th time in 1 year they have done this to me and whenever I go in to complain, they say they don't see any problems. One time I printed out the page and checked a day later. They did it again.

So I took the page I printed out and sent in and told them to go to that date and time and pull it up on their screen. They couldn't access what I gave them. I had proof everything was manipulated and they just said "oh well, we don't see anything". People this has got to stop. We are being screwed by the corporate ladder and just sit back. Well I'm not sitting anymore. I'm taking this to the paper and attorney general's office. Good luck to all that don't care.

PHOENIX -- Recently, a customer gave me what I thought was a good check and it bounced, drawing my business account into a negative balance. It also resulted in $130 worth of non-sufficient fund fees which they refunded $125. After discovering the problem, I called Bank Of America and they instructed me to call the customer to let them know their check was no good (the customer also banks at BofA) and to have them issue me a knew one. The customer apologized and said that if I ran the check through again that it should be OK.

I received the check back in the mail and when I went to cash it, the funds were there but still Bank of America hadn't fixed the issue of the overdraft fees. So I put the cash from the check in my regular checking account. Meanwhile a deposit into my account came in from another transaction and BofA took the money which didn't belong to them. I called BofA several times and told them that before all this happened my account was in good standing. I also had enough money to cover other charges to the account. Nonetheless, BofA took over $550 of my money and is refusing to give it back.

They also never notified me about the check being bad. I had to find that blunder out after checking my account online. The last time I called BofA I reached their corporate office to complain and talked to someone who claimed they were the President of BofA's assistant. When I explained the situation this person like the other customer service people, refused to help and tried to make every excuse about why they're keeping my money. She also said that if I wanted to further complain to just call the Better Business Bureau or call the Banking Commission.

When I asked to speak to the head honcho of BofA she said "no". I then asked "why, is he too busy to talk to a customer?" Her response was "yes, he was too busy" and she then hung up the phone. It was apparent that they didn't want to fix the problem. Today, they emailed me giving me $125 but they still owe me the rest of what they took. I pretty much told them that I'm taking my business to another bank. It's pretty apparent that they don't want any more customers or they wouldn't have treated me so badly. I'm currently looking into other banks right now and intend on leaving BofA as soon as I can.

I opened a Bank of America account in June 2008, and made my first large deposit on 7/3/08. At the time of the deposit, I was provided with a receipt showing the amount credited to my account, and online, the transaction was posted as completed on 7/3/08. A full week later, checks that I wrote that were well within the amount in my checking account were posted. These checks, however, were bounced and I was charged with NSF fees because Bank of America was holding back my deposit for some reason.

I was never notified that my deposit had not gone through, and given the information that I had from the receipt they provided me, the information in my checking account register, and the online record of transactions, I had more than enough money in my account for these checks to go through without any problems. So far, I have been charged $95 in NSF fees, and my credit rating is suffering because of Bank of America's negligence and incompetence.

Their customer service has been atrocious, with the first person I talked to being unable to answer my questions, and the number that she provided me with has led me to an automated system that asks me to provide my name, account number, phone number, and reason for calling, and the assurance that a representative will call me within one business day. We shall see how that goes.

All in all, I have never had this problem with another bank. I have never overdrafted on any account, and I have never bounced a check. Thanks to the incompetence at Bank of America, I have been overcharged due to what they deem "non-sufficient funds," though my deposits were shown as being posted to my account and were more than sufficient to cover the charges I was making, and my credit rating is going down the tubes.

As soon as my latest check has gone through, I have been refunded the fees for NSF, and my credit rating has been prepared, I fully intend to find a bank that can handle simple transactions like deposits and withdrawals. If they are unwilling to work with me, I am more than willing to file a legal complaint against Bank of America.

Bank of America is a corrupt organization. After a few years of being a Bank of America customer, I have had no choice but to close my account. They couple poor customer service with semi-illegal business practices to create a very unscrupulous banking institution.

Routinely, they hold my paychecks for several days without reason in attempt to overdraft my checking account to force me to pay high fees. I live paycheck-to-paycheck like many Americans, and I cannot afford to wait for four or five business days for my funds to become available to me. I have called Customer Service and Customer Relations usually twice a month in an attempt to figure out why the bank chooses to hold my funds. I get different answers each time.

Essentially, I deposit my paychecks at the same time every month. And consistently each month, Bank of America holds the funds for nearly five days without reason. Again, as someone who depends on my paycheck to live, this is unacceptable. The paycheck clears the account from which paycheck is cashed the same business day I deposit the check. The cash is not deposited to my checking account - again - for nearly five days after that.

Other co-workers of mine have not had these problems with their paychecks at other, more reputable banking institutions, so apparently the issue does not lie in the source of the funds (i.e. my employer's bank). The issue lies with Bank of America. I hope that all who read this complaint will either think twice about conducting business with Bank of America or choose to open an account with another financial institution.

As hardworking, tax-paying American citizens, we deserve better than this: if it wasn't for us, Bank of America would not have business and thus would cease to exist. It's about time they treat us with more respect and courtesy - even if we are paycheck-to-paycheck wage earners.