Ooohhh!!! Bank of America Pis!@* Me Off

I want to jump right into this. The following are true stories involving Bank of America ("BOA:) and it's DESPERATE debt collection practices:

1. In August 2008, BOA took over $20,000 from a joint account held by a husband and wife to pay off a business loan taken out by the husband, even though the business loan was never in the wife's name and never in the husbands name. The money was never returned.
2. In February 2009, BOA took over $26,000 from a personal account to pay off a debt that BOA AGREED TO SETTLE FOR A LOWER AMOUNT just several months earlier. The owner of the account gives thanks that I made sure the agreement was in writing. Once we called BOA, raised a ruckus and most important waived the signed agreement in their face, the money was returned a few days later.
3. Once BOA has your account no# and routing no#, it will attempt to take UNSCHEDULED payments from your bank account. Best of all, if they are unable to get the money at the beginning of the month they simply try several more times during the month until they get it. The funny thing is they seem to know when money is deposited into the account.
4. BOA will call you at hour home, work, and cell phone several times a day. Even if you tell them not to. The best part. You may never have given them your cell or home number..HMMM.
5. Even if you have a zero balance and your account is supposedly closed. BOA will keep it open in order to accrue fees.
6. BOA will send out statements that may show you have an available balance even though in reality you do not.
7. If you make an online request to BOA to pay a bill, the normal procedure is to have BOA prepare a paper check and mail it out. Once the check is deposited then under normal circumstances the money is withdrawn from the sender's account. NOT SO with BOA. BOA has a policy that it may decide to take the money out of the sender's account even if the other side has not received or cash the check. In other words, if you ask BOA to send out a payment, they will debit your account for the amount of the payment, even if the other person or business has not deposited the check. The Best Part: when BOA was asked how do they determine if, after a payment request, the money will be withdrawn immediately as opposed to waiting until the other side receives the check, BOA said "WE CAN'T TELL YOU". We said "Huh". Then we asked, what if we don't want you to withdraw the money until the other person gets the check and deposits it? BOA said "YOU DON'T HAVE THE OPTION, BOA DECIDES". We then said "What the ...".

Thus beginning my BOA watch on this blog. These stories are just swirling around about BOA. Clearly, these tactics by BOA will not win it new clients. When a business engages in acts that will clearly cause it to lose clients, when a bank is no longer interested in customer retention, especially, a bank that has received billions from taxpayers, there can be only one conclusion:

BOA is at the edge. It is totally desperate and it's fighting for survival. Every penny counts, so at the recent corporate pep rally, the BOA workers must have been told. "You must use every means necessary to get money from our clients. We will give a 10 day trip to Hawaii, Big Island, all expense paid, including your salary, for the department that can collect the most money from our clients."

BOA is in trouble and there seems to be nothing that can save it. It is in preservation mode. Customer be damned. BOA's new motto maybe "We can get new customers down the road, We need money right now. Grab it. Get it. We don't care how."

So my advice:

* Do not keep all of your money and accounts with BOA. Open up separate checking, savings, and business accounts with a few stable banks.
* Close all accounts that you have given your routing and account number. Reopen with new accounts, start fresh, and be extremely selective with giving out that information.
* Get Everything in Writing. No excuse.
* Keep a Contact log, detailing every conversation, every rep, with dates and times. This is for your future reference.

If you have a BOA horror story please share it with us.

Stay strong.