Morals, ethics and the incompetence of Bank of America

In My Humble Opinion
1

This is a rehash of my responses in the “Cashier makes an error in your favor” thread. I should have started it as its own thread to begin with, since I really wanted some opinions on my own situation and didn’t get any in that thread. This is going to be long. TLDR summary at the bottom.

I owe BofA $2280, stemming from two separate incidents of fraud alert on my credit card account over the past two months. The first incident was partially my fault. A charge of about $1350 on Amazon resulted in a potential fraud alert. I order from Amazon all the time, but a charge that size is outside of my normal order amount. When I logged into my online account to confirm the purchases (it was split into two orders and BofA included a third charge from another merchant) I mistakenly confirmed fraud instead of confirming the orders. I was on the phone with them within minutes, admitting my error and asking them to approve the purchases and reinstate my card. Not possible, new card on the way, we will fix the charges.

Two weeks later, Amazon suspends my account for charging back the purchases. I reply that I will contact BofA to fix it. Three more calls to BofA, asking them to fix the problem. Pay Amazon and the other merchant and charge me what I owe. Each call, I was transferred and explained each charge and that all three transactions were credited and never re-charged. Each call I was assured that it would be resolved. About a week into this, I signed and faxed forms to Amazon, affirming the charges and they unlocked my Amazon account.

The following billing cycle, I had actual fraudulent charges on the newly issued card. Only one of the two authorizations was actually charged to the account, but BofA issued credits for both, leaving me with a credit for $809 for an authorization that was never charged to my account. I called them to inform them of this issue, and after a conversation that ended after another attempt to play the transfer the call. I refused and said, this is your problem, I am reporting it to you and expect you to fix it.

This past Tuesday, I called again and played transfer the call, finally winding up with a supervisor in the fraud department, who was condescending while I was going over each charge and explaining why I still owe them money. The $809 charge was on the old card number and not transferred over so I couldn’t see it or pay it. It would be moved to the new card number. The $1471 in previous charges is what I had to basically argue with her over, she finally agreed that they would be charged in 24-48 hours. This is basically what I have been told at the end of each call on these matters, except call# 5, which I cut short.

On Thursday, the $809 charge was posted to my account. Hooray! Progress. On Friday, they adjusted this with a credit to offset the charge. :smack: No activity on the previous charges. $2280 is not an insignificant amount of money. If it was actual theft, it would be grand larceny in the fourth degree. On my last conversation with BofA, I explained my frustration and flat out told the supervisor that I wasn’t going to try further to fix the situation. The thing is, I’m not happy about this. I don’t want to get away with anything here, I’m just tired of spending my time and getting aggravated by trying to get a 2 TRILLION dollar multinational BANK to do simple accounting.

TLDR: I owe Bank of America $2280 and despite multiple frustrating and one insulting phone call, I can’t get them to charge me. Also, they don’t have an email address. They have a web form that says: email us. Sorry, it may generate an email but a web form is not an email. I don’t get a copy of a web form submission.

What are your thoughts? How much effort is enough? What would you do? Fill out the web form? Write a letter? Call a 7th time? Say fuck it and wait for them to fix their mistake or not?

I’m leaning towards the latter, but I have to say that I’m not immune to the idea that I might be leaning that way because I really wouldn’t mind having another $2280 in my bank account. I think ethically, I have done enough to justify the position of “fuck them”. Morally, I think I may not have done enough, but I don’t know if there is any limit to how much I have to do to convince them to take my money.

2

Get a lawyer.

The amount is most certainly beneath the threshold for investigation, but who knows.

Your own screw-up (calling a legit transaction fraud) and then immediately calling and saying another charge is fraud as soon as the new card arrives, is going to raise all kinds of flags on you.

Find out how to make yourself flameproof, in case this blows up again.

3

Both alerts were initiated by BofA. I never initiated a claim of fraudulent charges and there is no way I’m paying a lawyer to settle this.

The first fraud alert, I accidentally confirmed as fraud via their web form. I called and admitted that error immediately. I called three more times to ask them to charge those transactions to me. I signed Amazon forms affirming the charges. The other merchant (J. Crew) I called and tried to inform them of the issue, but they were just as useless as BofA.

The second alert was real fraud, which is suspicious on a card in its first month of life. The thing is, they credited me for a charge that never existed. A charge was authorized, but never posted to the account. The fact that they credited, then charged as a balance adjustment, then credited again a charge that never existed is pretty much proof of their incompetence.

This shouldn’t be happening, but if BofA tried to sue me over it, it might be the best thing that ever happened to me in my life. I would counter-sue for damages and my case would be so fucking tight that Saul Goodman could win it.

4

My take, just make sure you have diligent records of who you talked to and when, and let it go. If for some bizarre reason they try to go after you legally, you can then prove your due diligence. At this point, if they don’t want your money that’s on them.

I’m a little amused that they apparently managed to send a payment to Amazon, but not to apply that charge to your account. Did the money just magically appear? :slight_smile:

5

Large mega-corps have contingency funds for about everything.

Settling screwed-up credit cards is a biggie.

Which is why I mentioned a threshold.

The bank did the right thing by noticing a much-larger than usual charge on an account.
FLAG 1
Years ago, they would have placed a phone call. Had he not responded to the web, they probably would have called.
They asked the obvious question: Was this an authorized charge. To make it easy, they put the option to call it fraud up front. He assured them that it was legit, immediately after saying (online) that it was fraud.
HUGE FLAG 2

They, based on the assurance that it was fraud, immediately cancelled the card.

He gets a new card.
First they hear is: THIS IS A FRAUDULENT CHARGE!

Guess what their assessment of this person is at this point?

Based on the original 'Fraud" charge, they would have been in the clear to tell Amazon to eat the fraudulent charge. For whatever reason, they reimbursed Amazon out of their own pocket.
Which is why he was not charged - was it fraud or not? He has said it was both fraudulent and not fraudulent.
Had they billed him, he would have (possibly) sued them because he said it was fraud and has the computer transaction to prove it.

See where the bank is coming from?

6

No, I don’t. I made an error that I immediately tried to correct by way of phone call. I made three subsequent phone calls to try to correct this error. I made two more phone calls after that, in which I asked them to bill me for these charges and to bill me to offset a credit for a charge that never existed. Five out of six of these calls ending with an understanding that I would be charged what I owed but each time, they have failed to do what they told me they would do, which is to take my fucking money.

The merchant with the majority of charges in question has statements signed by me that I placed the orders and received the merchandise that I ordered. Have they been paid? I don’t know but they reinstated my formerly frozen account. Had BofA asked me to sign a form agreeing to the charges in question, I would have been more than willing to do so.

If nothing else, please attempt to explain the latest fiasco. They didn’t hear shit from me. I didn’t report fraudulent activity. They (correctly this time) identified an attempt at fraud.

They then credited me for a charge that never existed. How does this happen? If anyone should understand the difference between an authorization and a charge, it should be a 2 trillion dollar bank who happens to be one of the largest credit card lenders on the planet. After two phone calls from me, they adjusted my balance by charging me to offset the credit for the charge that never existed. The following day, they issued a credit to offset the charge that was meant to offset the credit they issued FOR A CHARGE THAT NEVER EXISTED.

Have I mentioned yet that they issued a credit for a charge that never existed?

Sorry, this is not the bank covering their ass against a potential lawsuit. This is blatant and persistent incompetence by Bank of America.

7

If you don’t like BofA, don’t do business with them.

I’m sure they’ll miss you.

8

The bank gives you over $2200 in error(s), can’t seem to figure out how to take it back and you’re going to counter sue for damages? I should be so damaged. :stuck_out_tongue:

9

Is this a debit card or a credit card?

If it’s a debit card on your checking account, just don’t spend the money. Leave it in there. After a year or so, their fault.

If it’s a credit card, just make sure you pay your charges, this should always leave a $2280 debit balance on the card. After a year or so, their fault.

10

Hyperbole, obviously. To counter-sue, I would have to be sued for malfeasance, as usedtobe implied I looked suspiciously guilty of when he came up with the ridiculous suggestion that I hire an attorney. This despite the fact that one third of the fees owed are due to blatant accounting error on their part and the vast majority of the other 2/3 I have signed statements to the merchant affirming the charges.

It’s a credit card that was formerly my primary use card. I don’t like to leave debts this size unaccounted for indefinitely, but I guess that’s what I’m going to do. I’m certainly not going to run a negative balance to compensate for their incompetence.

I don’t know, maybe I’ll try again in a week or two. The most frustrating part of the whole thing is repeatedly calling them and telling them that I owe them money, only to be treated like there’s no way they could be wrong and that I’m obviously fucking stupid. Every time, after going over charges and credits, when they finally agree with me, they tell me they will charge me like they’re doing me a favor. Every time, they don’t. It’s a combination of the shitty attitude and repeated failure to do what they say they’re going to do that leaves me with very little sympathy.