topic Re: My Recon to Bank of America in Credit Card Applications

My Recon to Bank of America

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 22:41:55 GMT

{Edited to remove personal information-MarineVietVet, myFICO moderator}

I'm sure several of you read my frustration with the B of A secured card not graduating after nearly 3 years and since I had no luck with trying to RECON over the phone I tried the Capital One approach and sent an email directly to the CEO. My questions for you all.....

1.) What do you think of the letter?

2.) Any possibility this will be a success?

Here is my letter:

Dear,

I understand that you are a busy man but I hope you will take a moment to read this short letter and possibly forward it to someone who can assist me. Several years ago, I was injured and as part of this injury lost my full time job. During this time I racked up about several thousand dollars in medical bills because my COBRA health benefits ran out. It is because of this that my credit took a severe hit. Fast forward to 3 years ago when I started the journey to rebuild my credit and my life. The very first card I applied for was a Bank of America secured Visa. At that time my credit score was a putrid 487 as there was nothing positive reporting on my credit report and tons of medical collections dragging my score down. I knew I had to do something, so as I started this journey to build my credit and also save money (401k/Savings/CD's) for my future I realized that I needed to try and build/rebuild my relationships with some of the bigger banks. I opened up the Bank of America secured card about 3 years ago and have done everything right. Never late, always pay more than minimum payment, and never go over 6% utilization. However, for some reason you all refuse to acknowledge not only my payment history with you BUT also my payment history with the several other banks who have issued me credit since my score has been on the rise.

As I mentioned earlier, my score started at 487 but has since gone up to a more respectable 701 (FICO). This jump was not something that came over night, but rather through hard work and dedication. While my credit score is still far from the goal of 780 that I set for myself in the beginning I realize that my hard work is paying off. Capital One which was my second card has increased my credit line from $300 to $3,000 . Barclays has increased my credit line from $250 to $1500. Also, since the FICO jump, I have been offered credit from several other lenders to which I have turned down in an effort to build the credit I already have.

The whole reason for my rant is because it seems that Bank of America is the only creditor who absolutely fails to acknowledge my great strides in trying to rebuild. When I first got this card 3 years ago, those same medical bills were there.........The reason I got the card was because I needed to rebuild (Which I have been doing), now Bank of America refuses to grow with me as my credit score continues to go up each passing month. As I stated above, I have 9 open revolving lines and in the past several years none of those have been so much as 1 day late. I am doing EVERYTHING the right way and every other creditor has rewarded me for my hard work and dedication to this difficult task of rebuilding.

I don't understand why after nearly 3 years and a 701 FICO Bank of America refuses to graduate my card to unsecured. I feel at the bare minimum I qualify to have my card unsecured. If 3 years of paying on time isn't enough to warrant a secured card graduation, I'm not sure what would be.

I am rebuilding and saving and all I ask is that Bank of America open it's arms just a bit and grow with me. I'm sure this isn't something you would handle directly but being that you have taken such a hands on approach to rebuilding Bank of America I wanted to send this email directly to you because I trust you will make sure it gets to a person who cares about my frustrations with Bank of America.

Thanks for your time

My contact information

Re: My Recon to Bank of America

TRC_WA — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 22:42:19 GMT

Looks good although I'm not sure how much good it will do...

BoA is after all... BoA. I used to bank with them 10 years ago... never again. Something about piss poor customer service...

If I were you I'd send this letter and if they don't budge I'd move on... lots of other lenders out there.

Re: My Recon to Bank of America

CreditCuriosity — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 22:42:43 GMT

@TRC_WA wrote:
Looks good although I'm not sure how much good it will do...

BoA is after all... BoA. I used to bank with them 10 years ago... never again. Something about piss poor customer service...

If I were you I'd send this letter and if they don't budge I'd move on... lots of other lenders out there.

Good letter..

With that said BofA is one of the worse banks IMO and their interest is in profit. I was with them for 10-15 years and they made me sick how they treated me as a banking customer, maybe their credit products are better as I never had one other then a home loan or two... They keep banking and lending completly seperate so any relationship with them if you have it with banking doesn't correlate into credit products. I actualy think I got a check about a year back due to a class action law suit, forgot what it was about, but typical violation of some law which all banks are known to do.

Hopefully this will stroke whomevers ego that reads this as obviously you know the CEO himself won't read it and they might unsecure you if nothing more then to get you off their backs.. I wish you all the luck in the world, best of luck!

Re: My Recon to Bank of America

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 22:43:00 GMT

Overall it's an ok letter. Personally I think you go into way too much detail that's unnecessary. CEOs are generally very busy and having them read thru a letter like this would be difficult. You can get to your point much quicker and achieve the same goals.

ONe last thing. Please don't use all caps in a letter like that where it's not an acronym. It's not professional and doesn't help one bit.

Re: My Recon to Bank of America

ibmrad7 — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 22:43:17 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Overall it's an ok letter. Personally I think you go into way too much detail that's unnecessary. CEOs are generally very busy and having them read thru a letter like this would be difficult. You can get to your point much quicker and achieve the same goals.

ONe last thing. Please don't use all caps in a letter like that where it's not an acronym. It's not professional and doesn't help one bit.

+100. This!!!!

Re: My Recon to Bank of America

kdm31091 — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 22:43:40 GMT

I think your letter sounds good. Like someone else said, a bit long winded. Could have probably shaved quite a bit of it off and gotten to the point.

Hopefully it works out though, but I wouldn't hold my breath. To put it nicely, IMO, BOA sucks. Their customer service is not good, they want HP for every CLI (admittedly they are not the only lender to do this), idk, they just aren't very good. You also do not hear very often of succesful recons or of them really helping people out. They seem very profit focused, which I can understand but they don't care much about their customers. Unfortunately, likelihood is high you will have to just move on, as I doubt this letter will really do anything. The good news is there are plenty of great lenders with better cards than BOA anyway.

Re: My Recon to Bank of America

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 22:44:31 GMT

The only reason I went in to detail was the fact that I knew he wasn't going to deal with this on a personal level but rather send it to someone else, who might need/want more details before they contact me. In fact here is the email I got this morning

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for contacting the Office of the Chairman and CEO of Bank of America. As your customer advocate, I welcome the opportunity to address your concerns.

I am your dedicated point of contact until this matter is resolved. At your earliest opportunity, please contact me directly at the number listed below. My hours of operation are Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern.

Please do not reply to this email, because this mailbox is not monitored for incoming correspondence.

I appreciate your taking the time to bring this matter to my attention. I look forward to assisting you.

Thank you,

{Edited}

Officer/Customer Advocate

Office of the Chairman and CEO

Office:1.800.218.6670 Extension: ******* (blocked extension)

Commit Case – 34899

Re: My Recon to Bank of America

CreditCuriosity — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 22:45:18 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
The only reason I went in to detail was the fact that I knew he wasn't going to deal with this on a personal level but rather send it to someone else, who might need/want more details before they contact me. In fact here is the email I got this morning
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for contacting the Office of the Chairman and CEO of Bank of America. As your customer advocate, I welcome the opportunity to address your concerns.

I am your dedicated point of contact until this matter is resolved. At your earliest opportunity, please contact me directly at the number listed below. My hours of operation are Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern.

Please do not reply to this email, because this mailbox is not monitored for incoming correspondence.

I appreciate your taking the time to bring this matter to my attention. I look forward to assisting you.

Thank you,

Jane Doe
Officer/Customer Advocate
Office of the Chairman and CEO
Office:1.800.123.4567 Extension: ******* (blocked extension)
Commit Case – 12345

might want to remove her name and phone # and fill in with fictional name.

Re: My Recon to Bank of America

ddemari — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 23:30:36 GMT

I had sucess early graduating via analyst and hardpull. She wouldnt remove fee or cli. So i emailed the eo office. A very nice lady contacted me the next day, removed the fee and gave me a 3 k cli. My card was 8 months old at the time.

Re: My Recon to Bank of America

B335is — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 00:10:39 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
{Edited to remove personal information-MarineVietVet, myFICO moderator}

I'm sure several of you read my frustration with the B of A secured card not graduating after nearly 3 years and since I had no luck with trying to RECON over the phone I tried the Capital One approach and sent an email directly to the CEO. My questions for you all.....

1.) What do you think of the letter?

2.) Any possibility this will be a success?

Here is my letter:

Dear,

I understand that you are a busy man but I hope you will take a moment to read this short letter and possibly forward it to someone who can assist me. Several years ago, I was injured and as part of this injury lost my full time job. During this time I racked up about several thousand dollars in medical bills because my COBRA health benefits ran out. It is because of this that my credit took a severe hit. Fast forward to 3 years ago when I started the journey to rebuild my credit and my life. The very first card I applied for was a Bank of America secured Visa. At that time my credit score was a putrid 487 as there was nothing positive reporting on my credit report and tons of medical collections dragging my score down. I knew I had to do something, so as I started this journey to build my credit and also save money (401k/Savings/CD's) for my future I realized that I needed to try and build/rebuild my relationships with some of the bigger banks. I opened up the Bank of America secured card about 3 years ago and have done everything right. Never late, always pay more than minimum payment, and never go over 6% utilization. However, for some reason you all refuse to acknowledge not only my payment history with you BUT also my payment history with the several other banks who have issued me credit since my score has been on the rise.

As I mentioned earlier, my score started at 487 but has since gone up to a more respectable 701 (FICO). This jump was not something that came over night, but rather through hard work and dedication. While my credit score is still far from the goal of 780 that I set for myself in the beginning I realize that my hard work is paying off. Capital One which was my second card has increased my credit line from $300 to $3,000 . Barclays has increased my credit line from $250 to $1500. Also, since the FICO jump, I have been offered credit from several other lenders to which I have turned down in an effort to build the credit I already have.

The whole reason for my rant is because it seems that Bank of America is the only creditor who absolutely fails to acknowledge my great strides in trying to rebuild. When I first got this card 3 years ago, those same medical bills were there.........The reason I got the card was because I needed to rebuild (Which I have been doing), now Bank of America refuses to grow with me as my credit score continues to go up each passing month. As I stated above, I have 9 open revolving lines and in the past several years none of those have been so much as 1 day late. I am doing EVERYTHING the right way and every other creditor has rewarded me for my hard work and dedication to this difficult task of rebuilding.

I don't understand why after nearly 3 years and a 701 FICO Bank of America refuses to graduate my card to unsecured. I feel at the bare minimum I qualify to have my card unsecured. If 3 years of paying on time isn't enough to warrant a secured card graduation, I'm not sure what would be.

I am rebuilding and saving and all I ask is that Bank of America open it's arms just a bit and grow with me. I'm sure this isn't something you would handle directly but being that you have taken such a hands on approach to rebuilding Bank of America I wanted to send this email directly to you because I trust you will make sure it gets to a person who cares about my frustrations with Bank of America.

Thanks for your time

My contact information

I'm late to this, but BoA isn't really known for EO results, like Cap1 is. That's not meant to discourage you, but with that in mind the general tone - particularly the line I highlighted - comes across as someone with a sense of entitlement.

I think you should try to remove all emotion and reference to other cards. Talk about how you've made past mis-steps, taken steps to address them and want your BoA card to continue to grow with you so you can put as much spend on their card as possible.

Re: My Recon to Bank of America

joltdude — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 00:58:20 GMT

This is a waste of your time. I'll be surprised if you get it unsecured this way. 5 years does not erase roughly 30k in medical debt.

Re: My Recon to Bank of America

EddieK — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 01:38:12 GMT

@joltdude wrote:
This is a waste of your time. I'll be surprised if you get it unsecured this way. 5 years does not erase roughly 30k in medical debt.

Relax man...this is the 3rd negative post I've seen from you in the last few threads I read. You must make no mistakes.

Re: My Recon to Bank of America

joltdude — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 01:50:49 GMT

It isn't the fact that I don't make mistakes but op keeps basically repeating the same mistake and expecting different results. Until its cleared up the outcome won't change much