Bank of America major issue with Billpay/Autopay, what to do?

[ficobuilder923]

Hi all,

So there is some crazy stuff going on with my BoA account. Here are the facts:

1) Their main dashboard says that I'm overdue and need to pay them on my CCR Visa even though my BillPay says the payment was processed today. 

2) I had set up BillPay Autopay to pay the minimum in September with a VERIFIED credit union bank account. Verified meaning they send you two small deposits and you tell them what they were. 

3) I check BillPay Autopay and it says November's auto-payment processed that was due today, which is good (or so I thought!?). 

4) I check BillPay and it's been doing its thing for the past 3 months/billing cycles (Sept/Oct/Nov). Sept/Oct were processed and pulled and then marked PAID in their BillPay system. 

5) Here's where it starts to get weird - my minimum payment for this month is $116 when October's was $43. I look at Oct's statement and they said I never paid. They are also now charging me a late fee.

6) As a result of October's late fee, they dropped my card's limit down from $17,000 to $5000. I have a 0% balance transfer for 15 months starting last august for about $4300. So I'm practically maxing the card out now (4300/5000 instead of 4300/17,000) and it's tanking my credit score.

7) I look into my bank account, NOTHING was withdrawn a month ago on 10/25 despite BoA's system claiming it did. My account always has thousands in it and the minimum was $43 so there is no way it got returned and they would've told me about it if it did. 

8) My minimum payment was due today so I called back and just did a direct phone payment for not only November, but October as well until this gets sorted out. I don't want them saying that I missed TWO in a row here.

9) I call BoA tonight and talked to a supervisor who was flabbergasted. She had no answer as to what is going on with the Autopay. It's clearly showing that it was drafted, processed to my bank, and marked paid in their system. Yet they never pulled it!!!!!!!

So folks, what do I do now? Call Recon and tell them to look into it? Have the online team look into their online system first as to why it failed, and THEN call Recon when I have a definitive answer that they screwed up? Because there's no way a verified bank account would fail unless it didn't have money in it, which was definitely not the case here. 

This is extremely frustrating because we just bought a house and it's tanking my score. Luckily I have 4 months or so to fix it before we apply for the refi after the rehab but this is nuts. I have 25 lines of credit cards with other companies and NONE have had the online system problems that I'm having with BoA, NONE. None have lowered my credit limits either (guessing the "missed" payment from Oct triggered it). Heck I can't even set up Autopay for my BoA Biz CCR Mastercard, I tried calling 5 times and just gave up. For whatever reason, their system won't show "minimum balance" as an autopay option even though it did for the personal CCR. So I just call that one in manually which sucks.

Long story short, do NOT believe Billpay if it's saying that the autopay drafted/processed/marked as paid and make any assumption like I did. Double check that it was ACTUALLY withdrawn from your bank. This is a nightmare to deal with and I swore at one point to never do biz with BoA when they started charging fees on their free checking accounts for students about 20 years ago. 

The supervisor said to call back tomorrow and they'd get things sorted out, so fingers crossed I can get my credit limit back and my late fee taken off. She admitted it's completely confusing and their autopay system is screwing up somewhere so they'll most likely be able to reverse the fee. But I have to call Transunion (what?!) to get my card's credit limit restored. 

[FinStar]

It definitely sounds frustrating.

So, a few questions:

- Have you ever set up Autopay from BoA before with any other external accounts or is this the first time, meaning 3 months ago?

- Which Credit Union is this with that the Autopay is failing?

- Do you have any deposit accounts with BoA?

- How long have you had the BoA CCR?

Typically, when the account goes into default (even by a few days), a CLD can occur. This is pretty standard with any form of AA.

It almost sounds like on the front end, the Autopay feature indicates things appear to be normal, when they really are not. To me, it sounds like a back-end interface issue between BoA and the particular CU being used with the Autopay feature, regardless if the account is verified.  Verified simply means that you can execute transfers between accounts, but for some reason it's failing with Autopay.  

[ficobuilder923]

Hi Finstar,

In response to your questions:

- Have you ever set up Autopay from BoA before with any other external accounts or is this the first time, meaning 3 months ago?

No other external accounts, this is the only one.

- Which Credit Union is this with that the Autopay is failing?

Congressional Federal

- Do you have any deposit accounts with BoA?

No, the only ones I had were from 2005 when I closed my checking account.

- How long have you had the BoA CCR?

Since August along with BoA Biz CR.

Totally agree on the back end failing on BoA's part to auto-debit. Not only that, but why is the system saying it was paid?

Wondering if the recon number I have on a search is valid: 866-224-8555?  It does say that this is if you get rejected for a card and this situation is a bit different. The rep on the phone gave me Transunion 800-916-8800 but not sure that is who I should be calling for this. In any case I'm about to call the manager, will keep this thread updated for others who may go through the same thing.

[lakerfan2011]

I used to have the America west visa through them had tons of problems with there auto bill  pay it was a mess I think u should write a letter and email the ceo they respond back pretty quickly they are a mess trying to get refunded for late fees I had one recently because I missed the cutoff time by an hour it was the still the same  day here but past midnight eastern I talked to several reps got no help so emailed the ceo and finally got it refunded  never missed a payment flawless pay history and it was like an act on congress to get one late fee refunded 

[SoCalGardener]

@ficobuilder923, I'm really sorry this has happened to you. But--based on 30+ years of experience with BofA--I feel confident they'll fix it. They've never let me down.

Your story is yet another cautionary tale against relying on auto-pay without following up yourself. I tried auto-pay back when it was brand-new, and quickly decided it wasn't for me! Too much room for error.

Again, based on many years of experience with BofA, I feel quite confident that this *will* get sorted out, in your favor. Please update us and let us know what happens.

[Anonymous]

I  have heard similar stories like this so many times before. I too have quite a few credit accounts yet I always make my payments myself. To hope that a free service will  have your back is never a good idea. Yes it is more work to do it yourself but it is better then having a problem like this. Even if you decide to use this bill pay service in the future you still have to be pro active and check to be see it is working properly. You need double check every payment to be sure it has been made all the time. All you can do now is try and correct the CLD and move on.

Thanks

Mark

[xenon3030]

You may consider opening a checking account at BOA and use it to pay for the BOA cards. It works flawlessly and for each transaction from the checking account (ACH, CC payment, etc), you will receive also a confirmation email.

The autopayments sometimes are not trusty (bug, glintch or website issues), and in addition to set the autopayment option, you may also check each CC in weekly/biweekly and pay them manually.

[SouthJamaica]

I never rely on autopay.

I only set up autopay as a fallback in case I were disabled or dead and not around to make the minimum payment.

[Anonymous]

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@SouthJamaica wrote:

I never rely on autopay.

I only set up autopay as a fallback in case I were disabled or dead and not around to make the minimum payment.

---

Very well said.

Thanks

Mark

[ficobuilder923]

Ok so quick update - what happened is I called and set up autopay on October 8th and my bank was also verified that same day. As a result, they said the autopay would not work in the same billing cycle (payment was due on the 24th of each month) and it did work this past week on 11/24. So long story short, you were right @SoCalGardener they did make it right and remove the late fee from October. My main point of contention is that since this was set up on the phone, I don't recall the CSR telling me it wouldn't autopay that month. Usually I would have noted it in my spreadsheet with all my accounts. What was also throwing me off was that the Billpay system for October was showing "Marked as Paid" which apparently can be done manually by myself or a CSR. So it's not clear how that got there but I don't remember doing it. 

Regarding the credit line restoration, they said I'd have to re-apply with a soft pull so I did that and it said they'll let me know in 5 - 7 days after review. Also, on the credit line decrease letter, it listed a PO Box to respond with any correspondence so I typed up a letter on what had happened and requested the credit line be restored to its original limit and sent it certified. Long story short, my credit line may or may not be restored but it won't be for a lack of trying. 

TL,DR; - Be aware that autopay will not work in the same billing cycle that it's set up in! Yes, even 2 weeks+ prior to due date will NOT work.