More questionable behavior from BofA! I CLOSED my account!

[visualfxpro]

Yes it's them. The CEO went to prison:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/former-ceo-municipal-credit-union-sentenced-5-years-prison-mult...

[Remedios]

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@visualfxpro wrote:

My income is only relevant to them not graduating my card. Your income is a factor they consider.

As for the people saying it's my late payment. YOU are saying that. The bank has not. If it's my late, then they would/could say that.

Also, just because a person has high income, does not mean they have a lot of liquid cash just sitting around. Elon Musk for example has to liquidate assets to make a big purchase, as do I. Liquidating assets is not always easy. I also took big loses in the stock market recently. Also, you don't know how long I've been making what I do. What if I just got a big raise after being out of work? You don't know anything about my financial situation. What my cost of living is. Nothing. So without those details, none of this should be surprising as you don't know enough details. There are people who making millions a year that have negative net worth. High income alone, means nothing. You don't even know how much I'm paying. If the house was a million dollars like the first house I looked at, then 20% would be $200k. You also don't know how much you will need at closing as the number keeps changing, so you want to overshoot and get as much cash as possible. It's all adds up. Every dollar counts.

My financial journy has been a rocky one, due to the economy and my carreer. So I have a LOT less than you would expect for a person with my income and at my age. In all the chaos, I also neglected to build retirement much, which is one of the reasons for the house. It's my retirement plan. Also, although my spending is low, my bank accounts are usually very empty. Most of my income gets moved quickly into investments and assets like gold and now I'm shifting to realestate, where a ton of my income will be parked. So a majority of my net worth will continue to be in hard assets or investments, which means if I need a lot of cash, it will be tricky and complex. I plan to eventually build up better cash reserves, especially with a big quadplex, but previously I've had very little cash ever. Keeping cash in savings, does me no good until I need it, like now.

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Then why bring your income into the conversation? 

I mean, you made it sound as if somehow because of your income they should graduate you, yet several pages later, totally different story.

It is your late, and they do spell it for you under "evaluate account performance", so I'm quite unsure what you're mad about.

You made mistakes, you had to go with secure cards (nothing wrong with that), you made another mistake, they aren't comfortable extending credit to you. 

Sure, no one should told you you'd have your money back in a day or so, but T&C govern how the process works and you agreed to that when you opened the account.

I get the venting part, but you should really stop this "everyone shady" when your (unrealistic) expectations aren't met. If anything, calling everyone shady is pretty darn shady in my pop up book. 

[visualfxpro]

So here is the latest:

The upper manager who said they would expidite the return of my money to 24-48 hours and that claimed this was the norm for him, has now been proven wrong. Not only is my money not back, but everybody I speak to is 100% contradicting what that last guy said. So to all the people who are talking about what the policy is to challenge my saying they are sketchy. How many times do I have to be told completely oppositite things before it's shady to you? What would it take for you to get suspicious, especially knowing bank fraud is not uncommon in this country? This bank aquired Merrill Lynch who has a shady past.

Bogus reasons to not graduate card
Claim to graduate it and sending my money back in 2 days, then 2 days later say the opposite and now talking 14-21 days
Another manager claims to be able to expidite return to 2 days (ANOTHER claim of 2 days), then 2 days later manager says he never heard of this and it will be up to 21 days

This is people in Texas, in Los Angeles and in other locations as well as local branch. In any other situation where you deal with people who can't keep their stories straight, we would all suspect fraud or you are being lied to. Why is it that some people refuse to accept the very real reality, that Bank of American just might be up to fraud, just like many other American banks have been in the past?

What is more likely. In a country filled with banking scandals, this is yet another one or all the people just so happen to be super incompetant? Why is there a sytematic break down of communication with these people?

I don't really get the need for some to try to defend banks. Banks are not our friends. I'm not saying they are evil, but the idea of regular Americans standing up for banks which make a ton of money praying on the poor, is strange to me. It's like it's harder for some to believe it's the bank, than for them to think it's somehow my fault that every single person I speak to (without fail) has a contradictory story.

Keep in mind. I work in banking. And ironically, my employer also has ongoing scandals. We have had to pay MILLIONS in fines for some shady business practices. I'm not involved in anything like that, but others in the bank have. I wonder if some people still don't understand how corrupt our banks are, in this country. I assumed by now, most people would be super skeptical, ESPECIALLY with credit card companies. I'm not trying to be mean, but it's the truth. Is my bank up to scams? I can't know that, but it sure looks that way to me and is very likely given the history of our banking industry.

BTW, I've worked for 2 other banks that both had big scandals. We got delisted one time and another was some big criminal investigation. This stuff is rampant...and we only know what we know. Trust me, there are many more scams that are going on, that have not been exposed yet.

[visualfxpro]

Hi TheRedHat, what if I was your manager and I told you I'm giving you a raise in 2 days. Then in 2 days I said, there is no raise, don't be rediculous. Then you go to my manger and the manger says that's true, but they can get you a bonus check in a couple days. Then a couple days later, you are told that is rediculous.

Then you get frustrated and share this story with others who dismiss it and quote the employment terms, which clearly sate "Raises are only to be givin at the end of the year". Does that make sense to you, that people would dimisss behavior that is characteristic with shady bahavior in such a way?

How do scammers typically opporate? Is it not common that stories keep changing and they will keep strining you along and even be rude to you? I have gotten all of this from the bank, yet many find this to be acceptible behavior somehow. I'm guessing if a car saleman behaved this way, these same people would call it shady and walk away, yet for me somehow they side with the bank and completely ignore what is clearly shady behavior. There is nothing more shady than flip flipping on a daily basis and when everybody at a place is doing it, that is super shady. I'm not sure how anybody could not see that.

[FicoGuy2019]

Front line reps don't know a lot and that has been proven time and time again.  You will get different answers 7/10 times.  The terms and conditions clearly state the actual facts, regardless of what any CSR tells you.  While their information may not be accurate and the farthest from the truth, the facts have been written which have been agreed to upon card acceptance.

BoA is not shady at all.  My highest cl is with them at over 90k.  They won't give me a large credit line like that on my 2nd card with them which I don't understand but that doesn't make me think any less of them or think they are shady.  I have multiple checking, savings and investment accounts with ML and have never once had an issue in over 15 years of banking with them with any accounts or credit related products.

Like you stated  "I'm sorry if you have had a good experience but pick the worst product on the market and at least one person loves it probably."    The same is true in reverse.

You stated you are closing 4 accounts with them, they aren't going to miss you especially since you don't keep cash as you say, so why have 4 accounts in the first place?  Are you a Preferred Client?

High income does account for a lot.  If you're high income with negative net worth, that means you're managing your money wrong or living above your means.  That also goes for moving the majority of your income to the stock market...nothing at all guaranteed about that.

I have a lot in investments but I can sell if I need to for any reason and it's available to wire out directly to my bank account.  There's nothing complex about selling and wiring out or sending it to yourself via ACH from any broker.

Don't live life day to day relying on credit.  

[Jeffster1]

Good grief. The more I read, the more I can't shake the feeling that there are parts of the story left out.

[jcooks]

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@visualfxpro wrote:

So here is the latest:

Not only is my money not back, but everybody I speak to is 100% contradicting what that last guy said.

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That CAN happen when you try speaking to multiple people if you don't like that person's answer.  Especially when you went in branch and demanded the manager to call after they said you would have to call.

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@visualfxpro wrote:

As for the people saying it's my late payment. YOU are saying that. The bank has not. If it's my late, then they would/could say that.

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Banks don't always list EVERY item that they could have denied you for.  I applied for the Hyatt a month after getting approved for CSP.  I was denied for too many new accounts.  I called for recon and was denied after a few days for other reasons.  I'm not saying that it's your late payment or your charge off that's still showing since I don't know their underwriting.  They're looking at your overall performance, and I would bet that charge off still showing as well as the late payments DIDN'T help your cause to graduate.

[visualfxpro]

What is amazing to me, is how many people don't consider traditionally shady behavior shady. The most CLASSIC shady behavior is a constantly changing story which is usually the result of lying. A car saleman who told you yesturday, that he can get you 10%, then when you come to buy, he says he can't do it. Then you find out other things he told you were wrong.

You sign up for some work at home deal and are told it won't cost you anything. Day one, somebody tells you, you have to buy inventory. You complain and are told something else, which might change again tomorrow.

You see an add about 100" TV on sale for $200, starting tomorrow. You go there the next day at oppening and they are trying to sell you another one for $2000. When you ask about the sale, they say they ran out. Then when you question this because you were first one in, they claim the add was for another store. You go to the other store and they claim they are not running the special.

Shifting stories is CLASSIC shady behavior, yet so many people here are OK with Bank of America's every changing naratives. Twice now I'm told my money will be back in 48 hours. Once from a manager and once from associate. Then I'm told the opposite, the next day both times. On top of that a manager was rude to me (another trait of shady business; they will get an attitude with you if you call them out). Then people speak about my late charge. So 3 years of exceptional account history and tons of usage and you really think the late charge that they NEVER point out to me or even imply is a logical reason? You don't think it's more likely they have tons of customer's money sitting in an account earning hundreds of thousands in interest? This seems like easy way to make money and get away with it. A MUCH safer scam than many of the other ones, these banks have gotten caught doing.

Wells Fargo openning accounts without customer request, or Bank of America, simply holding onto funds and giving bogus reason for it, that are just enough to potentially hold up in court in combination with their disclusures that some here like to point out while completly ignoring how shady they have conducted themselves.

Let me ask you this. What would it take for them to make you think they are bing shady? Would you need to see $500 taken out of your account and then they say, they don't know what happened, sorry? do you need to seem them pitch me on some new crypto that I find out does not exist? What would it take before you start getting suspicious? I've had 6 people in a row all tell me different stories. Would it take 10? 50? 100 people? How many times does the story need to change for you to become suspicious? What does your fraud radar look for? Hidden charges maybe? Maybe, the day you open your account, you start getting slammed with emails from scammers online within minutes of you openning an account. Would you THEN be suspicious or would you say it's probably just coincidence? Would you consider that maybe they are selling your private info?

[FicoGuy2019]

If you have so many issues with banks and trust, why not just stop banking? 

If you have so much in investments, why not use them for banking as well since you don't seem to have any issues (at least not that you stated) with your brokerages?  They have checking and savings accounts - TD, Schwab, Fidelity, etc.

[visualfxpro]

'but you should really stop this "everyone shady" when your (unrealistic) expectations aren't met. If anything, calling everyone shady is pretty darn shady in my pop up book. '

It's unrealistic to expect a bank to not keep changing their story every time you call?

As I stateb before, the point of my income was to show that it's was rediculous not to graduate me. High income means a $3k card is tiny. The risk of me running into trouble is very low. You have a high income person with no debt who has never missed a payment.

So in a country where so many are in debt and have less income than they perhaps need, who will get graduated if not me? Am I more risking than a person with much less income and who had debt? Again...I was trying to expose how bogus it was that they don't graduate me. That they would rather lose a customer than give me a tiny unsecured card. I can't believe how many people seem to think this is rational.

Note that the person who claimed to graduate me, agreed with me that I should have been graduated long ago, but somehow many people just miss all the shady stuff they did. I mean the guy agreed. You think the bank rep is also being unreasonable? Maybe he was lying to me? Incompetant? At what point will some people start to even consider that this is just a horible company with many systematic failures being demostrated here? Does a rep need to slap me in the face or literally grab my wallet before some will even consider that they have done wrong?