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How Safe Is Your Money?

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It was a routine transaction we’d made many times in the past without a thought – a cash deposit with a teller at Bank of America on Saturday morning, May 19. Monday morning, I woke up and was notified via text that our joint checking account was overdrawn by several hundred dollars. Immediately alarmed when there should not have been any transactions large enough to have caused an overdraft, my husband and I both logged into our online banking.

After a great deal of searching and believing somehow we’d simply overspent, we realized that the cash transaction from Saturday was missing. Scrambling and a bit panicked, we contacted Bank of America’s call center and were told there was no deposit. We located a receipt and electronic record of the deposit but our online bank statement showed no transaction at all. No text message confirmation from Bank of America.

At that point we called back and were told it was a server glitch that would be fixed that night. We were assured no payments would be rejected, all overdraft fees would be returned, and late fees would be credited. Feeling somewhat reassured but still worried, we waited. We made sure each of us had a little bit of cash. Then this morning, what was a negative $200 balance ballooned to a negative $500 balance. Savings account thankfully wasn’t auto-transferring but definitely was concerning because much of our cash was in the checking account to cover upcoming expenses.

I called my local Bank of America branch in a bit of a panic and was told they were “working hard” to fix the issue. They “hoped it would be fixed tomorrow”. The problem is their idea of “working hard” doesn’t have my bank account fixed after 48 hours. Rent is due in 7 days. My car payment is due today. Car insurance is due in 10 days. Electric bill is coming out any day now. My car needs gas. What the hell am I supposed to do until they fix it? Why did it happen in the first place? Why weren’t there safety procedures in place to prevent this? How long will this go on?

So, I contacted my local news organizations and talked with a very nice reporter with WFAA, who investigated further. Bank of America says it’s a relatively minor issue that’s affected a small number of individuals in Texas, the situation is under control and going to be resolved by end of business today. Is that just PR? Attempting to prevent a panic? What’s the real story behind this situation? I’m told Bank of America knows every individual who this happened to. If that’s the case, why hasn’t someone contacted me from Bank of America? Why hasn’t it already been fixed? Why am I being told I need to go into a branch to fix the problem? Most importantly, why am I the only one that seems to think this is a really big deal?

Update: 4:37 P.M. CST

Received tweets from @BofA_help (^bm) apologizing for our experience and offering help. We’ll see what happens since two phone calls to customer service and speaking with a branch supervisor and WFAA reporter still haven’t resolved the issue.

Update: 7:30 P.M. CST

Received a phone call from Brandy with @BofA_help who immediately issued a credit to the account as well as reversed the fees that had been incurred thus far. She also offered a gift card to the location of my choice, for an unknown amount. While I certainly appreciate the gesture and her expediency in resolving the issue, it does leave me wondering when the other shoe is going to drop and why the last three people I talked to didn’t consider doing that? If it was that simple of a fix, why wasn’t it accomplished sooner? Also received contact information for a VP at Bank of America’s corporate location thanks to the reporter. Apparently I was one of three people to call about the situation today. This situation has definitely shaken my faith in the banking system and raised some questions about the reliability of my bank to be able to provide both convenience and maintain my trust long term. And I doubt a gift card to Target in any amount is going to solve that concern.

Update May 24 9:37 a.m. CST

Husband’s debit card was declined and we received a text message that our account is over-drafted $375 even though it shows a positive balance. Sent a tweet to @bofa_help. This is now day 4 since this problem started.

Update May 24 10:27 a.m. CST

Spoke with Brandy from @bofa_help. Stated the credit from last night was reversed in their system and that was the reason for the declined card. Has extended the funds availability to three days (Monday) which should give time for a fix. Spoke with PJ at WFAA who is going to investigate further.

Update May 24 8:45 p.m. CST

Have spoken with or tweeted with @bofa_help several times today. Their customer service has been very helpful and responsive. Impressive even. I like tweeting with them as opposed to calling in and being on hold because then they call me or respond via tweet. Very efficient way to communicate. I wish more companies provided this kind of customer service!

Unfortunately, despite Brandy’s best efforts, my bank account still isn’t quite right yet. For those who have never worked in banking, every night there’s a bank server update and it takes a little time for the accounts to be adjusted. Your banking account isn’t exactly handled instantaneously so when something goes wrong, as in this case, it usually has to be fixed by an overnight update. I’ve been assured that it will be fixed in the near future, hopefully tonight. Our account balance is still wrong, however the debit card is working (for me at least, not sure about husband’s after this morning’s declined transaction). I talked to my husband today about just closing the account and opening a new one (with Bank of America) but he disagreed with the idea because of the hassle factor, which I can agree with. I’ve found many banks are all the same – some are much worse than others (like Capital One, Comerica, First Bank of Texas, Three Rivers Credit Union) while others offer more features and benefits (Bank of America, Wells Fargo, USAA, Chase) which seem to help outweigh the occasional issue. Many banks, I’ve learned are a bit predatory in their fees and some of their charge policies but recent legislation seems to have curbed a number of the abuses.

I was able to get gas this afternoon and my debit card worked but my bank balance is still wrong. Hopefully that’ll be fixed tonight. After four days, worrying about my bank account is a bit draining. I hope our deposits tomorrow go through the way they are supposed to or we’re going to have a big problem with several major bills coming up in a few days. I miss trusting my money will be there as I expect it to be and I hate the doubts this situation has raised for my family. I’ve never considered anything like this happening before. After talking with the reporter who stated the other day, “When you deal with computers and technology, you’re bound to have problems along the way”, I can’t help but wonder if that’s the case, then what can I do personally to protect myself against such circumstances? I’m certainly not prepared to stash all my money between the mattresses but the adage “Always have mad-money on hand” definitely seems like a wise idea. I wonder if anyone else is having similar issues or worse?

Update June 7, 2012

Fortunately, it seems all the previous issues have been resolved. My deposits have been handled appropriately and with the exception of one transaction being declined (an automatic ACH that I rescheduled the next day), I incurred no fees or further issues once everything was finally handled. Major major kudos to the Bank of America Twitter help team for all of their quick response to me! @bofa_help was awesome, especially Brandy. We probably talked half a dozen times or more to resolve the various issues and the staff were professional, courteous, understanding and went out of their way to assist me. What started off with me being very angry at BOA, has ended with me as a satisfied customer. In fact, next time I have an issue, I won’t bother contacting my local branch, I’m going straight to Twitter! The only thing left is to receive my Target gift card and I will be very much a loyal customer once again. Great job BOA!

What are your thoughts? Do you use Bank of America? In light of all the recent bad publicity Bank of America has experienced, how much do you trust them and banks in general? How would you respond if this were you? Please share your comments with us!

The post How Safe Is Your Money? appeared first on Charity Kountz.


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