I HAVE HAD IT WITH BANK OF AMERICA.
I have tried REALLY tried to be patient but they have tested my patience beyond its breaking point. Warning: I am about to vent my frustration.
Shortly after my husband deployed in June I received a letter from my credit card company stating that they were being bought out by Bank of America (BOA). Until then I had never had any problems with my credit card company and really liked their customer service. Hubby and I choose to put him on my account and to cancel his credit card company when we married and joined accounts because I had had my card since 2006 and have a great credit limit. We had been happy with this choice up until I received this letter.
With hubby deployed, he uses/depends on this card quite a bit. In particular his Internet is charged to it every month and without Internet, our communication is diminished and he cannot work on his grad class work.
When I received the letter about the buy out in June I was not happy. I was worried about Hubby not having access to the new card. I immediately called up my credit card company and asked them about the buy out. I asked if my credit card number would be changing and they said no. They also told me that my hubby could continue to use the card he had even though I would be receiving a new one with the BOA logo since the actual account number was not changing. Reassured that everything would be fine, the issue floated to the back of my mind. I was not too worried. I had actually had a BOA bank account before we were married and only cancelled it when we opted to get a joint account with the more military friendly USAA instead. I decided that having a credit card with BOA would be fine.
In July I received another letter about the change over and call me paranoid but I wanted to confirm what I had been told the month before because I was still worried about Hubby and his card. This time when I called I was told that my card number was changing but that due to Hubby being deployed I could get special permission to keep my card number until he returned so that he would not be inconvenienced. After several minutes on the phone with a supervisor everything was arranged. Again I thought I had solved the problem before it became an issue.
August came and with it yet another letter notifying me of the change over. Seeing as the "story" had changed last time I decided to call again to verify that my card number still would not change. Again call me paranoid but as you will see... it turns out my intuition was justified. This time when I called I was informed that my number had to change. However, they were willing to send Hubby's card directly to him instead of sending both cards to me at our home address so that he would receive his card at the same time I would and so our card would have less chance of being compromised (I was advised that sending him his card myself would be less secure not to mention that it would take a while to go snail mail and there was a chance that the old card would become inactive before he received it). They were willing to send his card directly to him because his address is an APO which means that it would not cost them anything extra. They took down his address and confirmed everything before I hung up. The change over was set to happen at the beginning of September.
One day in early September I came home to work to find a BOA envelope in my mail box. I knew this was my new card but as I opened the envelope my stomach dropped and I was instantly filled with a feeling of unease as I saw that it contained not just my card, but a card with Hubby's name on it as well. Fearing that his card was sent to me I dialed the customer service number. As I held to speak to a representative I prayed that they had sent a second copy of his card to him and that sending one to me had just been an automatic thing? My fear was confirmed. Everything I had sought to prevent had happened. They had not sent a card to Hubby.
I explained the whole situation for the fourth time. I was informed that not only had they not sent Hubby his card but that but they "do not mail to APOs". I was irate. I demanded to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor claimed to have no record of my previous calls and blamed it all on my old company. After two hours on the phone the supervisor finally agreed to "expedite mail" my hubby his card and to "waive" the $25 fee as a "courtesy" to me. I was about to give him Hubby's address when suddenly he was like wait a minute... please hold. Annoyed I thought.... now what....several minutes later he came back on the line and said by any chance is this your husband's address? reading his address to me. I rolled my eyes. "Yes" I said. It is. Hmmmm now how could they have that information if as they claimed.. I had never called before? If.. as they claimed they had never agreed to mail to an APO... If as they claimed my other company never would have agreed to do that on their behalf. Idiots.
For the next week and a half I pestered Hubby incessantly to check his mailbox. Finally his card arrived. I called to active the new cards only to be informed that they could not be activated. I was put on hold for several minutes while a representative "looked into it." Believe it or not I was informed that the card had been compromised and that we would have to be issued new cards. I was speechless with disbelief. How could it be compromised if it has not even been activated yet? Turns out it had been compromised THAT MORNING by a glitch in the BOA computer system. Go Figure. High Five BOA.... High Five. NOT.
I informed BOA that they would have to send Hubby another card at no charge to us again and I was assured that they would do so and that the card that had been "compromised" could be used until Oct. 23rd and that we should continue to use it since our original card was now inactive. I also want to add that I was told that numerous things I had been told by the "supervisor" last time were in fact not true. Awesome. I informed Hubby of the status. He was going out to the field so we would have to wait until he got back for him to get his card. I wasn't too worried since we had two and a half weeks before the current card would be no good and Hubby was only going to be gone a few days.
The next day while I was at work I got a call from BOA asking me to call them back ASAP. I spent my lunch hour on the phone to them. They claimed they could not mail to an APO. Seriously? I explained to them the situation and how they had mailed to Hubby's APO just week before and literally explained to them how to do their own job. I never had time to eat.
Over the weekend Hubby and I both had issues using our cards. Today is only October 17th.... the card was supposed to be fine until the 23rd. Luckily his card had arrived and I called today to activate the new new card. After being on hold for 20 minutes I finally got to speak to a representative to informed me that I had to talk to authorizations. He transferred me and again I waited on hold. But I was disconnected after waiting 10 minutes. I called back and waited another 17 minutes to talk to another rep. When I finally got someone I explained that I had been disconnected and had been holding for quite a long time. This rep felt bad for me and said he would personally transfer me. I asked the authorizations rep why our card had not been working over the weekend. She claimed her system said that our card was fine until the 26th (yes 3 days past when I was told) and she had no reason for why it had been denied over the weekend. She activated our new cards and I hoped everything was over.
I logged onto my computer to set up my online BOA account. I like to be able to see the credit card balance and Hubby wanted to be able to see our points. I set up the account but was dismayed that it would only let me use my maiden name as a login and would only show my maiden name on the homepage. I assume this is because the system recognized me from when I used to be a BOA banking customer and had an account.
Reluctant to call again I noticed an online chat button. I clicked it and hoped I could resolve it all over the computer as I watched a favorite TV show. After waiting on hold for 10 minutes a rep finally typed back to me. I immediately told her that I wanted to update my name on my online banking account. She confirmed my request and began to take all of my information. After half an hour she confirmed that my card and account showed my married name but that my online account showed my maiden name. However, she then informed me that I had to call a 1 800 number to get it fixed. She could not do it. She claimed she could not fix anything with the online banking. When I asked her why she wasted my time and took all of my information when she could have told me first thing that she could not help me, she told me that I had a good point. She "apologized for the inconvenience." It took an additional 15 minutes on the phone to get this error fixed.
I am done. SO DONE. It is time to shop for a new credit card company. While we are at it I think it is time to find one that does not charge fees for Hubby's "foreign transactions."
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