Bank of America recently paid off its TARP loans. I can't get a response to my issues at the bank so I am sending this letter the President of the division which handles my loan in the hope I get a response.

Please rate and comment if it adds value to you and anything you can to share with others I would appreciate. 

Mr. Brian T. Moynihan, President

Consumer and Small Business Banking

Bank of America

Telephone and Fax numbers unavailable

Dear Mr. Moynihan:

I was going to remain a customer of yours until actions taken by the bank forced me to reconsider. You leave me no choice but to terminate our relationship. I realize it’s the holiday season, but unfortunately, you simply don’t fit into my plans anymore. I’m sure there are other customers out there might want to deal with you, but I would recommend to them terminate the relationship with Bank of America and start a relationship with another institution.

It’s almost funny, because this was all in your control.  In October the Bank informed me that my fixed rated Gold Option Loan would be become a variable rate loan beginning on February first. I have had this loan for more than 24 months, was making regular payments and was bringing down the balance. The bank’s arbitrary and capricious actions can easily be characterized as usury, in the same way that a neighborhood loan shark would change his victim’s rates on a whim.

I must say that when I called in response to the October letter your staff did a great job trying put a positive spin on this communication telling me that if prime interest rates went down, my interest rate would go down under the new provisions. That’s fatuous, as no one expects the prime interest rate to drop. Ironic that in the course of drafting this letter I received a form letter from a Greg Davis, a Senior Vice President indicating that the bank had decided not to implement this variable rate plan and offered a tepid apology for any inconvenience. Well too little much too late.

Based on this bombshell in October, I decided to make plans to payoff this loan. I visited your on-line banking website and followed the prompts to chat on line live with a representative. After conducting a live on line chat session with you customer service representative, employee Nikolas, I asked explicit questions about the payoff of this loan. I’ve enclosed a copy of the web transcript for your review. My questions was, “what is the payoff amount? Is it $X,XXX or is there additional interest due?”

His response was, “The outstanding balance is $X,XXX. It includes all of the things.”

This was an explicit answer to an explicit question by a person in a customer service role representing the Bank of America. Based on this information I made an electronic payment for $ X,XXX on December 9, 2009.

I was extremely disappointed and distressed to learn that after my loan was balance was $0.00, you debited my bank account for an additional $500.00 on December 10, 2009 and in my December statement indicated I was being charged $200.21 for interest. I also have a credit balance of $299.79. I am irate about this.

I called your customer service number this on Monday, December 14th. I spoke to Elizabeth. She informed me that I was given “incorrect information” and I, in fact, owed an additional $200.21 in interest. She had no desire to review the transcript with me on the phone, nor was there anyway for me to fax my documentation for review. The interaction was unsatisfactory and I asked for the call to be escalated to manager.

No manager was available and I would have to wait and have a call returned. Let me say that having worked in Customer Service for most of my 35 year career, an escalated call means an immediate response to a customer. I placed a second call to the toll free number near the end of the business day and spoke with Tony. Tony, took a more rational approach in at least listening to my situation and offered to refund $75.00 of the $200.21 for my “time and trouble”. He also told that the person who interacted with me via chat should not have given me any payoff information and should have referred me to the toll free number which during our conversation I learned is the former MBNA facility in Belfast, Maine. Quite frankly poor employee performance and failure to follow procedures is not my problem. It is Bank of America’s problem. I told him his solution was not satisfactory, I still wished to speak to a manager. He said it usually took up to 3 days to return escalated calls. Three days, is simply outrageous and egregious. He did make a pledge to have a call returned to me today, preferably before 12 noon eastern time.

It is now 3:30 p.m. as I write this letter. Is it the policy of the Bank to fight a war of attrition with its customers? Ignore them and hope they go away? I visited your web site with the hope of getting a telephone number of your corporate headquarters in Charlotte, NC, to voice my concerns to management. There is none listed. I also couldn’t get a listing through directory assistance, either. Just a listing of toll free numbers to call centers staffed by people with the clerk mentality. This is a poor way to do business.

When I visited the website I read the Code of Ethics document which was revised in June 2009:

These are great principles with which I agree and endorse. Based on my experience, they don’t appear to be in practice in your organization. There is little or no interest in doing the right thing for me, your customer. There is no trust. I can’t believe anything any representative of your company says to me. There’s no interest in winning for this customer. You have lost this customer, forever. I don’t see any leadership, and I haven’t heard from any leadership. Perhaps you will speak for leadership in your response.

You will probably hear about this letter before you receive it in the mail. I am posting this on my blog at OpenSalon.com where I write under the pseudonym OEsheepdog. I am in hope that the editors of the blog will give this prominent positioning where thousands of readers will read this and judge for themselves what you have to offer as a financial institution.

I expect that the Bank of America will return the $500.00 to me. There is nothing to discuss and the documentation supports my case. I will also consider filing complaints in 3 different states, Maine, New York (where I work), and Connecticut (where I live). If necessary I will use the court system to recover these funds.

It’s possible the Bank of America may prevail. You will have received a lot of bad will advertising, and expend much energy and resources, financial and human to collect your $200.21. It’s time for you and the Bank of America to do the right thing. My contact information is below. If I do not receive a response within 24 hours receipt. I will take assume you have no interest in resolving this and I will take appropriate steps to recover my funds.

Sincerely,

CC:      Honorable Chris Dodd

            Honorable Joe Lieberman

            Honorable Barney Frank

            FDIC

            Honorable Timothy Geithner

            Honorable Andrew Cuomo

            Honorable Richard Morgenthau

            Honorable Janet Mills