I opened two Bank of America credit cards back in March of 2007 before I, or anyone else for that matter, understood their practices regarding overdraft 'protection', overages, and the landmines they lay all around you designed to wreck your credit rating. By the time 2008 came around, I found myself in a mountain of debt, for me, $4000 after getting out of college and not being able to find a job. Overdraft protections led to overage fees, and I found myself with my credit rating wrecked, and it took a bailout of my own from my parents in order to close this pandora's box that I had opened.
From talking to many other friends and acquaintances and reading internet message boards, this scenario played itself out over thousands of times. A pattern emerged: Bank of America was marketing products that they 'offered as a courtesy' to their clients as a way to keep their accounts generating revenue for their company. Nowhere on their online interface could I find anything resembling a box or something that would remove overdraft protection. I learned too that they would never decline any payment, just so they could charge the outrageous overdraft fees. Slimy, slimy indeed.
Well, I cancelled my account with them in 2009, finally, after months of fighting. Despite the meticulous urging of many of their representatives during at least 6 phone calls, I had finally managed to settle the balances and closed all of my cards and accounts.
Or at least I thought I did.
I went to go apply for a loan for a teaching certification at my local TD Bank. TD has never screwed me in the 15 years I've had them, so when they told me that my loan was declined because of late balances, this was news to me. When I went to download my credit history, there I saw: there was a balance on one of the Bank of America cards I had closed that was 60 days past due.
What. the. fuck. Not again!
The first thing I did was call up the credit agency and dispute the charge. I then called up Bank of America, who told me it was from paying my phone bill with the card.
So either one of two things happened:
1.) My laptop was stolen the week before, and my crackhead ex-roommates who stole it put charges on the card. This seems unlikely, as vindictive and destructive as they were.
2.) I accidentally paid the phone bill with the wrong card, which is like the undead touch to the Bank of America card, resurrecting it into a zombie that starts eating my credit rating and I don't realize it until it's too late. Being too busy trying to get myself off of charges of burglarizing my own apartment for performing an illegal eviction on said roommates for not paying me their rent before they moved in and for beating each other (a story for another time), I clicked the wrong button on the phone bill's interface, billing the Bank of America card I hadn't yet deleted from the phone bill.
Either way, even if it was sort of my fault, what the fuck, Bank of America. What you're trying to tell me is that if someone steals my identity, and I had CLOSED the cards out, they will still resurrect these cards and start charging you and thusly destroying my financial history, which I worked so hard to fix after the first go around. No means no, and yes, I'm applying the rape metaphor here to Bank of America, so sorry if it offends anyone. There is no such thing as a closed account with this company, apparently, so they will continue to fuck me and all of you. The man on the phone at Bank of America also before also hung up with me when I said to close the account.
The whole point of this diary, I suppose, is to get someone knowledgeable on consumer protections and financial regulations to tell me if the new bill protects people in this instance. I attempted calling someone at Senator Lautenberg's office about this, but the resident expert on financial matters was on the other line. What resources to I have to make sure my accounts are closed with financial institutions I no longer want to have business with? I obviously don't have the money to litigate against Bank of America, so kossacks please enlighten me!