My husband has been a BoA customer for over 10 years (when they were once called Boatman's bank). My husband has worked the same TV job for 10 years and gets direct deposit of over $900 every two weeks.When I married him, I just changed my acocunt over to joint checking at BoA with hubby's. The problems started about a couple years ago. Direct deposit would show up in pending and available so I would pay bills. Then direct deposit would POST after some (not all) bills had gone through to overdraw my account. I have never had hold on checks from out of state or in-state and, in Dec of 2005, deposited a hand written, non BoA, out of town check for $100 from my mother at the ATM. This was available in minutes to me to spend. I then got a refund check for $874.31 from my college. Here is the whole story, sorry if so long.

The bank in my area knows us and calls us by first name when we come in and, as I said, we never had a problem until the last couple years. I agree with other people here that BoA waits until items come through on your account before depositing money. We use online bill pay and set up our bills to go out on the date my husband's direct deposit comes in. They sometimes let the bills go through first and THEN credit the direct deposit. When the direct deposit comes in it shows up in the pending but is available to us that morning at around 3AM. At around 5PM that same day, the pending part shows the bills are paid AFTER the deposit is there but, amazingly, not when posted. How can this be when they had my husband’s money at 3AM and did not send bills until 5PM that day?? Then they charge $19-$34 for overdraft on EACH payment!!

I once had paid insurance agent money for a home and auto policy and then found he was a fraud. I called the bank that day to put a stop payment on the check and was charged the $28 fee. BoA let the check go through anyway and I had to spend two days getting my money back. All because this guy went online, pretending to be us, to open a home and auto policy. He then used our check to do an online transaction and the bank said that was a different story than a check. I ended up having the fraud department reverse the charges and I got my $28 stop payment fee back AND my money!!! Keep bugging this bank and talk to people higher and higher up until it's fixed. Don't bother talking to a LOCAL branch manager because they could care less.

On Jan 17th 2006, I got a check from my college, DeVry, for a little over $800. It was from excess financial aid and I get these a few times a year. BoA local branch should know this by now. I set up for some bills to go out the next day (online), thinking the money would be there on the day I put the money in the bank. I then went to the ATM to deposit the check but found I had forgotten a pen to sign the bank of the check. I then parked and walked into the bank with my 12 year old. A couple main bank people there said "Hi, Christina, we haven’t seen you in a while!" I said I was busy with school and such and went up to the counter to deposit the signed check. The teller knew me and never asked for ID. I stated that I wanted to deposit the check in my checking account. She then said she could not deposit the money. I asked why not? She stated that it was an out of state check and I only had $30 in my account to cover it. She also said that it looks like you NEVER have deposited this much money in your account before. I was VERY ticked and said "EXCUSE ME? My husband gets over $900 every two weeks for the last 10 years into this account! How do you think we pay for everything!!! I also just deposited $100 with a PERSONAL check and only had $5 in my account. You let that go through!!" She said she was sorry and had been looking at the wrong screen. She then said I would have to talk to the branch manager, Jennifer, to get this taken care of.

Jennifer came over, made a face at me.....HELD THE CHECK TO THE LIGHT like it was a bad check!!! and asked me if I get these checks often. I told her that I get refund checks every once in a while and they can even look on the account and see. She then said she would deposit the money but I can't have access to it until Jan 25th AND even then, I can only have $774.31 of it. I said "WHAT!!! You've NEVER does this to me before! What happens to the other $100 of the $874.31???? She said she would release that later but gave no date. I told her that I better have ALL the money there or we go to small claims court and let a judge decide. She said, "Look I will call your school's bank on the 20th and if the funds look like they will clear; I will release the money to you....all of it." I said OK.

I then went home to complain about my treatment to the main branch and those people said there was nothing they could do and that it was THIS manager’s discretion to place a hold on the account; NOT theirs. They refused to help.

I then called my school on the 20th to see if the check cleared their end and told them what this woman is doing with their money. My school looked at THEIR bank's website and saw that BoA HAD received the money and it had cleared their end. They were so upset with my bank that they called my bank of three way. My bank told my school official that they had found that the money was set to clear but she was not releasing the money until the 25th. My school official then said, " Let me get this straight...You're saying it's your discretion to take the hold off for this woman? And, even though OUR bank's website shows you have our money, you will not release the hold??" My bank said yes. My bank then said they would be nice and maybe release the money on the 23rd instead. My school official then said to my bank that they would call back on Monday to make sure it was done. When my school official and I got off the phone with my bank; the official said this was ridiculous and that I should change banks. I then reminded my official that the bank manager that she just talked to had promised to release the funds on the 20th if the check had cleared. This official said she would NEVER bank there after what she just heard. I told her we were opening up another account at another bank and as soon as my husbands direct deposit starts going to the new bank; we are closing this one.

I later saw on my account that the money had posted but I have no access to it as of the 21st. I also saw, online, that all the bills I paid with their online bill pay went through (5 of them) and I had 5, $34 charges on my account and one bounced check. I then called the bank to complain again and only got two of the $34 charges reversed! My account shows I have about $775 in there but my available balance is a negative $20.54!!!!!!

I then told the main bank, by email, that I would be closing my account soon for these actions. They shot me an email asking how they could keep us as customers and that we have been such good customers with them for a long time BLAH BLAH BLAH. I shot them an email back and said, “You can start by releasing my funds to me that have cleared my school’s bank ALREADY!!! I have yet to hear back from them.

BoA released the hold on my check on Jan 23rd, charged me $138 in fees, and then had my bank account all messed up. They are a dollar off from what my figures are on Microsoft Money. I downloaded everything they have into Microsoft Money for years and it's never been wrong. My balance, AFTER downloading and checking against BoA account 50+ times, if a dollar off. I think these freaks are trying to get me to overdraft and take fees, thinking I am too stupid to catch the error and spend a dollar over, just because they know I am trying to close my account with them. I opened a better checking, savings, and money market account with a bank that also holds my insurance. BoA told me they saw that I sent money with my Check Card to this new bank and asked if I was leaving them. I said "darn right I am!". I am glad I caught there error or I would have gone overdraft again for their mistakes!. I took the $1.00 out of Microsoft Money so I do not go over and can't wait to close the account as soon as our direct deposit is moved to the new bank. What nice people BoA are....NOT!!!! When I caught the error, I called BoA and asked to speak to a "manager". I was told there was a hold for $1.00 and they had no idea why. I told them I would "eat" the dollar by taking it out of my check book register as "bank error". The next day...the dollar was back in my account.

Yesterday I transfered all my money to our new bank and that would have left us with $1.18 in the BoA account. I use the BoA for NOTHING as of now except for sending money from my BoA accoutnt ot eh new bank until I can close BoA out. I checked my BoA account today and the butt heads are trying to put the bounced check from the hold through again after waiting 3 weeks AND AFTER I pulled my money from there bank. Of course the check bounced again (I paid the darn business it bounced from ALREADY!) and I am charged another $34 for the bounce! As soon as my husband's direct deposit is at the new bank, I am paying the $34 I "owe" BoA and closing the account.