I want to report on Bank of America's shady policies concerning overdraft fees. I deposited a check into my account one day last month. I waited for it to clear, and when I returned to the bank, I was told the check HAD CLEARED and that I could draw on the money. My wife needed to make a wire transfer abroad, and after getting the bank teller's assurance that the check had cleared and that the money was in our account, she made the transfer.

A week later I am in the bank and make another deposit. Things are fine until I go online later that day to make an online payment and notice that my bank account is overdrawn $900.00!!! Now I was just in the bank earlier that morning with a teller smiling at me. Could she not have mentioned I was $900.00 in the red? Anyway, I go to the 'Personal Banker' immediately to find out what happened. Apparently, the check I had deposited a week earlier had bounced, AFTER my wife had already made the wire transfer with money that was not in our account. So even though I was told by Bank of America's own staff that the funds were available, they actually were not.

I asked the Personal Banker why my wife was allowed to make a wire transfer of $1500 dollars when the check hadn't cleared, and he responded that because I was such a 'preferred customer, ' the Bank gave me the courtesy to 'forward' me the funds (Of course, overdrafts would be charged for the courtesy.)

So now I'm overdrawn $900 dollars, and overdraft fees start to avalanche on me. Bank of America takes no responsibility, and the Personal Banker tells me that 'the computer' won't let him remove the overdraft fees. The Personal Banker also TOLD ME that Bank of America used to not allow customers to draw on funds that were not in their accounts, but that now they DO allow this because overdraft fees are such a large part of the bank's revenue.

I had been a customer at Bank of America for 15 years. I regularly make wire transfers at $50 dollars a pop. This bank may have made a mere $120 dollars on me this time, but they lost much more in potential future revenue. I hope I might warn others about Bank of America's policy.

Do not, I repeat, do not draw on any account until you have absolute proof that your check deposits have in fact truly cleared. Even the bank tellers will tell that you checks have cleared when in fact they have not cleared. If you then draw on these accounts you will be penalized with expensive overdraft fees. I recommend getting a hard copy of cleared checks before any more transactions with your account are made so that you can protect yourself from consumer exploitation.

Bank of America, as subtly told to me by the Personal Banker, relies on CONFUSION and MISCOMMUNICATION to lure you into this kind of mistake. This way they can hit you with several OVERDRAFT FEES. Then they will blame it all on the automated 'computer' system which cannot be over-ridden by the Bank of America staff. How convenient for them to pass the blame onto the faceless master computer.

This experience, along with a few other customer nightmares Bank of America has given me, has made me realize that big international banks cannot service the average American consumer. I am moving my accounts to a smaller local bank and I recommend others do the same.

15 years of customer loyalty meant nothing to Bank of America. I guess my next wire transfer fees will go to another bank now.

We took advantage of the supposedly interest free offer we received in the mail. There was a fee of 3% for the balance transfer, which was unusually high since it had no cap, but not unheard of.

When we got our first bill, there was 21.24% interest charged on the loan fee of $360. It was on the bill as a cash advance. I thought it must be a mistake, but no, they informed me that's what they intended. And the interest started accruing from day 1 of the advance. Isn't that cute? So for $3.60/month in interest they have royally pissed me off and I will tell everyone I think might need to know about this ridiculously greedy practice. One would think that with their bad rep in the news these days, they'd realize it's counterproductive to nickel and dime their customers in this manner.

At the advice of a credit counseling service that is non profit I made arrangements with the 5 credit card companies I had cards with. BOA is the only one that is not paid off in full to this day. They actually collected 300.00 per month for one year while they decided whether they could accept the agreement. None of which went for the balance. I have paid over 5000.00 and still my balance has not gone down. It is the only card service which was unwilling to work with me to get my debt paid off. They are predators.

I went into the bank to close my account as they kept charging me overdraft fees on April 5th, 2008. I was told there was one more transaction that had a fee so I paid that extra $35.00 and again asked for the account to be closed. The person would not do it and told me I had to wait until Tuesday to see if another charge might come through. I explained to him that I was authorizing NO more transactions to go through. Since then B of A has gotten my overdraft fees up to $811.90... all their fees for returning items after I closed the account.

Now they are threatening me with the Telechex system to prevent me from taking my monies elsewhere!

I have a Bank of America account. I deal with the bank nearly always by the Internet or telephone as I travel often. Awhile back I ordered a CD that paid 5% interest. I knew roughly the date when the CD would mature, but not exactly when, as the bank didn't include details of it in my bank statements. I received a letter from the bank that my Cd had matured and the bank had rolled it over to another CD paying only 1.59%. I hadn't asked the bank to roll the CD over, they do it without asking.

I could see on the Internet that the Bank of America was at this time offering interest rates of 2.5% on CD's. I applied online for another CD with the higher interest rate. Knowing that if I changed the CD that the bank had given me within 10 days there wouldn't be a penalty.

After a wait of several days the bank emailed me that I couldn't apply for a new CD online, but had to contact my personal bank for one. Seems the online offers are for attracting new customers. I contacted my representative by email asking for the CD to be changed for one with the going interest rate. There wasn't a response from her, I inquired again a few days later and was told that I had exceeded the time limit and would be penalized three months interest if I changed CD's.

My sister, who also has a Bank of America account, had the same experience. The bank must save a lot of money by paying less than the current interest rate. Another thing about the Bank of America is their horrible computerized telephone system. It's very difficult to get to speak to a human, and when you do they never know anything and can't help. They say they need to transfer me to another person to help. I plead with them not to put me back on the telephone computer system, but they mostly do.

I really dislike this bank and am searching for a better one.