March 2020 by Jenny L.
I've been a loyal customer for decades and yet the lack of coordination between the departments (online banking & fraud department) as well as with Merrill Edge frustrated my family with four members using BofA to the point of threatening to withdraw our accounts. What should have been simple to setup, such as a Zelle transaction, was a nightmare. When helping my dad, who is 79 years old, learn online banking in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak where seniors will be fined for leaving the house, the fraud team stated, "You can't teach your dad to use online banking for sending money without adding all the recipients, who are kids, to his account as co-owners." This policy, which is a conflict of interest that enables elder abuse, was confirmed by five representatives in the fraud team, including two supervisors, and yet they all found this reasonable unlike the online banking team of four representatives, including two supervisors who stated that the fraud team was wrong about this policy and recommendation. To make matters worse, the fraud team undid what the online banking team did to help walk my dad through how create his online ID for using Zelle after verifying his identify with the speaker phone on to guide us step-by-step. Bear in mind that each time we called, there was at least a two hour wait with multiple transfers to the wrong departments and calls being disconnected without anyone calling us back. This all started because my dad's check from Capital One took two weeks to clear using mobile deposit compared to a few days for my brother, who is a regular BofA customer without preferred status and received the same amount from the same bank from our dad. However, as a Gold Preferred client, I didn't feel like one nor did these delays reflect this in their "algorithms". I've rarely see my dad lose his temper, but an online banking supervisor refused to conduct a three-way call as per my request to align a plan of action with their fraud team before wasting my dad's time from more verification questions that he passed for several times in several days. Although my dad passed all his verification question in the past, he missed one of five questions that even I couldn't answer since it relied on one's memory without any context (e.g., statements, computer to view account) at the time: "What month and year did you open your account?" Unlike Fidelity, which uses voice recognition, the supervisor also pissed my dad off with a series of verification questions that he had repeatedly answered correctly for other reps by raising her voice thinking that it would be clearer for a 79-year old with a hearing aid without realizing that this creates more indecipherable noise. Despite telling the reps each time that they should call my dad on his cellphone, which I set up with bluetooth to direct calls to his hearing aid for clarity, they disregarded this along with several of my other suggestions (e.g., three-way call the relevant departments) to maximize effective use of his time without aggravating him further. This frustrating customer experience tore my family apart with arguments due to BofA not being able to handle these matters efficiently and effectively with the customer's perspective in mind like Capital One and Fidelity did. The local branch manager was able to resolve things as per my request, but even his tone and impatience seemed off-putting by implying my dad can continue visiting the bank with: "Your dad came to the bank a few days ago. What's the problem with him coming in? . . . . I've got several people waiting that I also have to take care of." Furthermore, they neither advised him not to withdraw his required minimum distribution from his IRA (due to the exception this year for COVID-19) nor told him the implications of withholding 20% of this that he likely overpaid in taxes before filing his tax return to see if he qualified for deductions, refunds, etc. This statement came just a few days after America
