Bank of America Online
So for the last several weeks, I’ve been trying to get access to my BOA banking / credit card information online. The main hitch has been that last year we opened an emergency checking account with BOA for Melissa’s family, and never activated our debit cards. See, in order to access online banking for my credit card, I apparently needed to know what the account number and pin number was for the checking account. Lucky for us, Melissa’s brother was also on the account and so he would have his account number and pin, right? Wrong. No luck there.
Melissa and I showed up at the local Bank of America branch and got that all straightened out by activating one of the cards, putting a pin on it, and then finally getting logged into the account online. *yay*
Well, the whole point to this exercise was so that we could pay for the credit card online through the the bank’s website. So, I get home, ready to get down to business… and when i click on ‘pay now’ it comes up with a little error message saying that my online bill pay is being setup, to wait 2 business days, or call some 1-800 number. So I waited a couple of days and tried again. No love. I didn’t have time to call the number, so I figured I would give it a bit longer, and just tried again today… now about a week after we got things fixed at the branch.
I called the 1-800 number, and was able to pay my account over the phone, which they were kind enough to waive the $15!!!! fee that it normally costs to do that. They were also nice enough to waive the late fee that was on the account because of all the hassle. Kudos to BOA for that.
The problem now came though when I was transfered away from the bill pay folks, over to the internet support folks. First off, this involved waiting 25 minutes on the phone. I literally ate breakfast and read the newspaper while my phone was on speaker waiting on hold. Once I explained the error message to the support tech, she promptly informed me that I would need to contact bill pay, the people who sent me to her.
Now, I’ve been in technology long enough… and have been on hold to India enough times to know exactly how to deal with this situation. I simply said ‘No. I’ve been on hold long enough, and have explained my situation to enough people today. You drew the short straw. Sorry.’ Most of these folks have not read QBQ … so I get varied responses, but I have found that If I say this, the person will usually understand and will at least take the burden of explaining the situation to the next person they pass the baton to.
This particular tech actually didn’t need to transfer me, she was able to resolve the issue herself… sort of.
See… Bank of America’s online payment system is setup sort of strange. As a software engineer, I can understand why they did it the way they did… reuse is king. However, and I think the term I used with the tech on the phone was ‘convoluted’ … the way that they went about it is a bit… well… convoluted. They have a nice single link under my credit card summary that says ‘pay now’. Awesome… that’s what I want to do. But when you click that, you’re taken into ‘bill pay’. Odd. Again… I can understand why they did it as a software engineer… why rebuild a payment system when we have this nice bill payment system already setup and all we need to do is setup BOA credit card as a ‘payee’? Great in theory guys… but that little ‘pay now’ button is pretty misleading. Every other online banking system for every other credit card I have… has a really quick and easy form for me to make my payment.
To make matters worse, once you setup the credit card as a ‘payee’ … you are only able to draw a payment from your Bank of America checking account! How does that make sense? What if I wanted to use an account with another bank? What about another credit card? Check / Debit card? I’m not convinced that these folks want to get paid. It really does not work well for me because the checking account is an account that we setup specifically for emergencies for my wife’s family.
So… after addressing this with the tech on the phone, she let me know that BOA has this thing called ‘myeasypayments.com’… which is an online payment system apparently designed for just what I am trying to do, all in 3 steps. My question is, why do I need to setup an account with yet another website just to pay my bill? No matter, as I can’t seem to get past step 2 anyhow. My browser just hangs, and so I have given up and will have to resort to the tried and true method of envelopes, checks, and stamps.
I told the tech that she had been very helpful, but that the BOA website was useless, and that I couldn’t see how an average user was expected to use it. She said ‘Lots of people really like our website, and we’ve even gotten awards!’ … Kind of makes me wonder about the folks who give out those awards.
Another thing… what is it with all the interstitial pages they use? It takes me 3 pages to login as it is, and then I have to click through one more page to get past their advertisement? And then they hit me with yet another interstitial when I log out? Come on already! Isn’t online banking supposed to be convenient?
Bank Of America Online. Secure because it’s impossible to use!
Hi Jim,
Stumbled on your site and feel like I've caught up with you and we haven't even talked yet. Blessings ...
hey Pop... 'falling' isn't always bad either... so long as you are 'falling forward'. Think of how track and field ...
Thank you Jim. 
Gravity also works well. The only tough problem is telling the difference between forward motion and falling. 
Hey Melissa and Jim,
CONGRATULATIONS! I'm so happy for you two! I'll pray for a safe, and healthy pregnancy/baby! ...
I agree that the best place to find investors to work with is by finding a local investor's association. ...
Thanks,
Just stumbled on your post. It was very usefull. 
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January 8th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
So i posted this article as a ‘review’ of Bank of America’s online banking. They have this neat little feature that allows users to post reviews, but it requires a BOA staff member to review it. I ranked it pretty poorly, i think 2 stars out of 5 … and it has yet to show up.
there are 609 pages of reviews, 4 reviews per page, only 160 of the total 2400+ reviewers ranked the service under 4 stars, and several of those appeared to just be folks who did not understand that they also had to rank via the stars, in addition to making a comment (these are shown as positive comments with a single star ranking).
i find it very hard to believe that BOA is not stacking the cards in their favor, given that they require a manual approval process prior to allowing a review to be posted. weak.
January 8th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Another thing to note is that the reviews are only available to existing customers who are already logged into the service. again… weak.
February 13th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
I am in the midst of a Bank of America problem now. I have been transferred, cut off and sent back to the main issue for the past 2 hours. Seems they paid off the balance of my loan, instead of taking out the minimum due. They said I ‘authorized’ this, but none of my information indicates this. After multiploe conversations, with like 7 different people, I was told they woud give me my money back but it would take about 3 weeks to recieve it snail mail. They took it out on one day and can’t replace it the next??? That won’t help my bank account or my overdraft costs, which they refuse to pay, even though it was their mistake.
I will NEVER do business with them again and would strongly suggest if you have an account there, RUN away!
February 16th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Sorry to hear about your situation…I’ve had similar experiences with other banks, and one way that I have learned to keep the creditor’s grubby paws off my money is to keep very little money in the checking account that I use for my bills. In fact, there is not much more $ in that account than what is needed for 1 or 2 months worth in expenses. I then have a high yield (4.4% APY) savings account that I maintain 6 months worth in our expenses in as an emergency account, and then another 6 months worth in expenses in short term (3 month) CDs in Euro with http://www.everbank.com. This way I earn a good deal of interest on what is essentially emergency funds, which are immediately available with a simple bank transfer… and if I absolutely need more than 6 months, I’m only 3 months from being liquid at any given time. Another thing that this method helps with is limiting your exposure to the consequences of identity theft. By only keeping enough money to pay for my immediate expenses with my most active account… if this account was to be compromised, my exposure is limited to the amount of money that is found in it. The remaining accounts are essentially ‘off the grid’ because they are not being used for making purchases on Ebay.
By keeping my CDs with EverBank in Euro… I’m also shielding myself from the declining dollar. The value of my money in dollars increases with the value of the Euro, and if it looks like the USD is going to make a comeback, I’m only 3 months from being able to take advantage of the exchange. Capitalism is the most sincere form of patriotism I say.
One positive experience with BOA:
We had opened the checking account mentioned in this article for my wife’s family when her dad was sick with cancer. We opened it there because they were the only bank that was available in Scranton PA, Murfreesboro, TN, Pittsburgh PA, and Monks Corners NC… which is where all the family was spread out to at the time. BOA was nice enough to waive all of the fees associated with the account and eliminate the minimum balance requirements, as the account was basically just an easy way for everyone to contribute money to the cause.
However, We were really surprised when about a year later, we got a NSF (non sufficient funds) notice in the mail referring to that same account. Apparently they started assessing fees to what was then an account with a $0.00 balance, which put it into overdraft. After several phone calls, I finally figured out that I would have better luck with our local branch. Once I was able to explain the situation to a human, we were able to close the account and she got rid of the overdraft fees.