Wow. That is scary. Maybe contacting the state consumer protection agency or the banking regulators in your state?

Yet another reason why I don't do direct debits like that. I hate the idea of giving someone the authority to direct debit my checking account. The only one I have set up is my mortgage payment and that is held by the bank I have that checking account with.

Citibank must have similar policies. I had an online checking account with them and the associated debit cards and the account is still very much alive, just "inactive". Log onto the Citibank site and I get check my zero balance, sign up for new services, etc. I had a refund that was mistakenly sent to that account and guess what, it instantly reactivated.

I can't unsubscribe from the mailings, I can't close this account. La Cosa Nostra would be proud.

This is another reason why I am happy as a pig in S*&t that I made my last payment on my BoA credit card last week and no longer have to be their customer.

@weave: But it's not just that. It could be a check you wrote months or years before.

With as much hate as BAC gets here, no major bank has substantially different polices than any other. Chase, Citi, BAC, they're all the same.

Wow. I had no idea they pull that kind of crap. I have had no trouble closing several Wells Fargo accounts, for what it's worth, so this probably is not an industry standard. Just BoA being jerks.

@qwickone: "But it's not just that. It could be a check you wrote months or years before."

I'm sorry. I thought you had to cash a cheque within 6 month or it becomes "stale-dated" or void.

At citibank... if someone you authorized once to make a charge on a cancelled credit card account makes another charge... then it will be connected & charged to your new card. I had a POS candy company (Hometowncandy.com)who never had any plans on delivering what I paid for (and continues to operate, screwing others over the same way)... I made a chargeback & asked citibank if they decided to charge me again that it would be put thru & I'd have to deal with the false charge again. Sounds insane!

"What strange logic."

Indeed. Following advice of other posters in a previous BoA story here, this weekend I attempted to order an ATM-only card from BoA to keep in my wallet instead of carrying around the full Visa check card, which I had intended to keep locked up at home. (I planned to start using a credit card for daily purchases which would not directly expose my bank account to possible mis-use.)

Nope, BoA told me, I can have one or the other, but not both. Why, I asked? It's a security thing. Bah!

American Express does the same thing with their credit cards. I suspect this practice is far more common than most people think.

@enm4r: Which is precisely why I advise everyone I know to avoid them like the plague, and find a credit union to join.

That kinda sounds like something my bank does to 'help me' that infuriates me. I don't have overdraft on my account. This should mean that if I don't have the money... it says 'insufficent funds' and I'll be on my way... but it doesn't do that. It allows my bank account to go into the negative for 24 hours. If within that 24 hours you put money in to replace the negative it's ok, but if you miss the 24 hours, they take the money back from who ever they 'loaned' it to and then charge me $18.50. In fact, even if I get the money in within 24 hours, they still charge me $18.50. I've asked several times for them to stop doing this, but I guess it is a 'service' they do in order to 'help me'... yeah, help me lose 18.50 because you let that 2 dollar bag of chips go through. grrr...

BofA dude: "All we're doing is honoring the electronic debit agreement you signed with other merchants."
Translation: "You signed up for this, d!psh!t, now gimme my money!"
Bank of America: BANNED!!

This is why you completely stop using the account for a couple of months and THEN close it. It's also why I am very cautious about using direct debit versus a credit card.

Interestingly enough, Chase has a policy where reactivated accounts do NOT appear in your online account manager (even if you had previously had it linked). So when a debit is made from the account you will rack up a nice collection of overdraft fees for a month or so until you (hopefully) get a paper statement in the mail.

write up a letter that states that you are closing the account effective mm/dd/yy & do not authorize them to pay anything past that date. DO NOT SIGN IT. take it into the branch & ask for a notary. sign it, have it notarized & deliver it to the account rep (9 times out of 10, they are the notary, so this should make your job easier). oh, & make sure you have a copy. it might even be wise to have the account rep acknowledge receipt of the letter.

If BOA feels obligated to honor agreements signed with other merchants, then can I set up agreements with my utility companies to debit BOA accounts that don't even exist? In other words, give a BOA routing number and unused checking account number, and then have BOA "open" an account automatically when the debits come in?

I had the exact same thing happen to a Capital One credit card. 6 months after I "closed" it there was an electronic credit issues and they silently reopened the account. On a whim (after I didn't receive the credit where I expected to) I tried going to their website and logging in with my old credentials... voila, it worked!

"Here at Bank of (Italy) America, we can do what we want how we want because we capitalized on the rebuilding of San Francisco after the great quake/fire."

Didn't someone on here a while ago post that you could call and report your card as lost in this situation? If I recall once you've called that in you are not responsible for any further charges made on that account? Don't know if this really applies here or not.

I've had BofA pull this crap with a savings account on me before. I don't have direct depost nor did I have over $1,000 in my account. So I was being charged $5.95 for account fees. When I went to close it they signed me up for Nuevo Futuro savings account. $25 a month transferred to savings = no account fees. I signed up and was happy for a year.

One day I began being charged again. When I inquired why they informed me they stopped the Nuevo Futuro account. I asked when they were going to tell me, they said they mailed it out with the statements. I only get electronic statements to save paper. So she had no answer. They cancelled the account and moved all funds over. Then for 2 months kept debiting me the $25 and then re-depositing it. No one had an answer until I complained about their lack of competence. The CSR told me that the person who closed it didnt close it right. He fixed it and no more charges.

But alas I closed that checking account out last week due to their fee increase to $8.95 a month for an account I don't use. Bye bye BofA hello Wamu.

I'm currently fighting a collection agency because of BoA's never closing accounts. I waited a full 30 days after I had confirmed all my debits were hitting my new credit union account before I settled up with BoA. Then Geico messed up and hit the old account. Geico immediately corrected their mistake along with the overdraft fee, which made the account 'zero' again. I confirmed with a BoA 'branch manager' that the account was closed and forgot about it. Fast forward 18 months, and I get a bill from a collection agency for $734.82...all monthly service charges and overdraft fees from BoA. Not one outside vendor.

Bastards.

@weave:

Yup - who on earth would give companies authorization to go straight INTO your checking account and remove money? It's like giving someone a key to your house and piggy bank and saying "take what you need"

If there's a dispute the money is gone already - versus getting BILLED then paying with check or card where you can work it out before hand.

Plus even for people that do this the bank has no business siding with the business rather than you. In many cases people have said "STOP this shady gym membership deduction" or whatever and the bank will keep processing it for as long as it comes in.

Direct checking billing = bad bad idea.

Crap. Finding out about this too late for me. I'm already a Bank of America checking owner. Guess I'm "BOA 4 Life!!!!"

I had same problem years ago with Citizen's Bank. Direct Debit came in after account was closed. For whatever reason, bank reopened my overdraft account to cover the debit and lo and behold, I now owed them money. I paid it off the first time, but somehow it happened again, at which time, I refused to pay. Went to collections ($40)which I first disuputed and then just ignored, and every now and again, I still get a collection letter from some sleazebag company or the other....7 years and running....

they do this in ny too

, "ten years from now if someone I had an agreement with previously decides they want to try and electronically deduct $200 from my account - that would reopen it."

This is exactly what Bank of America told me back in 2001 when I had to close my business account due to someone using our ABA routing/account number to buy porn. The manager shrugged her shoulders and said that yes, another unauthorized withdrawal would open the account and there was nothing they could do. Needless to say I got all my accounts the hell out of BoA and am now banking with a regional bank.

The American banking system is a big steaming turd.

@JAMESDENVER: Yup - who on earth would give companies authorization to go straight INTO your checking account and remove money?

The kicker is you don't even have to authorize it! All a fraudster needs is a check (a disgruntled customer, for example, who gets a refund) and they just need your ABA numbers from the bottom of that check. Ouila, unauthorized withdrawal, USA style!

.

@mac-phisto: I did that to stop fraudulent carryover charges from a compromised credit card. It worked.

I had the same problem with Fifth-Third once. When I moved from Ohio to Connecticut I closed the account. Months later, I used paypal to pay for a purchase, and somehow managed to select my old Fifth-Third account instead of my new checking account, without realizing it. Of course, I moved, so I didn't receive any overdraft notices they may have sent to me, and didn't notice it until a month later when I wondered why my payment for the item I received was not deducted from my account. Then Fifth-Third tried to tell me that I could only cancel my account by going to the original bank I opened it at and closing it in person...Drive 13 hours to re-close an account I already closed once? Yeah right.

Reason millionth-and-one to join a credit union.

@deadlizard: Please provide incontrovertible proof that no credit union, anywhere, ever does this, or STFU about credit unions. Thank you.

I joined BoA when I first moved just so I'd have a place to put my money while researching other banks. About two weeks later I pulled it all out and closed my account.

Unaware of BoA's reputation, I did not follow up, and exactly 1 year later (to the day) I received a notice in the mail telling my my account with a 0 balance had been closed per my request.

I still don't know why they didn't charge me a bunch of fees during that year, but I won't ask questions, I'll just consider myself lucky...

@dualityshift: Not true. It's supposed to but it doesn't always work that way. I found a small check from a friend that was 2 years old and tried to cash it anyway to see what would happen. I waited until it was the correct month that the check was written in.

They never looked at the year, and apparently neither did the banks larger check center either. I got the money and the day went on.

it simple, just say your card got stolen right before you want to close your account. don't use the new card, close your account. any old card transaction that would try to go through wouldn't because the numbers on the card are connected to a stolen card.

@enm4r:

There are very few instances where Chase will reopen a zero-balance closed account. Debit card transactions (unless the customer has claimed debit card fraud), paper withdrawals, transfers between two subsequently closed accounts, deposited item returns, and other similar non-returnable transactions are about it. Usually we're reopening because either someone screwed up and we're letting them reverse themselves or because the customer is kiting and we're going to let the account charge off. Fees and service charges are always returned internally unless needed to zero the account out.

Stories like these are why I never, ever, EVER authorize or activate any automatic deductions for anything, at anytime.

My wife works at a bank of america call center, and let me say this, going into a branch to fix a problem is a horrible idea. The people at the branch know absolutely nothing about the bank, or the systems involved. We changed her single checking account to a joint one, and she actually told the personal banker how to do it!

Basicly, if you hear some BS like that from a person at a physical branch, no matter how high up on the BofA food chain they are, call up the call centers, escalate if need be to a supervisor, they will be able to close your account with out it "Reopening"

@beavis88: CU's are great, but they are getting as bad as banks with the fees and other assorted bull. My CU, charges a dollar if I use my PIN # for a transaction instead of running it like a credit card. So when I use it, they hold that dollar because they say they have no way of knowing whether it was a check/credit transaction or a debit one. This is complete and utter crap, b/c they can tell, and just like to try and get more fees, b/c on at least 2 occasions they tried to charge me an overdraft fee, oh wait I'm sorry an overdraft PROTECTION fee of 25$, because they held that dollar and it made the account under by a few cents. BASTARDS! If there was a better option I would jump on it, but they are still better than any bank around here.

More than likely you won't be able to get to the floor that Mr. Lewis works at (if he is even there). You might try visiting him in Stonecroft, where he supposedly has a home.

"What obligation does Bank of America have to honor a contract between two other parties?"

Reg E says they do. The reason they do this is because it's the law.

@snoop-blog:

This isn't about cards - it's about the actual checking account - with routing numbers.

I opened an account with BofA a few years ago. At the time, they required that I get a savings account along with the checking account. They then proceeded to LOSE the initial deposit for the checking account, which was then automatically closed for zero balance....so my ATM card didn't work.

Luckily, I save my deposit receipts, and they were able to find the money. I asked what time the money would be available in the account. They said 3pm. I showed up at 3:30pm to withdraw all my money and close both accounts.

At each stage of customer service, they reiterated that "any bank could have made this mistake". I used the analogy of the "bad first date" to try to drive home the point that I wasn't leaving the branch without my money in cash.

BANK OF AMERICA = BANK OF FEES

You need to watch them like a hawk if you bank with them. They are the bank that has been changing low rate credit cards to 36% APY without any change in customers credit.

I had the never-closed account experience with BofA about 3 years ago. It's troubling that they are still doing it.

I have a rule for myself these days. Never ever ever ever allow ANYONE to debit your account. You can set up auto bill pays to be outgoing from your account. But never ever ever allow anyone to take money FROM you without your immediate knowledge. They have no incentive to keep your interests at heart. Protect your money.

Why are people so surprised? Banks don't want to be involved in agreements the consumer made with a 3rd party. Automatic debit is contractual and simply closing an account to avoid paying the monthly debit (and avoiding the guidelines of the contract) is illegal in itself! Consumer needs to deal with 3rd party. Otherwise, if debits persist, then you file a fraud claim with bank and that's when they step in.

Cue Max (of Sam and Max) yelling "WHY WON'T YOU DIE?!?"

I think just about all banks out there will maintain your account after it's "closed," to deal with any debits (or more unlikely credits) that happens after it's closed.

Personally, I think that's a prudent move on the bank's part. After all, who's to say that a person will close his account and flee after deliberately getting other services to charge to the "closed" account or have an honest mistake and close the account before all original charges clear.

HOWEVER, I don't think banks should be keeping the "closed" account dormant indefinitely. There should be a clearly delineated ending point. If banks can't be trusted to finally close and delete from records, the gubbamint should start regulating and (god forbid) ENFORCE IT.