At Bank of America, your accounts are Buddhist. As in, undergoing “eternal return,” where accounts that have been closed and passed on will reemerge, rejuvenated, reopened, even if you closed them long, long, ago. Reader Chip writes:

I recently moved to a new home and called Bank of America to notify them of the new address. A few weeks ago, I received a “replacement” BoA credit card. This confused me greatly, because the only account I have with them is my checking account! On top of that, the card said I was a member since 1998. That was my first year of college, I only had one card back then, and I was so annoyed by that company (which was not BoA), I canceled the card after only a few months.

Once I finally got in touch with someone useful, we worked out that somewhere in the course of various bank acquisitions, they ended up owning my closed account. So for my convenience, they were kind enough to reopen my closed account. I immediately had them close the account, but I really did not like this experience. The credit account had been closed for almost 10 years, and they reopened it without any direct involvement from me.

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