Cassie writes that she is trapped in an extra special circle of banking hell. No matter what she does, Bank of America is unable to close her checking account. Just when she thinks it may finally be dead, the bank charges inactivity fees to her account, which in turn re-activate the account, starting the process all over again. It’s like the worst zombie movie ever.

I have recently had the pleasure of speaking with Bank of America more times over the past few months than I ever did while my account was actually in use.

Bank of America will not close my bank account. Not only that, but they keep charging me “service fees” for having it open, which overdrafts my closed account.

(A quick note on these “service fees”: When I asked Bank of America’s customer service why I was being charged service fees on a closed account, all they could say was “Hm.. well it looks like the fees are what re-activated the account”. Um… what?)

I have called them roughly 5 or 6 times in the past few months to close my account, each time with a different individual. Each time, it does not close. I have been given the same run-around of “Hm… well it looks like the last person to close your account did not close it correctly.. I will make sure it is closed now. I have refunded those charges to your account and you should be all set.”

I “closed my account” with Bank of America over a year ago. I moved from Michigan to Ohio and my location does not have any Bank of America branches for about 30 minutes. For a while, I received nothing but account statements every month, stating that my account contained $0.00. I figured that these were just stupid and harmless and threw them away whenever I received them. It wasn’t until I saw the charges coming through earlier this year that I finally called in.

I spoke with someone roughly a month ago who said that my account was NOW closed and that I would receive a notice in the mail saying that. She said that they would also be sending me 1-2 more statements on my account after it was closed. I never received anything in the mail until today, when I received a statement in the mail, saying that my account had a balance of $0.00. Now extremely frustrated, I AGAIN called Bank of America. I spoke with a woman who I immediately felt bad for because I was about to unload on her. I explained how I’ve been calling them for months now and they keep telling me that they’re actively closing my account and then I get charged service fees on a closed account which re-opens it. I explain to her that I am sick and tired of calling and that if she could just direct me toward a supervisor of some sort, it would be appreciated.

She did not direct me to a supervisor but instead apologized for me having to call in multiple times, expressing professional sympathy toward my plight. She said that she was looking at my account right now and it was indeed closed. I asked her why I am looking at a statement in my hand right now. I told her that I never received a notification that this account was ever closed. She said that they are required, by law, to send out 2 more statements to the customer after the account has been closed. I didn’t argue this because I have no idea what the laws regarding that are. I asked the woman to please re-send the statement that says that my account is closed. She agreed to do that.

I then asked her–if my account is closed, why, when I call in, does it say that I have an account balance at all?? There should be no account. She didn’t give me a direct answer but instead said that she would go ahead and remove my account from the automated system (this didn’t really answer nor solve my issue… but I just didn’t care at that point). She did this while we were on the phone and I confirmed with her once again that she would be sending me that notice that my account was CLOSED. She said that it will be mailed out in 5-7 business days and I might get one more account statement. I told her that at this point, I just didn’t care about the account statements but I would look out in the mail for that notice that my account is indeed closed.

I do not know if my account is actually closed or not but I guess we’ll see. I would just go into a branch location but the nearest one is 30 minutes away and I am not jumping at the opportunity to be further inconvenienced. I kind of feel like I am backed into a corner of calling and calling and calling because there is really nothing more they can do than say they are closing my account and there is nothing more that I can do than believe them. Meanwhile, whenever my account is overdrafted due to this, I can’t imagine that it does good things to my credit.

Let’s hope that the… 5th or 6th time is the charm, eh?

Yes. Let’s. Otherwise, I hear a bullet right to the head is effective. Or maybe that only works for actual zombies, and not zombie bank accounts.

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