Legal theft by bank

[frostfire]

Has anybody ever had the displeasure of having their account deemed dormant by a bank and had the fund supposedly sent to Dept. Of Revenue, but when you try to claim it, there's no unclaimed property under your name?

Now what? Is there any legal action you can pursue without going completely broke from the lawyer fees?

I will never EVER deal with **** ** * ****** B of A again !!! They got this wonderful policy that does not include online banking as type of activity. Unless you make visiting the teller a monthly habit, say adieu to your hard-earned cash! Should have, could have, would have listened to all the horror stories.

I sure am biased, but I strongly urge you to trust your money under the care of different financial institution. As always, read the fine print. Bank of America is not the only one.

[mdb23]

How do they define "dormant?" Were there no funds going in or out of the account? When you talk about online banking, do you mean that you were paying your bills electronically and had direct deposit, or that you logged on and checked the balance every now and then?

How long was the account dormant?


If you can provide the above info, I can do some asking around for you. One of the guys that I work with is married to a BoA branch manager.

[AngelsSix]

Never had this happen, both myself and my husband have BOA accounts and we never go to the counter. We do all of our banking online for the most part.

[frostfire]

Originally Posted by mdb23

How do they define "dormant?" Were there no funds going in or out of the account? When you talk about online banking, do you mean that you were paying your bills electronically and had direct deposit, or that you logged on and checked the balance every now and then?

How long was the account dormant?


If you can provide the above info, I can do some asking around for you. One of the guys that I work with is married to a BoA branch manager.

thanks for the offer to help, mdb23.
After numerous phone call, emails, and visit to a branch, I was able to close the account and retrieve the fund.

As you all may be familiar with, automated phone processing system sucks big time for troubleshooting. I even got hung up, and had to get the checking account # from a different dept.

The email response was top notch. Quick turn around. However, for the first 3 replies, they kept telling me to go to Dept. of Revenue even though I did and got nichts. Finally, the last one told me account is reactivated and available for processing. So the fund was still in BOA the entire time??? hmmmmmmmm Normally, I'm a big believer in no means no, but this time persistence pays off.

The branch manager was top notch. I put a good recommendation/feedback for her.

The account was dormant for around 6 months. I used it when I worked out of state, then I used it for paying bills, and finally just checking balance online.

Learnt my lesson. Those stories about account opened in early 1900 then the owner/heir retrieve it back in the 90's with tons of interest cannot happen under the "dormant account" policy in just about any bank.

Folks, use me as a bad example and don't let the same hassle happen to you. To prevent dormant account status:
1. Make a transaction with a teller at a banking center, an ATM, a point of sale, through Online Banking, or Automated Service transactions. This does not include balance inquiries.
2. Make an address change for the account
3. Incur a fee for any requested transactions, such as stop payments, statement balancing, or check copies
4. Make a wire transfer transaction.

[AngelsSix]

Or you could simply inform the bank of your situation. I have been deployed lots of times for more tha six months and as long as they had a copy of my deployment orders I was good. BOA offers military -specific accounts.

[Paslode]

In my state the bank is required to send you of their intentions proir to closing an account and deposing of the contents. None of my experiences with B of A have been positive the worst of which was a mistake on their part that caused a slew of checks to bounce that took months to correct. If memory serves right they made a mistake on by leaving off several zero's on a deposit....their intial response was We don't make those mistakes.

I changed to a customer service oriented local bank long ago.