Roger Greenwood Charged Interest On $0 Balance Bank Of America Credit Card [VIDEO]

Roger Greenwood was sure Bank of America had made a mistake.

The Jacksonville, Illinois man received a credit card statement that showed he had a zero dollar balance, but the bank was still charging him $39.23 in interest anyway, according to the Chicago Tribune:

In August, he charged a vacation rental to his credit card, resulting in a $5,734.13 balance. Weeks later, he received $1,450 in credits from two merchants, lowering his balance to $4,284.13.

Greenwood reportedly said he paid off the remainder of the balance before it was due, but a BofA representative told him that "credits are not considered as payments on credit accounts," so Greenwood was being charged interest on the $1,450 that the credits were supposed to have wipe out. The bank eventually reportedly said it would refund Greenwood's money "as a courtesy," according to the Tribune.

(Read the entire story at the Chicago Tribune)

After hearing of the ordeal, The Consumerist cautioned its readers: "Word to the wise, if you got a large amount of credit back on your Bank of America credit card, better check your next statement to make sure they're not erroneously charging you interest."

This isn't the first time BofA's frustrated customers have garnered headlines. Earlier this month, the bank reportedly threatened to foreclose on a family's home after it had already been sold -- over a single dollar. And in September, a grieving widow sued BofA after she allegedly received up to 48 calls per day over a missed mortgage payment.

It doesn't stop there, either. In July, it was reported that BofA had directed $30,000 worth of Social Security payments to the wrong person.

News of Greenwood's ordeal comes just a week after BofA announced it would scrap its plan to charge customers $5 every month to use their debit cards, which elicited a large number of customer complaints and even calls for a federal investigation.

Amidst all the anger felt for big banks, BofA CEO Brian Moynihan expressed frustration with the public not seeming to notice the positive contributions his employees made in the community.

"I, like you, get a little incensed when you think about how much good all of you do, whether it's volunteer hours, charitable giving we do, serving clients and customers well," Moynihan said to employees in an October town hall meeting, as reported by Bloomberg.

Comments

[TrutherUSA]

12:25 PM on 11/11/2011

I had the same issue with a Sears credit card. I bought an item, paid it in full upon receipt of the bill and then they charged me interest. When I complained they recinded the interest charge, after which I cancelled the card. No need to take crap from your service provider when there are so many other options.

[pnllsprkf]

06:27 PM on 11/13/2011

that's the only language these people understand$$$$$$$ if enough people did the same thing they(Sears) would move on to different tricks to steal your money

[sunoftime]

12:22 PM on 11/11/2011

Here's the sad part. People have allowed this financial situation to go on, unchecked, and unbalanced for so long, that even as the fed up move from big banks to smaller banks or credit unions, the government will still assist the big banks and the economy will still suffer. It seems there is no easy way out of this. WE all will have to pay some kind of price in order to right the wrongs of our American history. The piper has come to collect.

[KitchenCabinet]

10:17 AM on 11/11/2011

It looks as if Bank of America is not as financially sound as it likes to seem. The way they are screwing pennies from the poorest customers is a big red flag about their solvency.

[TrutherUSA]

12:20 PM on 11/11/2011

That is unfortunately how the American business model works. The ONLY thing that matters is the bottom line. You screw over your customers, employees, and vendors in any way possible to reap pennies for profits.

[megwright]

01:25 PM on 11/10/2011

Just a couple of months ago I inadvertently paid just a few dollars less than my mortgage payment. I pay electronicially, realized the mistake immediately, so paid another $150, way more than enough to make up the difference and what I assumed was far more than enough to pay any fees and penalties.

Then I got a letter from the bank saying I owed a double payment - a full payment for the month when I'd paid just a bit too little, plus full payment for the coming month. Once I got through the gauntlet of recorded messages, I was told in a syrupy voice, "I'm sorry, we can no longer post partial payments." So instead of returning the payment to me, they'd applied it to principle and it couldn't be refunded. So now I had to come up with the FULL amount again.

Meanwhile, I was told when I asked that of course the "missed payment" would be reported negatively on my credit rating.

[RedDog79]

10:58 AM on 11/10/2011

way to go BofA - too big to fail at anything but greed and incompetence. Great work - keep it up and lose all your depositors!

[pnllsprkf]

06:30 PM on 11/13/2011

hey if they keep losing depositors THEY WON'T BE TOO BIG ANY MORE--let them fail

[Antarr Byrd]

10:56 AM on 11/10/2011

You would think they would have a team assigned to prevent these embarrassments but seem they would rather see how long they can get away with it. Which shows they are obviously making a lot of money from it to keep the p.r. risk out there.

[pepper1311]

09:37 AM on 11/10/2011

This holds true for all credit cards. If you have a credit due and the cycle ends before it's posted pay the entire bill and catch it the next cycle. As far as the S/S goes well next year I'm due for SS so not should I change banks to get that little bonus?

[arabianway]

09:35 AM on 11/10/2011

It recently took me several weeks to close out an account with another, smaller bank. There aren't any in the state I moved to, so I had to do it by phone. I was repeatedly told it would be done, but follow-up told me it wasn't. Fees accumulate for failure to maintain a minimum balance, and my balance was now zero. It took a call directly to the branch where I had done business to get this done, and it wasn't easy to get that phone number.

[pnllsprkf]

06:35 PM on 11/13/2011

I found it much easier to close my accounts by notifying them online and printing my transaction and then immediately deposited my money in a different bank---that avoids the he said she said crap and the fact that whoever you spoke to didn't properly document the transaction

[arabianway]

01:20 PM on 11/15/2011

I did try to do this online and there was no way. The experience was unnerving.

[chris2fer]

08:48 AM on 11/10/2011

Do business with these leeches on society at your own peril.It is still a head scratcher to me why people still do business with these banks.Chase often sends me junk mail offering me 100 dollars to open a checking account. S?it i wouldnt open a account with them if they gave me 1000 dollars. So with a laugh their garbage goes in the can where it belongs.

[Summertown]

08:47 AM on 11/10/2011

These breaches of fiduciary responsibility to its customers is proof that they have lost control of whatever is left of BoA as a bank.

But when do we begin to hold customers responsible for their decisions to continue to do business with such a dysfunctional entity? New information is out there nearly every day about the problems doing business with the Too Big to Fail banks, yet people put their heads in the sand and believe it can't happen to me. Then it does and they take to the air waves about how badly they were treated.

[megwright]

01:28 PM on 11/10/2011

If you have a lot of automatic deposits and withdrawals set up, it can be difficult and time-consuming to get all of those transferred to another bank. People put it off because they're busy working. It's VERY difficult to find the time during the work day to handle the gauntlet of recordings you have to get past to handle this, and for two or three months or more you're stuck monitoring every single transaction and then cleaning up any "misses" that occur no matter how careful you are to dot all the l's and cross all the Ts.

[Summertown]

01:41 PM on 11/10/2011

I don't have any bills paid directly out of my bank accounts but not for any of the reasons you mentioned. I don't want any company to have carte blanche access to my accounts. It doesn't take long to find stories of people who try to stop a company's automatic payments just to find what a nightmare it is.

I even have a separate savings account for my Pay Pal account. Once the money goes in to the little account it is immediately transferred to another savings account. Too many people have been hurt by screw ups and lost access to their funds.

I never pay for things like gas or hotel rooms with my debit card. Holds on the accounts can cause huge problems with over drafts.

I think this is the worst idea in the world, having bills paid directly from your bank accounts. People need to take the few minutes a week or by- monthly or monthly just to sit down and pay their bills themselves. They are leaving themselves wide open for nasty complications. Like trying to break up with Too Big to Fail.

[David Hundley]

02:27 AM on 11/10/2011

Chase is guilty of the same scam, They don't like it when you pay them off, they still have their hand out and take what they want.

[LaoShur]

12:18 AM on 11/10/2011

"The bank eventually reportedly said it would refund Greenwood's money "as a courtesy," according to the Tribune."

This is why America needs Republicans in office so we can deregulate the banks even more so they can not just provide us with jobs, but offer us even greater potential for showing their "courtesy" to us!

[TephaAnne]

11:37 PM on 11/09/2011

I had a credit card through them once. Had a huge balance cuz I had let my sister use it but she paid me back and I paid it all off right before the end of the credit cycle. A month later I get an overdue notice saying I had not paid my monthly fee. Turns out, though I had paid it off. I was still charged interest and since I hadn't paid that off I got an overdraft fee. Thankfully the person I spoke to was nice and wiped everything off. Goodbye that credit card.

[megwright]

01:31 PM on 11/10/2011

I pay electronically, and I pay off any credit card bills every month. Yet it's surprising how often a payment my computer PROVES was sent ten days before the due date ends up, somehow, not being posted to my account until I've incurred a late fee.

That used to happen when I paid by mail, but I couldn't PROVE the payment, out of all the other payments I'd sent the same day, was the ONE that arrived ten days late. Now that my computer PROVES it was sent, you'd think it would be easy to convince the bank to cancel the late fee. But good luck with that . . . .

[Cruel Justice Awaits]

10:55 PM on 11/09/2011

KMA

[Cruel Justice Awaits]

10:54 PM on 11/09/2011

Christ HuffPo what IS your problem? Whats the point of printing on quote and not letting me have my say about it? What an F-in waste of time this rag tag mag is lately.