Very unhappy with Bank of America/MBNA

Not too thrilled with Chase right now either.  As I noted in a previous post, I am using 0% balance transfers to pay off my auto loan.  I applied for two cards, Citibank and Chase.  Citibank approved me for $5,500, and they sent me a check payable to me for $5250, no fees, 0% for 12 months.  Deposit the check, make payment to auto loan.  Beautiful.  This is how it is supposed to work.

Chase is a little different.  I'm approved for $10,500, which makes me happy.  It means that I don't have to apply for any more cards to accomplish my auto loan payoff.  They agree to a $10,000 balance transfer, but won't send a check.  I verify that it is no fee, and 0% for 12 months.  I give them my BofA/MBNA(hereafter just MBNA) account number, which has virtually no balance.  I called MBNA beforehand to verify that they will mail me a check for overpayments.  They send $10,000 to MBNA.  I call MBNA to request that the amount be sent to me.  I am told that it will take 7-10 days.

Here's where things get ugly.

MBNA first.  First of all, it takes the full 10 days.  So, congrats MBNA, you earned yourself a few bucks by taking advantage of my ten grand for ten days.  But that's fine, I'm okay with that.  At the end of the ten days, they don't send me a check, but electronically send it back to Chase!  That does me no F'ing good.

So, I called MBNA, knowing that they can't do anything, as the money has already left their possession.  The person I talk to explains that for amount over $5,000, they are required to send it back the way it came.  Under $5,000, they would send me a check.  Of course, I wasn't told that. 

MBNA Rep:  Well, in defense of whoever you talked to, they couldn't know that you were going to overpay by $10,000.  I would have told you the same thing.

Me:  I'm not attacking anyone, I don't know why you feel you need to defend them.

Anyway, I guess it's done.  So, now I have to get Chase to resend balance transfer amounts of $4,750 or so.

Chase isn't looking to hot at this point either.  When I opened the card, I spoke with a rep about the BT, and was told that there would be a fee.  I told him to close the account.  He transferred me to a "supervisor" who stuck to the fee, but transferred me to yet another "supervisor."  The last guy said that he would take care of the balance transfer with no fee.

A week or so later, the balance transfer happens, and guess what.  No really guess.  Yep, a fee.  $75 Balance Transfer fee.  I call to have it reversed, and they are compliant.  I check back a week later and it's still there.  They explain that it will be reversed at the end of the billing cycle.  I tell them that's fine, as long as I don't get charged interest on the fee.  They assured me not, but we'll see.

So, the money left MBNA and isn't at Chase yet.  Maybe I should have just taken money out of savings to pay off my car.

Comments

[financial freedumb]

Ouch...I've only done a Chase 0% BT to my Citi Card...Citi issued me a check...Good luck man...

[John]

You must have a lot of patience. This story makes me aggrivated at them, and it's not even me.

[inagm]

Chase is evil. They offered a 0% BT for 12 months, no fee, but when I made the BT, later I found finance charges on my statement. Then I called the customer service, and they said, no the BT was for 4.9% and 3% fee...I had the checks I was given, and it clearly stated the 0% no fee BT. I had to mail a copy to Chase before they would credit the charges back to my account.

[Financial Reflections]

If I had the money in savings, I would use it to pay off the car loan. Is the car loan at some super-high interest rate?

I've messed with credit cards and the companies who provide them enough to be sick of them. I hope to be done with them this year.

[LM]

I had Chase mail the check to my bank card Visa. The annoying part was the 12 day wait for the full amount imposed by my bank especially over the holidays. I believe it took over 3 weeks to clear. I did one transaction because I didn't want them to get more than the maximum $75 balance transfer fee. Also at the time I was offered no fee if I did it over the phone.

[DebtBlog]

BofA has a reputation for that kind of thing. I once (a few years ago) attempted to get a car loan from them and was declined. I protested that my business had run over $5.5 million through our BofA business account in the last 3 years. They could give a rat's a**. They've never been very good about working with the little guy. They're just too damn huge. It all worked out for the best though. I got the loan from my credit union for only 4.5%. So long BofA.

[Rick]

I totally feel for you. If I might add, that in balance transfer type scenarios, if you are late 2 times within a 1 year period forget-about-it! 31.47% interest rate, even though you've paid. First of all, I was upset in the fact that I got the loan from Fleet which I had some trust, being X-military and knowing what BofA had done to so many of my shipmates that I swore I'd never go to them, but they bought Fleet. So, everything move to them. Then their policies had to be agreed upon. Now, it's obvious to me that even though you pay them, you get hammered even if a day late. In fact, that's what it was - the second late notice came due to an issue at a post-office, but BofA didn't care! It was late! So for 6 months' I'm paying out the As..... for something I'm trying to get rid of! Since the market is the way it is, competition is down and no one is really offering anything comparable - and now I have this hickey on my record!

Ok, going forward, I'd like to know how many people would be interested in having what I consider unfair practice posted on a blotter that is published at a minimum States wide but would like to see world wide! Any Bank that takes advantage of their "clients" in such a way as to rip them off; should be posted. For those individuals looking to form credit, they'll have a one-stop-shop for looking for whom is considered worthy of our money, and vice versa. Those banks not worthy will be black-balled by the public and we'll be able to put them in their place! I'm just tired of getting ripped off by banks!

[John OMM]

That story from Chase that you have to wait till the end of the month to have your balance transfer fees credited rings false to me. As you know from my post that you commented on, http://ourmoneymatters.blogspot.com/2006/05/bait-switch-at-chase.html, I was charged balance transfer fees inappropriately too. Within 48 hours of a manager telling me that the fees would be refunded, two of the three were. The third fee took another call, but none of the fees required I wait till the end of the month.

[suewooden]

BofA stole $140 out of my mothers account and admitted that it was their error but refused to correct it. She also had bounced checks because of it and those fees were added both from the bank and the businesses. I have a MBNA card and if I had known that they were BofA I would never have signed up for it.

[lamoneyguy]

Sue,
It's hard to know whom you are dealing with these days. Companies take each other over and leave the old name out there.

[Thomas]

You can always switch. That's what I've been doing and get paid for switching. I think the sign up bonus for NetBank is $75 at this site ... Net Bank

[Donna]

I just closed a chase account because they were so awful. My fault was in a late payment because it was a new card that I failed to note the bill. But, I used to be that way. Anyway, it went from 0% to 29.99% bing. I called them and they refused to change it. So, we played the game and got citi (who I love by the way) to give us a 0% for 12 months to cover the balance on that Chase card. In the meantime, Chase, despite me telling them not to, charged me $79.00 for a "prime" membership (which got me NOTHING), but did take that off, and put me on credit protection so I could get a "free" credit report (which can be done on your own through the federal government as I hope you all know). Anyway, I called them to make sure I wouldn't be seeing that charge because I wanted to close out the account after the final bill because I just couldn't give them one more dime of my money. Two different departments told me to talk to the other one even though I told them I tried to do that. So, in my annoyance, I just paid the final balance (which was $102.00 of pure interest) and insisted that they waive the pay by phone fee and close the account (I said to the service person that I knew it wasn't her fault it was such a bad card, but I had to tell someone and she answered my call). So, she was nice and waived the fee and I closed that puppy right up. I then took great satisfaction in shredding the cards (that were in the cabinet "in case of emergency." But, I just can't give them anymore money. I won't. BAD CARD.

As an aside, be careful -- now, the companies are using terms that allow them to increase the credit rate regardless of your history with them if you have lates to someone else. Capital One has been using that in its advertising -- they won't change your rates just because you have a problem with someone else. I actually like my citicards and capital one, they've always been the easiest to deal with.

[lucia19012]

Chase totally sucks. They send you the lovely promo offer for 0% for 1 year, you get suckered in and sign up for a card, but they give you a credit line of $2000 (I have over 700 credit score and own my home). What a waste of a credit check. I immediately cancel the card and tell them to F*** off.

MBNA/Bank of America also SUCKS!!! I'm currently disputing a charge with them. The charge was made with some online vendor that I never heard of and (EVEN WORSE) made with a credit card that had been EXPIRED for over 1 year (that I hadn't even used and shredded over 1 year ago). According to them, once a merchant has an authorization code to bill you, they can then use it later to bill you as many times as they want and for as long as they want. Furthermore, they can also give this authorization code to another merchant and basically make your life hell.

My advice: Use American Express, the $75/annual fee is totally worth the lack of aggravation from all fo these other crappy companies

[Norm]

Donna,
I had the EXACT same thing happen to me with an MBNA card. They had finally ticked my wife and I off by calling us all the time so we canceled the card and a year later I got a bill from them.

Will never deal with anything tied to MBNA again.

[Credit card user]

OOO you are very patient person! I would be more aggressive. To my mind the best issue to hold negotiations with credit companies by mail. If i were you i would threaten to close credit card. Besides you can apply to credit bureau to explain your side of situation and ask them to check advertising message if it's accurate.

[credit cards spy]

Well, what did you expect? Those banks are after your money. They'll do anything to take it! That's why the came up with the idea of credit cards in th first place.

[Alessandro Machi]

I started two chase bank protest blogs. Please bookmark and consider joining the cause.

http://www.daily-protest.com
http://www.bloggersagainstchasebank.com

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