Bank of America Is Inviting Fraud

It’s been many, many months since our MBNA account (now Bank of America) has carried any balance or, for that matter, had a single transaction posted to it. In fact, the last time we received a statement from them was June 2005, the month we finally zeroed out that account. The last bit of mail I can recall receiving from them was when BoA took over MBNA and mailed out our new still-unactivated cards (along with the chunk of legalese that comes with any credit card). I check the balance online every few weeks just to ensure nothing is showing up, but outside that, we do absolutely nothing with the account.

The account has remained open not only because it is one of our older cards, but because the ridiculous level of available credit ($22,100) brings our total credit utilization score down quite a bit. In other words, it’s purely a credit score boosting play. But it’s time to say goodbye, and good riddance, to Bank of America/MBNA.

As I might have mentioned here a few dozen times, we not-altogether-recently bought a new abode, did an extensive bit of renovating, and only recently are making it our home. Since we weren’t living there, we, of course, took no steps to have any of our mail forwarded to our new address until very recently. As a matter of fact, we still don’t have any mail sent to our physical address. Instead, everything is shuttled to a PO box simply because I don’t trust an unlocked box in the middle of the countryside accepting anything that may aid your friendly neighborhood identity thief. Well, that, and the fact that our mailbox looks as if someone may have ran over the thing a few times!

But looking into the mailbox a few days ago on a whim, what do I find but a several pieces of mail from Bank of America with postmarks of August through the present, each being their standard packet of crappy-terms-and-all balance transfer checks. Yes, I know, I should have been looking in that mailbox on occasion. But not only did BoA put into effect an unrequested change of address, they’ve been sending blank checks to that address. I find it almost equally troublesome that personal information – by which I mean our new address – flows so freely to uninvolved parties.

So, curious as to how they went about changing the address without our intervention, I inquired. And received this in reply:

Thank you for your inquiry dated 1/22/07 regarding the address change. We will be happy to assist you.

Bank of America recognizes the importance of providing quality service and we are disappointed to learn of the difficulties that you have encountered. We appreciate you bringing your concerns to our attention. Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

We are confident that your future dealings with Bank of America will better reflect our commitment to your satisfaction.

Thank you for your business with Bank of America. Please feel free to use www.BankofAmerica.com for general account information, and for information regarding products and services that you may need in the future.

In other words, no comment.

Well, then, how about the number I need to call to immediately cancel our account?

It’s 1.800.732.9194, if you’re curious…

[tags]Bank of America,BoA, MBNA, cancel account, credit cards, identity theft, mail[/tags]