Complaint Rating:

I have had a Savingslink savings account with Countrywide Bank for two years. Bank of America has now taken over since purchasing Countrywide. For most of this time, the money just sat there earning a decent interest rate.

Recently, I have found better deals and decided to withdraw my money. Since this is a virtual bank, one way to do so is to link this account to an existing checking account at a bricks and mortar bank. I set up the link to my Wamu account and confirmed the small test deposits in my Wamu account. I even tried transferring a small amount first to confirm everything is working fine.

I decided to withdraw the bulk of my funds and initiated the transfer all according to the bank’s rules. One screen even confirmed that my transfer was within the daily maximum limit allowed.

Couple of days later, I received an email stating my transfer was declined and my transfer ability was suspended. I should contact customer service for more assistance.

Knowing that there is no documentation of a phone call, I like to test their customer service by email. I logged into my account and sent them a pointed inquiry as to why they had taken this action of declining my transfer and revoking my transfer ability.

I received a response two days later. The response was rather cryptic and did not answer both of my questions. Their response was “when this happens, transfer is suspended.” I sent them another email asking why “this happens, ” referring to the declined transfer. I am waiting for a response.

One of the phone numbers left in the email is to their Loss Prevention department. Undoubtedly, they believe I am a thief who has stolen my account access information and am trying to steal my money. When I transferred the smaller amount, they apparently didn’t care about a ‘thief’ taking that little amount.

In actuality, I believe this is their way of preventing large sums of deposits from leaving the bank. They will just say that they trying to prevent theft. They don’t care about inconveniencing their customers. They don’t want their customers to get access to their money. They only care about their own needs. As far as I am concerned, my money is being held hostage until I can prove I am not a thief.

My whole purpose with electronic banking is for convenience and funds accessibility. Their policies are contrary to my purpose even though they appear to provide the means to serve my purpose.