Complaint Rating:

Company information:
Bank of America
United States
www.bankofamerica.com

Bank of America credit cards have their system set so that sometimes due dates fall on non-business days, for example Saturdays and Sundays. However, they will not accept payments on non-business days, which means they will not accept payments on the due date, and your payment is therefore due earlier than the statement due date.

Specifically, a payment must be made by 3:30 p.m. EST or it will be credited to the next business day. Let's take a fictional example. Your statement says "Due June 13". Let's say June 13 is a Friday. You go online June 13 at 8:30 p.m. to make your payment. Too bad, it's already late, it won't be made until Monday, June 16th.

Or, let's say you go to your local BoA and make your payment at 3:40 p.m. on the 13th. Again, you are too late. Even though you are IN their bank ON the due date, it is considered to be made on Monday the 16th.

Now, obviously, you COULD have payed them on time on a Friday. Let's take another example. Let's say your statement says "Due June 15" and June 15 was a Sunday. You CAN NOT pay them on a Sunday. You can't pay them online, or on the phone, or in person, or by mail. There is no way. You can't pay them on Saturday, June 14th, either. So your payment is ACTUALLY due on Friday June 13th. But there is NO indication of this written anywhere on your statement.

So, again, if the payment is due June 15th, Sunday, and you walk INSIDE the Bank of America on Saturday morning the 14th and make your payment the day BEFORE it is due, it is STILL considered late, even though the employee is looking right at you and can look at the calendar and KNOWS you aren't making a late payment.

Then they will charge you a $39 late charge, and possibly raise your interest rate. This has happened to me! I've tried to discuss this and get the late fee removed, etc. and it's like talking to a brick wall. It's their "policy". I find this to be fraudulent. After all, in this age of computers, they can certainly accept payments on the weekend. The computer knows what day the payment was made, and the time down to the millisecond! They could certainly accept my payment made in person inside their bank on a Saturday, and they could also accept online payments on weekends dates if they so chose. I know that I can pay American Express online anytime, 24/7. I could log on Sunday at 11:50 p.m. and make that payment and they would consider it paid on time.

At the very least, they could change their due date system to not issue any payment Due Dates for non-business days. So if, due to rotation, it would be due on a Saturday or Sunday, it would either bump it forward to Friday's date as the stated due date (which is really true anyway) OR they could be courteous and bump it back to Monday. I could accept this, but not this sneaky cheating method of payments being "due" on days when they will not accept my payments.

I do not recommend Bank of America to anyone, for ANY of their services. I've had bad experiences with their savings, checking/debit AND online banking as well as credit cards. The only advice I have is to stay far, far away!