Bank of America refuses debit card access at ATM to customer in danger

I recently travelled back to Australia, and it didn't take 24 hours for my card to get fraudlocked with a false positive fraud alert. No surprise. No matter whether I inform them of travel in advance, it invariably happens at least once, and the best I hope for is that it's at a time I can recover from it without to much ill happening.

So, I called the bank, using 40 cent a minute time on my cell phone plus a calling card (note that land line payphones are a gone species in Australia, and that not everyone stays at a hotel that will let them use a landline without requiring a huge surcharge), to resolve it. I figured, this was a pain in the neck and a waste of phone fees and 30+ minutes of my time, but I *had* just been in the states for an entire consecutive TEN DAYS, so maybe someone thought I was "back" from Australia even though this was still within the "til October" time window I said I'd be going back and forth. (rolls eyes) I humored the bank and answered their questions.

Apparently the problem had been that a cab company ran my card through 3 times and got timeouts and denieds before the one successful transaction for which I signed. The bank told me that actually, the first two charges had been authorized as well, so to be on the lookout on my statement to see if the cab company submits them, which they might or might not, and call to get them removed. OK fine.

I also informed them at the time of my call that, as I was travelling, my US cell phone did not have signal, and that I'd seen the alerts from their fraud department in my email from a voicemail-message-transcription service I use -- but didn't get the calls in realtime due to not having signal. I suggested that perhaps, instead, they could in the future call my Australian cell number, and provided the number. They indicated to me that they would do so from that point forward until a point at which I'd call back and change the number back to my US number.

OK fine, so far so good. I'm not sure why the slips I physically saw, from a cab driver I actually KNOW to the point of having his email address, said that the transaction wasn't authorized but the bank DID authorize it, but whatever. I went on with my life, paid my hostel bill, etc. ... assuming that I'd promptly get calls if there were any other problems.

HA.

HA.

HA HA.

Fast forward to Saturday night, nearly midnight. I needed to get home from an evening out in the nightclub district, and realized that I'd need to get cash since the cabs didn't take credit cards. I waited in a 10+ minute line in an unsafe area (there were hundreds of people out on the streets and fights breaking out around me) to get to the ATM, and subsequently found out that my transaction for cab money was denied.

There had been no call about this. No missed call. And they didn't call my US number either, because if they had, I would have seen a voicemail message about it transcribed in my email when I next checked my email.

There followed about 75 minutes of terrifying hell, with me in the middle of various street brawls, sobbing, BEGGING any number of people at the bank to give me access to my money so that I could buy a taxi to get myself to safety, getting away from drunk and disorderly people pinching, pushing, hitting me! This, of course, cost me more money as well -- I'm going to estimate I spent over $90 on phone fees over the course of two days including the first issue the day before due to this issue, and my followups today.

Here's the progression I followed on Saturday night:

1. Dialed 1-206-461-0800 using a calling card; it's the non-toll-free number listed on the back of my card. Repeated "LOST OR STOLEN" for 4 minutes until the voicemail system understood who I wanted to talk to. I knew that department would be open 24/7 although the regular customer service would be closed.

2. Clicked 2 for "lost other".

3. Talked to someone who made me give out all of my account details and secret codes in the middle of a drunk brawl, which is really not a safe thing to do if your intent is truly to protect NOT just my money, but my identity itself.

4. That person then forwarded me to an infinihold line for debit card fraud protection.

5. 30 or so minutes later, of getting jostled, catcalled, pinched, knocked at, etc., a human answered the line. I insisted, no time for folly here, open up my account and let me use the ATM, my safety is in jeopardy and I have no money to get out. They instead wanted to third degree me.

6. Having answered the same questions 24 hours before, I was simply in no mood to do it again. I told them, look, I'm telling you, I am NOT safe (ouch! GET AWAY!), help me, please help me, I need to get out of here, I want to use MY OWN MONEY, HELP ME!

7. They proceeded with the third degree. I was asked questions that late in the middle of the night in the middle of a scary situation I wasn't all that great at thinking of answering, and just kept insisting, HELP, I AM NOT SAFE, I NEED MY MONEY TO GET OUT OF HERE, I JUST DID ALL THIS YESTERDAY.

8. They refused. Repeatedly. Eventually even told me that I could just come into a branch and get it all fixed up -- ignorant of the fact that it was 1am in Australia, I was in a terrifying situation, and there were certainly no any branches no matter what hour of the day it might be. I explained this to them AGAIN and they suggested that I send a fax containing an identity theft kit (passport, both sides of debit card, multiple signatures) -- as if there'd be anywhere I could fax from before Monday morning, 2 days from now, and also assuming that the time and expense to me was less of a problem than them possibly losing the $180 that was in my account, and as if my health and safety was not IN IMMEDIATE DANGER! Terrified, I figured that my best shot was to call back and find someone else to help.

9. I re-did step 1.

10. This time I asked for "OP-rater" which seems to be my pronunciation that best gets me an attendant on your voicemail system. I don't know why it doesn't like it when I actually pronounce the middle syllable, but it never has.

11. I got a man who answered the phone. Once again I had to give out enough identity details to form an identity theft kit in the middle of hundreds of people, which is REALLY, REALLY STUPID to require a customer to do in that sort of situation and not honestly in the bank's interest at all. I explained the situation, again between fighting off others who were being D&D and inflicting harm upon me. He transferred me to the fraud people, without being willing to stay on the line, as I'd insisted to him that these people wouldn't help me and I *really* needed an advocate on the line to get them to do the right thing.

12. When I realized I was talking to another "read the script" droid at fraud, I hung up. No time for that. I was IN DANGER, and talking to another person intent on only following a script lest they lose their job -- instead of someone losing a life because they couldn't work out of the box and get that person out of danger -- wasn't going to help.

13. I made YET ANOTHER call. This time, I targeted Emergency Card Services figuring that the base reality here was "I need emergency cash because I am in an emergency situation and cannot access my money through my card". As the person was transferring me to them, I said I actually doubted they could help me because I didn't see anything like a Western Union office among the clubs at 1am, but that I had to give it a shot because it was my only option even left.

14. I talked to someone in Emergency Card Services. Again more third degreeing. And the acknowledged the bit about needing to send a fax and they'd be sending out another physical card. I pointed out I'd have hotel bills to pay, doubt they can get a card to me by during the daytime tomorrow in Australia, etc. They shrugged it off, suggesting that they could open up my account at the ATM for an hour right now and then close it permanently afterward, and I could withdraw enough money to pay the hotel bill now. I explained, ummm, nooooooo, a hotel bill is going to cost FAR more than the money in that account, that WILL NOT work, JUST FIX THIS, I AM IN DANGER AND NEED TO GET OUT!

15. They said that that was all they could do, so I quickly "WHATEVER"ed them in order to avoid wasting more time compromising my safety (for god's sake, this is a time for VERY barebones conversation, help the customer GET SAFE, worry about other BS later), got back in the ATM line, got my cash, spent a scary 30 minutes in a cab line full of more D&D's at by then 12:45am (a full 75+ minutes later after I'd first tried to use my card and it failed), and did indeed finally get home to a safe place behind a locked door.

After a couple of cups of tea once I got home, I got back on the phones. I talked with one woman at "OP-rater" who, upon hearing the story gasped -- the only indication by anyone that they understood the seriousness of the issue. However, she yet again transferred me to the fraudlock people who'd proven useless and a dangerous waste of time, which I wasn't going to deal with again. So I looked up my local branch's number and tried to work this time the local branch angle. Even my local branch manager at (foobranch), WA, (fooname), who's well-accustomed to my disgust with far-too-frequent debit card fraudlock follies, couldn't get the people to un-fraudlock the card after insisting to them, I know this client, the person I've got on the phone asking for access to her money while travelling alone internationally is definitely the individual I know.

Eventually this will become a federal reserve issue regarding denial of customer access to legitimate funds when someone is in real danger and has in their possession two-factor security that SHOULD in itself prove they are the rightful accessor of the money (factor one, something you've got, physical token: the debit card; factor two, something you know: the PIN). If some idiot has written their PIN on their card so that it can be used by anyone who finds their card, they deserve to lose the maximum daily withdrawl amount, IMHO. If it's not me bringing an actual legal suit, I figure it'll eventually be the survivors of a victim who couldn't get out of danger, and it'll be about millions, not about $180. Unfortunately, like airlines who do a cost-benefit analysis of fixing certain severe but unlikely issues vs. paying out the insurance money, since they've gotten away with it so far, they have no disincentive to stop it yet. It'll take a serious hit to the pocketbook.

The existing policy NEEDLESSLY AND NEGLIGENTLY PUTS PEOPLE IN DANGER, which is not a good thing. Not everyone travels in families or packs. Not everyone who travels alone because they are single, has the time to manage relationships with more than one financial institution to provide backup for when their supposedly stable bank gets a bit freaky and refuses to let them use the money that they legally own. The point of having money in a bank rather than under a mattress is to have it safe, which involves not just knowing that you own it, but being able to use it. If I cannot actually USE my money, in my opinion, my money is NOT SAFE.

And at the moment, I certainly don't have the time or cash to send yet another piece of an identity theft kit (front and back of my debit card, passport and 3 signatures) via fax, nor should there be *ANY* reason for my needing to do so.

Here's the deal. Even if I was phoning the bank in desperation out of duress because someone had a gun to my neck and had said "Your money or your life", and worst case the bank would have been out that $180 after a legal fight about whether it was my or the bank's responsibility that I was getting robbed, it wouldn't have been worth it to hassle me AT ALL about my requirement for immediate access to my own funds. A human life is simply worth SO MUCH more than $180 (or even the debit-card-max-withdrawl amount of $200, $300 or $500), that customer access to an account containing only that much, when the customer reports that they are in immediate danger and need the money to get out of it, should never be an issue worth any discussion beyond, "OK, I've fixed it, go get your cash and get yourself safe NOW."

I've found the customer service over the hours I've spent on the phone about this all night Saturday night to Sunday morning, and then yet again Tuesday morning when it was business hours in the US, to be appalling. Grade: FAIL. FAIL minus minus, even. And it's probably cost me yet again another $85 in phone fees alone, to say nothing of more than an hour of sheer terror, a night of aggravation, no sleep and shaking coming down off of it once I was safe, and a morning of frustration once it was again business hours in the US.

I certainly can't afford spending that amount of my own money ($90+ and counting by now) fixing the bank's own mistakes. This never should have happened. The bank was reminded on Friday that I was in fact in Australia, so no Australian or US transactions should have been a surprise to it on Saturday. The bank had my phone number, so they could have called me about it any any time on Saturday when someone saw something they apparnetly didn't like. And certainly, reps talking to a single woman alone in a streetfight should not have been insisting to her to calm down when she was in the middle of terror, fighting desperately to get out and not receiving the immediate help that she did seriously require.

I do monitor my account daily or so, and am likely to notice problematic transactions very quickly either because suddenly my account doesn't have enough money for a transaction to complete, OR, because I saw something I didn't recognize online. For example, I did a transaction review last night while on hold. I found a charge that made no sense. But after some thought and research (I downloaded a full year of transaction log), I realized that that was a charge that SHOULD have been processed a month ago which was, for who knows what reason, delayed for a month and was in fact legit -- I suspect it was due to my card being fraudlocked again at the time, and that maybe last week it might have been unfraudlocked in the US, allowing the charge to go through this week. My money's important to me. I don't have a lot of it, so I watch what I *do* have.

Indeed, not once has bank nannying saved me from an unauthorized withdrawl. The ONE time there was a problem with unauthorized access to funds in my account it was due to my card slipping out of my hands in a taxi and the driver treating himself and 20 of his closest cabbie friends to an $800 gas party at a local truck stop. Did your fraud detection system realize, "This woman has never held a license in her life and has never bought petrol personally, so ANY gas charge, let alone 20 of them, is out-of-pattern and likely to be fraud?" No.

Their system is broken and making bad decisions for some customers that put them in danger needlessly. A zillion false positives wasting *CUSTOMER* time and money in order to help the bank avoid wasting a smaller amount of their own money through payout of bad transactions they can't get reversed (which I suspect would be a minority of them due to their ability to lean on the merchant for not having insisted on matching signature, ID, etc.), and no actual catching of real fraud like the massive gas purchase above, is just wrong.

After getting nowhere with Executive Customer Service this morning, I've called the cops on them. As far as I'm concerned, if I as legal owner of the money can't get the money without jumping through a 3-ring circus of hoops that require me to spend money and time to do, especially when I indicate I am clearly in danger and need the money to get out of it, they've unlawfully seized (read: stolen) it. Unfortunately, the police said there was nothing they could do.

I've read a few other stories about this type of thing happening to people online, and it's honestly the second time a Bank of America ATM denial has put my safety in jeopardy. The first was a few years ago in Vancouver.

Any lawyers and fellow current or past customers who've had this happen want to join me in a class action to force a change in policy to NEVER disallow an ATM transaction in order to protect customer safety (at the very least), if not (ideally) to allow customers who've had a certain extreme number of fraudlocks due to false positives and never had any legitimate fraud issues to be removed from the fraudlock system? It's time to stand up to corporate negligence that puts customer safety at risk just in case doing so helps save the bank a few dollars.

Those people who claimed online that Bank of America seems to have more seizure authority than the IRS are straight on with that. Even with the IRS, they send you a note and give you days to dispute it before they seize your funds. With Bank of America, no notice appears to even be required.

If Bank of America charges $35 or so for every overdraft, based on the cost to them of dealing with them, the consumer should be able to charge the bank $35 or so (perhaps rising to $100 after the first five false reports to underscore to the bank that this is bad conduct they should attempt to rein in) every time the consumer is forced to waste their time due to a false positive fraud alert.

It's now day 4 after this mess began, and I have no access to my money. I've got literally $13 to live on until the bank gives up my cash to me, and it's quite scary to face that, travelling solo internationally as a woman. How in the world am I going to pay for lodging -- let alone food?