A woman recently went viral on TikTok when she warned against using any Bank of America ATM after $1,000 of her money disappeared due to a technical glitch.
Charity (@charityy_harris) garnered over 11,000 views with her detailed story of how Bank America not only lost her money but refused to rectify the situation immediately.
According to Charity, the incident occurred around 8 a.m. on April 1 when she pulled up to a Bank of America ATM to deposit $1,000 in cash. She says that after inserting the money, the ATM counted like normal. Then, tragedy struck when “the screen goes black,” she says.
“I’m like, ‘April Fools, that’s funny—fix it.’ Nope. Five minutes later, I’m still staring … now a window is loading … there’s a mouse … a mouse on the screen,” she states. “So I pull up my bank account on my phone—deposit’s not even in there, so I call the number.”
Charity says that while a line of cars formed behind her, she got ahold of a customer service representative who informed her that he was unable to assist her while the ATM was “resetting” and needed to transfer her. She says the screen finally reset to the “Welcome to Bank of America. Please insert your money” page while she waited.
“Now I’m on hold, and I’m getting freaked out because there’s so many pissed-off people behind me. So I just move out of the line,” Charity continues.
After waiting “for 20 minutes on hold,” she says she went inside the bank to speed up the process despite being in her pajamas and slippers. Charity says while waiting in line, she spotted a “lady running around all dressed up” who obviously worked there, so she got out of line and hung up the phone to speak with her. She says she explained her dilemma to the woman, who immediately brought her to a cubicle. Though the bank representative sympathized and offered her some tissues, Charity says the woman told her the branch was unable to help and that she needed to call a representative to escalate her case.
“So, now I’m on the phone with a different lady,” an exasperated Charity says. “And she’s like, ‘Yeah, we have to go through our cameras and, like, our ATM before we can actually get you that $1,000.’ So I’m like, ‘OK, how long do you think that will be?’ Get this, she goes, ‘Hmmm, maybe like 10 days? I don’t know.’”
As of April 4, when the video was posted, Charity was still waiting for a resolution.
“I’ve heard nothing,” she says. “Called them today, checking in, and they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re calling about your fraud case? Yeah, it’s still under review.”
She concludes her video with a simple warning, “Don’t use Bank of America. Don’t do it.”
@charityy_harris how to lose 1k? go to a bank of america atm #bankofamerica #bankofamericasucks #fypシ #trending ##greenscreen ♬ original sound – charity :)
In the comments section, some viewers offered advice, while others shared their own horror stories.
“File a complaint with FCC. They’ll handle it with the quickness,” one suggested.
“To be honest, you really wanna get them to work with you faster file a complaint with a Better Business Bureau,” a second added.
“Wells Fargo did this to me, except they returned the money after a month and then the next day took it back and I never saw it again,” a viewer wrote.
“This has happened to me more than once at Capital One. I no longer use their atms,” another recounted.
A former bank employee explained that this is more common than most people think. “I used to work @ a Chase,” they shared, “& this would randomly happen to customers! to this day i still never deposit cash @ an atm. it just doesn’t seem worth the headache. @ chase you don’t even need a deposit slip.”
This isn’t the first time Bank of America has come under fire for playing fast and loose with customers’ money. According to a report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Bank of America was ordered to pay over $100 million to customers after it was discovered that the bank was double-dipping on overdraft fees, withholding reward bonuses promised to credit card customers, and misappropriating customer information. A follow-up report from CFPB states the bank was required to pay $100 million to affected customers, a $90 million fine that went into a victims’ relief fund, and a further $60 million in penalties to the Office of the Comptroller of Currency.
Bank of America’s customer service has also come under fire. In a Financial Samurai article, a customer says Bank representatives flaked on scheduled appointments and charged hundreds of dollars in fees to access his records. Recently, a customer went viral after visiting her local branch and discovering that there were no workers. Instead, there were two rooms for customers to video chat with representatives.
The Daily Dot reached out to Charity via TikTok comments and Bank of America via email for further information.
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