Fee Refunds and Hold Times at Bank of America
POSTED
ON BY Ken Tumin
There was an interesting post at the Consumerist last week titled 5 Confessions of a Bank of America Personal Banker. It was supposedly from someone who had worked at BofA for about 1.5 years. I have some experience as a customer with two of the confessions: "I'm only allowed to refund fees if the system allows." and "Holds happen on deposits and there isn't much we can do about it."
About refunding fees at BofA, I recently didn't have luck getting a fee refunded using their online secure mail service. I've had better luck in the past at the branch or on the phone.
For hold times, I haven't made many check deposits at BofA, but I did recently have one at Capital One. It was a check from my broker, and I was hoping to deposit it into my Capital One checking account and then use the money to open a PenFed CD. Since the CDs often don't last long, I was hoping for a short hold. The check happened to be out-of-state, so Capital One was going to place a 7-business-day hold on it. Even after talking with the bank manager, I didn't have any luck shortening this.
On another topic of Bank of America, I've been seeing them advertise their Risk Free CD on TV. The feature allowing you to withdraw funds early without a penalty sounds nice. However, they don't mention the rate. It's very low, at least for Texas, with a yield of 2.70% APY for a 9-month CD. You would be better off keeping the money in an online savings account at another bank.
For other news and deals from Bank of America, please refer to my Bank of America posts.
About refunding fees at BofA, I recently didn't have luck getting a fee refunded using their online secure mail service. I've had better luck in the past at the branch or on the phone.
For hold times, I haven't made many check deposits at BofA, but I did recently have one at Capital One. It was a check from my broker, and I was hoping to deposit it into my Capital One checking account and then use the money to open a PenFed CD. Since the CDs often don't last long, I was hoping for a short hold. The check happened to be out-of-state, so Capital One was going to place a 7-business-day hold on it. Even after talking with the bank manager, I didn't have any luck shortening this.
On another topic of Bank of America, I've been seeing them advertise their Risk Free CD on TV. The feature allowing you to withdraw funds early without a penalty sounds nice. However, they don't mention the rate. It's very low, at least for Texas, with a yield of 2.70% APY for a 9-month CD. You would be better off keeping the money in an online savings account at another bank.
For other news and deals from Bank of America, please refer to my Bank of America posts.
Regarding check holds, B of A's computer system determines what the hold time should be, but as of a year ago (policy could have changed, I guess), a branch manager CAN override a hold. I wouldn't go in with the expectation that the manager WILL do it, but he or she MIGHT do it.
Regarding Capital One's check hold times, as of the last time I checked, COF places the maximum holds times allowed by the federal regulations. They told me that they were trying to be more competitive in this area, but I don't know how much progress they've made. As always, it's better to call ahead and ask what the hold time will be than to just mail in the check and hope for the best. :)
For fee refunds, that also can only be done where you opened your account. Fee refunds more or less have to be bank error, or they won't refund them.
Regarding to holds for deposit; most banks, like Bank of america, follow the federal and state regulations on availability of funds. If you deposit check >$5000 in one day, the first 100 is available on day of deposit, then the rest is usually available 4-6 business days after day of deposit. The longest I've seen in bank's Disclosures is 11 business days after deposit!
I really like the back in general. Good people and a great internet banking site. But the check hold policy based on snail mail is totally wrong.