Washington Bank of America Accounts

If you don’t feel like reading, the summary of this post is: Don’t open a Washington Bank of America account.

Explanation:

So a few weeks ago, I decided to go deposit some checks (by the way, I hate checks, please don’t give me checks. You won’t end up on my hate list, but I will hate you in that moment) to my local Bank of America. The people were nice, and offered to set me up with a Washington Bank Account. I figured, hey, good plan, finally acting like I live in Washington.

And the lady signed me up, although there was some confusion over why I had accounts in Texas and Illinois. I sort of expected this, so it wasn’t a huge deal. I was sort of annoyed that the lady didn’t know Chicago was in the Illinois, and didn’t know where Illinois was, guessing that it was next to Wyoming… I won’t get into that…

So we set up my account, and she made me choose checks and a debit card. For whatever reason, she actually wanted to create more accounts than I had previously, all in Washington. An actual checking, a safe checking, and then linked savings for both. I figured, what the hell, this can’t be that bad. She also said any transactions would now be linked to my new account.

Things started to get a little worse when she mentioned that I’d need to change my pin and my online username. What’s worse, my online username was now twice as long as before.

The next week, I received an overdraft notice for $25 for a transfer that had completed the day BEFORE my money was transferred out to my new Washington account.

The day after, I received an overdraft notice for $35 for the transfer to MY NEW ACCOUNT.

What’s more, they did return the overdraft fees without much effort, but the lady had forgotten to close my old bank accounts. I had them closed.

A little while later, I need to pay my rent, so I go to my trusted BoA online bill pay to discover that Washington’s BoA online experience is MUCH crappier than the rest of the nation. In fact, it’s basically featureless and reminds me of online banking seven years ago. What’s more, the bill pay didn’t allow checks to individuals. Sadly, I had to go to a slightly worse bill pay on ING.

A week later, I receive another overdraft notice for my CLOSED bank account. Partially my fault, Puget Sound Energy tries to transfer my bill balance from my old bank account, and fails. I call in, and they don’t even see the overdraft, yet proceed to waste my time.

In conclusion, I wish I could close my BoA account. Unfortunately, my need for paper checks keeps me from probable bliss.