Locked out of Bank of America while living abroad — a Saturday branch visit finally restored my access
My online and mobile banking became available since three years ago. Basically I guess that since I have been living outside of the United States for quite sometime, the account was not active enough and was flagged by the fraud department. I still had some money in the account, which was a stupid thing to do, and when I got frozen out of my online and mobile access, it became urgent to me to regain access. This is the original post on what happened.
Recently our family took a vacation to San Francisco and Los Angeles and it became clear that I should use this opportunity to solve the account issue in person. It's not like I get to travel thousands of miles every year.
I booked an appointment at a branch (aka financial center) on a Saturday - our family had planned many activities, and we didn't have the flexibility to wait for a workday. I wrote what I wanted to accomplish in the online appointment form, and callled the branch in advance on whether a Saturday appointment was enough or I should try to book a workday appointment, and was told that a Saturday appointment should suffice.
I went into the branch around 30 minutes before the appointment time and was greeted and seated in the public area. Then when the time came, I was led into an office by a Relations Manager who was assigned to the case.
I had prepared quite a lot and brought all types of IDs - old and new - with me, but Bank of America's mandatory ID are really just one official photo ID such as a driver's license or passport, and one additional ID such as a credit card with your name on it.
The whole process took over 1 hour and close to 90 minutes. After showing both my valid IDs, I was also asked to show my previous passport which was used to open the original account. I also took my long-expired BoA debit card which of course looked really different from the current ones. I wasn't able to see the Relations Manager's computer screen of course, but he was doing some really heavy duty operations there, and had to step outside the office to check with other people several times during the process. Then another two managers were brought in to either consult or authorize on some further actions.
After around 1 hour, the Relations Manager called the BoA Fraud Department on my behalf, with me in the office. After some initial interactions between the Relations Manager and the Fraud Dept., the RM handed me the phone, and the Fraud Dept. asked about my account name. After that, I was asked to check on my mobile app. If I remember correctly, on the mobile app, which showed things like "mobile banking is currently unavailable to you.", I was shown a page to enter some sort of code, which I asked the Fraud Department about, who then gave me the code via phone. Mobile banking became available afterwards. I was beyond excited and happy at this point, but I still took full advantage of this in-person opportunity and went to withdraw 800 dollars in cash, even though they normally wouldn't do that when you don't have a valid debit card.
A reminder: take all devices you plan to use Bank of America on because each would require a code the first time you use it. I didn't take my computer to the branch, so when I try to log in to online banking on my computer, I had to call a phone number and was asked about my ID before they gave me the code to log into my online banking on computer.
This was an anxiety inducing experience but the final result was good. The Relations Manager was very professional and patient in solving the problem. And it feels good to get my money back!
