BOFA Cheats customers when opening savings accounts

FW Members,

I want to bring to your attention that when a savings bank account is opened in Bank of America, they are doing hard credit enquiry which dings your credit score.

*This is not disclosed to the consumer at the time of opening the account and they did'nt asked for an authorization.*

I went to cash my I/EE Savings bonds, bank rep told me , fastest way to get the cash is to become a customer by opening savings account. I asked him specifically if bank will do a credit enquiry, he said no.

Today morning when I checked experian there is a hard enquiry and my score dropped significantly.

I am going to make some complaints and update the FW members what is the consumer protection we have, if big banks cheat us.

FreePhenoil said: Today morning when I checked experian there is a hard enquiry and my score dropped significantly.CitiBank does this also for savings account openings, even when you already have a checking account with them. How much did it drop ?

LighterWallet said: I mean why on earth should a hard credit inquiry lower someone's credit score ? ... but to simply lower it because one bank wanted to review your credit history never made much sense to me personally at leastBanks typically only do a hard inquiry when you are applying for some type of credit or loan, so it seems reasonable that another request for credit will temporarily lower your score by 3-4 points. But they sure should not do a hard inquiry when opening a savings account inside a bank branch.

FreePhenoil said: Today morning when I checked experian there is a hard enquiry and my score dropped significantly.Help me out. Put some real numbers here so we know what you mean.

LighterWallet said: I mean as long as I can afford the payments of a mortgage, why should such a thing indiscriminately affect my credit rating.Temporarily reducing your score by 3-4 points for 6 months seems unreasonable ?

Did you link your savings account and checking account for overdraft protection?
I was told by my bank the overdraft protection is run by the the credit department.
This could very well be the reason for the hard inquiry.
I was even told that if I add the overdraft protection I would receive a credit card automatically which I can "simply cancel" after receiving it. My answer was to decline the overdraft protection which I most likely would never need as I always keep sufficient amount of funds in checking accounts.

Alcibiades said: LighterWallet said: I mean as long as I can afford the payments of a mortgage, why should such a thing indiscriminately affect my credit rating.Temporarily reducing your score by 3-4 points for 6 months seems unreasonable ?

No, not at all.

3 - 4 points?
I had no idea it was such a small amount...
The OP made it sound like a big deal and didn't post details, so I assumed it was a lot more than that.
The temporary nature also wasn't mentioned...

Thanks again; it now makes much more sense.

i'm sure this is a dumb question but i really can't seem to grasp why people get so up in arms about a minor credit ding due to a hard inquiry. are all of you in the market for a new car or home 24/7? doesn't that ding go back up in a matter of months? just seems like people are a little too finiky(sp) in regards to their credit score.

FreePhenoil said: Cheated, because I asked specifically a question to the bank officer if there is an hard or soft or any credit enquiry for my savings account.

He answered *No* and based on this answer I opened this account. A day later, they pulled the report.
In my case credit rating was important as I am in the process of applying mortgage loans and monitoring my credit reports every week for the last six months.

I have even paid cash in some transactions so as to maintain the % of revolving credits to a specific number to maintain good rating.This bank tells me something and does onother thing without an authorization. What is that? Not cheating. Which country are you living?

Point is I am taking great pains to build my credit and have no control whatever on these organization re. our own information.


HappyGuy said: You were not cheated.

try searching: http://www.fatwallet.com/t/52/260724

You may have been scre-wed but you were not cheated. If they had charged you non-disclosed transaction fees then you would have been cheated.

HappyGuy said:
You may have been scre-wed but you were not cheated. If they had charged you non-disclosed transaction fees then you would have been cheated.

...I'm gonna guess here...maybe use some aggregate stereotypical analysis. But OP is Asian! (Am I right? ...whatever...not important anyway)

non-disclosed transaction fees...DUH

it's going offtopic, but thats what BofA does...among other banks I suppose. They have statistic folks that analyze data, see where they can non-chalantly put in the fees that will hit the largest number of folks...without causing a big stir (sometimes they will make a big stir...like their attempt to charge non-account holders a fee to cash a BoFa written check if they dont open an account) anyway...so fees are strategically placed due to profits, not because of costs related to the transaction per se. (of course they will say how much it costs them to provide you their service...so for a $5 useless BS fee they will say it needs to support salaries, rent, technology, advertisement, blah blah blah...and try to convince you that you're getting a deal! wow aren't you special!) Of course they have this little booklet of fees hidden somewhere and I dont think they even give one to you unless you ask. They just go over the 'basic' standard fees that pretty much all banks charge...like overdraft and account maintenance fees. Disclosure without the (full)disclosure...thats the BofA way!

I signed only the account opening form.
Patriot act requires our Address and SSN. BOFA got it with account application.
You never know man, how the big companies can exploit the law intended for national security to their benifit.

jlrdallas said: Two words: PATRIOT ACT

Did you sign anything at all when you opened the account? If so, did you read what you signed? The document would supercede anything a teller told you.

FreePhenoil said: Point is I am taking great pains to build my credit...Great pains? Sheesh, just pay your bills on time and you'll have good credit. What's all the fuss about?

And you still haven't answered the question I and others asked. What was your score and just how much was this "significant drop"?

FreePhenoil said: I signed only the account opening form.
Patriot act requires our Address and SSN. BOFA got it with account application.
You never know man, how the big companies can exploit the law intended for national security to their benifit.

jlrdallas said: Two words: PATRIOT ACT

Did you sign anything at all when you opened the account? If so, did you read what you signed? The document would supercede anything a teller told you.

The Patriot Act requires the bank to VERIFY the information you provided them. One method to do that is verify your information matches information in a national credit bureau, thus the credit pull. As someone who works for one of those big banks, I can tell you that we have spent countless hours and huge $$$ just trying to comply with the act. The only benefit we get is not breaking the law by not complying with the act.

They took my master card credit card info, driving license too.

jlrdallas said: FreePhenoil said: I signed only the account opening form.
Patriot act requires our Address and SSN. BOFA got it with account application.
You never know man, how the big companies can exploit the law intended for national security to their benifit.

jlrdallas said: Two words: PATRIOT ACT

Did you sign anything at all when you opened the account? If so, did you read what you signed? The document would supercede anything a teller told you.

The Patriot Act requires the bank to VERIFY the information you provided them. One method to do that is verify your information matches information in a national credit bureau, thus the credit pull. As someone who works for one of those big banks, I can tell you that we have spent countless hours and huge $$$ just trying to comply with the act. The only benefit we get is not breaking the law by not complying with the act.

RagingBull said: What if you already been a bankamerica customer for 10 years, and you open a savings account, will they still pull a hard ?Not if you have a checking account, at least for CA.

FreePhenoil said: Come on man, if I had 750+, I would'nt care. My score is 711 before and now
it 704, border line for medium to high risk.

I think that score is borderline between good and very good for FICO purposes.---z

privacyguard.com has a 60 day trial I believe.

What I didnt notice in this post was the following... why do they pull a hard when you are already a customer? you know why??

BECAUSE... it lowers your score... the lower your score, the more they can charge on loan products...

its simple... its so sad but it really is simple.

i still believe you should be able to window shop for a loan just like you do for a shirt, car, etc.

Like everybody said, let it go. A few on-time payments will leverage it easily.

If the score dropped significantly[b/] after credit check, then the score was low to begin with.
6 points out of 300 is more significant than 6 points out of 800.

FreePhenoil said: Come on man, if I had 750+, I would'nt care. My score is 711 before and now
it 704, border line for medium to high risk.

If you think 704 is borderline for medium to high risk, you need to study up on credit scores. 604 is borderline medium to high risk, not 704.

And how do you know the ENTIRE 7 point drop is due to this inquiry alone? If other things on your report changed (monthly balances of ccs, recent payment reporting, etc) your score changed.

Everyones score is ALWAYS in flux. Everytime a cc updates the bureaus your score will probably have an incremental change.

As stated earlier in this thread, the most COMMON reason a bank pulls your credit when opening a deposit account is to offer overdraft line of credit or other products. They also pull to see if youre a credit deadbeat. They may not want those customers, even for deposit products.

YES IT SHOULD BE A SOFT INQUIRY if youre not applying for credit. Write the letters and file the complaints if you wish to expend the time, and let us know the results/.