Bank of America FAIL

Bank of America is the target of Fail Kitty’s ire this week after an SMM fail of the highest order. Banks are an easy target to pick on currently, but the level of fail exhibited by BoA in handling the case of Arthur Livingston who resides in South Carolina merits special mention. Long before the social media fail fell into place, the fail began when Mr. Livingstone was declared dead.

In 2009, according to Bank of America, Arthur Livingston of Prosperity, SC, ceased to exchange carbon dioxide. He took a dirt nap. He kicked the bucket. The only problem is that no one told Arthur he was deceased. Being dead, BoA did what they always do and reported him as deceased to the three major credit reporting bureaus. Once you are dead with them, you are further gone than if the coroner started prepping you for the casket.

Further complicating the issue, Livingston sold his house in 2009. In October of 2011, he went to BoA to get a loan to build a new home. He had an account with them for 14 years at that point, had been paying off his credit card in full each month since they declared him dead, and had been maintaining accounts in good standing with BoA – all while they claimed he was dead. That was the reason the gave him when they denied his loan application – dead men don’t get loans!

He tried everything he could with his local branch, but they insisted he was dead even though he had convincing proof of being alive. He emailed BoA CEO Brian Moynihan whom never answered him. Each time he got a standard email from a lackey stating his case was being reviewed and that they took the problem seriously and would be escalating it. Livingston did this dance for 90 days before contacting the media to see if that kind of pressure might generate some action – and did it ever!

WISTV-10 ran the story. That netted the huge action of being contacted by some BoA representative that said he wanted to “touch base” and assure him that the right people were being put on the case to resolve the issue. In the meantime, Livingston has no credit. The credit bureaus declared him deceased. He has a score of less than zero because he doesn’t even exist to them anymore. Even if they believe he is alive, they cannot begin scoring him again until BoA reports him as alive – which they have yet to do for some unknown reason. Even then, the credit bureaus have to start him over from scratch again because they are not allowed to assign his prior credit score because of the years long gap in activity.

BoA has refused to comment publicly on the issue anymore. They defer all requests to a PR department and then lose them or send a standard letter that the issue is being looked into and no comment is possible at this time. Meanwhile, they are still happy to scrape fees off of Livingston’s two checking accounts and two college tuition savings plans for his children. Livingston has said he’d like to take his business elsewhere except that if he does before the issue is resolved it may never get fixed and he will remain a ghost.

What do you mean, I haz no credit?!

For declaring a live man dead, then passing him off BoA gets a fail. For then refusing to acknowledge it after being called out in the press and, as many people believe, stretching out a resolution for what is now beyond 6 months with no relief in sight as punishment, BoA gets an EPIC Fail and a very disapproving two paws down from Fail Kitty.

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