I went to Macys to purchase some items on Saturday, I tried to use my debit card and it was declined. Shocked, I call Bank of America to figure out what is going on because I know I have funds available and I am automatically transferred to the Fraud Dept. in Phoenix AZ. Because I am not fluent in English, I have my granddaughter interpret for me while I am on the phone with the "fraud analyst". After taking about 30 minutes into verify my information, because they insisted that they had to find an interpreter themselves and not go through my granddaughter the fraud analyst representative Cordella said my account was blocked because there was unusual activity at the beginning of this month. The unusual activity was an atm withdrawal of $500 at the beginning of the month, which I use to pay rent. I have been doing this for the past 2 years and now they say this is unusual activity? So my granddaughter asks the rep to explain why this is happening ALL OF A sudden, and the rep's reply was "I have the authority to monitor your account, it is my job and I can put a hold on it whenever I feel like there is unusual activity." We wanted to speak with a supervisor because this person was rude, unhelpful and almost discriminating in her attitude towards us. She said "I don't have a supervisor, I’m a financial analyst and I was providing you exceptional service because even though you were using profanity, I dealt with it!" And we were so astonished at her accusation because we are not the type of people to use profanity in conversations. My granddaughter was out of words and just shocked at the type of service BofA was trained to provide. She was obviously not treating me as a customer, but more of an annoyance because I could not speak English well and she wanted to get us off the phone and even denied out request to speak with a supervisor. I have never felt so discriminated by a bank employee, especially a big corp like B of A. And to think that my card can be blocked, without any reason, any time they want to... it makes me cringe to my stomach.
When I was declined of a $20 charge a Macys, I was extremely embarrassed and baffled. This is my hometown dept. store where everyone knows everyone! Who is going to pay for the embarrassment I got when my card was declined? I have a chronic cardiac disease, where if I am stressed/shocked, it could be detrimental to by survival. I had to get emergency treatment with nitroglycerine at home because I was so shocked from the situation. Also, the ruthless representative at b of A made me feel unsafe with my available funds AND was illogical in her explanations as to who this is happening. From now on, every time I use my atm card, I need to be in fear that it might be declined because someone at fraud services is having a bad day.