A nightmare experience: Trying to open a bank account with Bank of America

Background<br>For most of my adult life past college, I've eschewed bank accounts at brick-and-mortar banks and have mostly used online institutions and brokerages, e.g. Ally Bank and Fidelity's amazing Cash Management Account. However, as a physician who has recently completed residency and is now fortunate enough to have the beginnings of a higher net worth, I figured it was time to establish a relationship with a proper brick-and-mortar institution. And after offloading several items locally via Facebook Marketplace, I also needed a good way to deposit cash.<br>Although Fidelity and Ally Bank allow you to withdraw cash from compatible ATMs (and Fidelity even reimburses ATM fees), neither of these institutions make it easy to deposit cash. There are more convoluted ways to do so through PayPal, CashApp, Venmo, etc. that involve paying a small fee and then transferring to a linked bank account, but for obvious reasons this is less than ideal. And while it is true that most brick-and-mortar banks, including the Big 4 (Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo) will nickel-and-dime you with fees if you don't maintain a minimum balance or monthly direct deposit requirement, it is definitely nice to have access to traditional, in-person banking. I currently live next to a Bank of America branch (or a Financial Institution, as they like to call them), so I figured BofA would be a safe bet. Wrong.<br>Timeline of Events<br>May 7, 2026: I applied online through the Bank of America Advantage SafeBalance Banking® checking account. At the time of application a tiered bonus of $100/$300/$500 for total direct deposits of $2,000/$5,000/$10,000 was in effect, and at the time of this writing this promotion is still active. At the end of the process I received a message stating that my application was pending identity verification, and that I needed to go to my local Financial Center, show two forms of identity to a banker, and receive a confirmation code that I could then type into the Bank of America website or mobile app. I was able to make it to my local branch later that day before they closed, and after some waiting I presented my driver's license (which is REAL ID-compliant) and my state-issued concealed carry license, both of which had been listed as acceptable forms of identification. The banker accepted my IDs without fuss, pushed some buttons on his tablet, and was able to generate the confirmation code. I entered the confirmation code into the Bank of America mobile app and a few minutes later, I received an email stating that my application was approved and that my account was open. I was told that my debit card would be arriving in the mail in a few days. The banker was even able to help me deposit $200 of cash I had on me through the ATM without a debit card present. Nifty, I thought.<br>May 15, 2026 (approximate): About a week later, I discovered that I could not log in to my Bank of America account either online or via the mobile app, with an error message stating that the login ID could not be found. I called Bank of America customer service and was told that my account was closed because Bank of America "couldn't verify my identity". I was advised by the agent to go into a local Financial Center to "present two forms of ID" (???) I advised the agent in no uncertain terms that I had already done this the day I had opened the account, but the agent once again gave me a scripted reply stating that my account was closed and that I would be receiving a check in the mail for the full balance of my account "within 30 days" and that I was "more than welcome" to apply for another account in-person.<br>Later that day, after searching the Internet for advice from people who had also experienced issues with locked/closed accounts at BoA, I managed to find this post with an email address for the CEO. I fired off an email at 8 AM and actually received an email and call back later that day around 4 PM from a Teresa Reclusado on their Consumer Client Escalations team. I explained what had happened so far and Teresa ultimately informed me that my account was open but that the debit card associated with it had been closed for unknown reasons and offered to send me a new debit card. Okay? I also asked her why my BoA online login had been disabled, but she wasn't really able to give me a clear answer as to why. I was able to create a new login ID/username and she gave me a new temporary password, but it didn't work.<br>May 15, 2026: I ended up going back into my local branch at 4:30 PM, 30 minutes before closing, and ended up explaining everything again, including the fact that I had just gotten off the phone with someone from their escalations team. One of the bankers had me go to her desk and was able to connect me directly with another customer service agent through some sort of back-office phone line. I ended up describing what had transpired so far for the...