Louis Mendez, a retired officer in the U.S. Merchant Marine, prides himself on never having been late on a credit card payment.
But he was aghast earlier this month when he received a letter from Bank of America notifying him that his credit card of more than 20 years would be canceled if he did not bring primary identification to the nearest BofA financial center by today.
The problem: There are no BofA financial centers in Hawaii, and the closest ones were in San Francisco or Los Angeles — some 2,400 miles away.
“I called them and said to comply with your request would cost me $1,500 to $2,000 round trip to the mainland for airfare, car rental and a hotel,” Mendez said. “That’s a hardship, and I’ve been a customer for 20-something years and never missed a payment and worked real hard to keep my credit in good shape. They dropped my interest rate a couple times because I’m such a good customer.”
Mendez, 66, who typically carries a balance of about $5,000, has an interest rate on his credit card of 7.99 percent. That’s relatively low by today’s standards where some credit card companies charge rates from the teens to higher than 20 percent. Mendez said he thought the bank might be trying to cancel his card because of his low interest rate.
He said one of the half-dozen people he eventually talked to at Bank of America was “laughing in my face, saying this is a Bank of America policy.” No one was willing to make an exception for a customer living in Hawaii, Mendez said. The bank’s stance was he had to show up in person or the card would be canceled.
The bank said in the letter dated July 27 that Mendez needed to bring a photo ID, adding in bold type, “This information cannot be sent through U.S. mail, email or fax.”
Mendez told the bank representatives that it wasn’t his fault there was no BofA financial center in Hawaii.
Until 1997 there had been BofA branches in Hawaii. But that changed in 1997 when American Savings Bank purchased all 39 of the BofA Hawaii branches for $96 million.
“It wasn’t me that moved Bank of America out of Hawaii,” he said.
A frustrated Mendez considered canceling his card.
“I actually thought about it, but interest rates are very high and what happens is when they look at your credit rating, if you have had a card for a long time, that’s the one that’s most valuable in determining your credit score, your FICO,” he said. “If you close an old low-rate card, now you have to start all over again because now you have a new credit card with a new bank and a higher interest rate, and your FICO score suffers.”
After being contacted by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Bank of America spokeswoman Betty Riess said via email Friday that the information for Mendez had been misplaced.
“Like all financial institutions, we’re required by law to maintain complete and accurate records for all of our customers and may periodically request information if we find that information is incomplete or missing, which is what happened in the case of Mr. Mendez,” she said. “Upon further review of his account, we were able to locate the information we needed and have reached out to Mr. Mendez to let him know that we don’t require any information from him.”
Mendez said it’s unlikely he’s the only one in Hawaii to receive such a letter and that there probably are other places where there are no nearby BofA financial centers.
“It’s just a bad policy,” Mendez said.
Riess said she couldn’t elaborate on whether anyone else in Hawaii had received such a letter.
“We don’t break out cardholders by market, but generally requests for additional information are specific to an individual account and impact a very small number of cardholders,” she said. “We include a number in the letter that customers can call if they have any questions or have difficulty in providing the information we require. Our objective is to minimize any customer inconvenience while ensuring we have complete and accurate information on each account.”
