On or around August of 2000, Fleet Bank lowered my credit limit from 9000.00 to 3800.00. At that time, my total balance was over 5000.00. Upon lowering my credit limit, Fleet Bank proceeded to charge me over-the-limit fees every month. At that time, I temporarily ceased making payments. By January of 2001, I began to make payments once again and I entered into credit counseling. For the period of credit counseling, my APR was lowered to 10 and my payments were 95.00 per month. I continued on credit counseling until approximately May of 2003. I then entered into a Hardship plan with Fleet who maintained my APR at 10, with payments of 110.00 per month.
In February of 2004, I first noticed that my balance, since February of 2001, had risen from 5420.32 to 7861.42. As of August of 2000, the account had been closed. When I contacted Fleet by telephone about this discrepancy, I received no explanation and Fleet bank refused to send me copies of the statements in question. In my error, I had kept no statements from February of 2001 until August of 2004 and so could not research it on my own.
In April of 2004, I again stopped making payments and sent Fleet Bank a Notice of Rescission Restoration of Status Quo and requested validation of the account balance. I received no validation or meaningful response from Fleet Bank and sent them a second notice in June of 2004, to which I received no response at all. In July of 2004, I sent Fleet Bank a third notice and they proceeded to remove all reference to this account from my credit file; I received no additional correspondence from Fleet Bank.
Between July and November of 2004, Fleet Bank apparently merged with or was acquired by Bank of America. I then received a letter from Bank of America, stating the following: “We may report information about your account to credit bureaus.” I then attempted to contact Bank of America by telephone (on at least three occasions) and was met with extreme hostility and disrespect by Bank of America employees. Unable to communicate to Bank of America by telephone, in August of 2005, I sent them a Notice of Rescission and Termination of Fiduciary Responsibility and requested validation of the account, to which I received no response at all.
On or around August, 2006, Bank of America placed the account in negative standing as a charge-off and reported this to the credit bureaus. I sent Bank of America written communication as to the validity of the report and requested that Bank of America review the account in detail. Bank of America did not review the account and, in fact, did not review my own correspondence in enough detail to note that I am a woman and not a man. Instead, Bank of America sent me a letter insisting that there was never any dispute filed on the account and stating that their “…records indicate that the above references account is reporting correctly on your credit reports…” Bank of America also added that they no longer own the account and therefore I should not contact them about said account.
