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

Background

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.

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.

Timeline of Events

• 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.
• 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.
  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.
• 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 third time. This agent was able reset to my account username and password and I was able to login again and regain access to the bank account. Problem solved! I thought. But not so fast...
• May 20, 2026: I received automated email from Bank of America stating that "Bill Pay service has been deactivated". Although I don't use this service, I thought the email was strange so I attempted to log in using both the Bank of America website and mobile app. Both login attempts failed, with an error message stating that there were no eligible accounts associated with the login. Déjà vu...
  I called Bank of America customer service yet again and was told by the first agent that my account was closed because Bank of America "couldn't verify my identity" yet again. I asked for a supervisor, who told me the same thing. I was then put on a prolonged hold while he attempted to find more information. He eventually told me that I would need to come into a Financial Center AGAIN to verify my identity by presenting ID, but that the account was already closed. I once again advised me that I had already done this when I opened the account, but he was unable to explain why I needed to go through the identity verification song-and-dance again. He finally advised me that a check for the balance of my account had been mailed out the day before, on May 19, 2026.
• May 26, 2026: I finally receive my balance check in the mail from Bank of America, which I proceed to promptly deposit into my Chase checking account via mobile check deposit. The funds are instantly available. I also get this paper letter from Bank of America:

Lessons Learned

To say that this entire experience has been a masterclass in corporate incompetence would be a massive understatement. Bank of America operates with a level of bureaucratic dysfunction that is honestly impressive; their right hand not only has no idea what their left hand is doing, but it seems actively intent on cutting both hands off. To ask a customer to repeatedly march into a physical branch to verify their identity while remaining completely oblivious to the fact that this exact verification was the literal prerequisite for opening the account in the first place is nothing short of comical. If a major financial institution cannot handle the basic task of verifying state and federal IDs without tripping over its own automated security flags every five days, they have no business handling anyone's money.

I have hundreds of thousands of dollars under management at other financial institutions and brokerages, and I have never experienced a fraction of the friction, scripted stonewalling, and utter lack of competence that I encountered at Bank of America at in less than three weeks. Needless to say, I am completely done with them. I will never be using Bank of America for anything ever again—no checking, no savings, no credit cards, and certainly no wealth management, because they seem hell-bent on wasting your hard-earned time and money by getting them to deal with their utter incompetence.

Moving on to Chase

For those wondering about the happy ending to my quest for a cash-deposit solution: I recently opened a Chase Total Checking account online. The difference was night and day. There was zero fuss and zero post-application identity crises. Perhaps this was due to the fact that I already have multiple credit cards with Chase. Yes, Chase has slightly higher monthly maintenance fees if you don't meet their waivers, but after this circus, I can clearly see why. You are paying for an institution that actually knows what it's doing. Chase also has a better initial bonus offer - a $400 bonus if you make direct deposits totaling $1,000 or more within 90 days.

If you are a high-earning professional looking to establish a relationship with a traditional brick-and-mortar bank, learn from my mistake: stay far away from Bank of America. Your time, your money, and your sanity are worth more than that. I'll be waiting by the mailbox for my refund check (you can be sure I'll be updating this article to put them on blast if I don't), and I won't be looking back. Fuck Bank of America.