I went into a Bank of America branch, which was out of the state where I opened my account (Washington). Despite having my drivers license and account number, the branch refused my withdrawal request of $5,000, citing computer issues. Apparently WA, CA, and ID accounts are all on different computer systems and the agents had difficulty accessing my account. The bank practically held my funds hostage. Is this legal?

(I sent this question in and got this answer):

While we sympathize with your plight, we do understand the bank's position. How is the bank to know that the account number is legitimate and that the funds are there?

This is not an excuse for the bank, but an explanation. To our mind, if a bank is going to buy up other institutions and their deposits and hold itself out to be one organization, it ought to be able to serve all of its customers, even if all of its computer systems aren't integrated.

We know that our idealism often runs into the brick wall of reality, but we don't have to be happy about it. We think your bank ought to have made more of an attempt to verify the account and accommodate your needs as its customer. (END OF RESPONSE)

How can this be legal? I thought it was called "Bank of America" for a reason. They acquired SeaFirst Bank back in the 90's, the only reason the computers are not merged at this point is because it would probably to expensive and they want to save money. Furthermore I know there is a method for them to access out of state accounts, yet I wasn't given the proper consideration.

Again my withdrawal was refused for no apparent reason other than uneducated employees. What does the OCC laws have to say about this?

Is the response you received described above from the OCC? If not, from what agency did you receive it? There are no specific regulations addressing your problem.

Even though deposit operation systems may not have been merged, you are right in that they should have been able to communicate with the other state to gather your information.

By the use of the past tense it seems this has been resolved in your favor. Did you get your money?

This response was from the "Ask a Banker" section of this website. I originally filed a complaint with my Attorney General, which was forwarded to the OCC. I received a response from Bank of America saying they will not do anything.

It appears to me that the OCC will not do much to them. I am thinking about small claims court, I'm just not sure on what grounds I could sue them for.

Seafirst was acquired by B of A in 1983. It was only in 2000 that B of A changed the name to B of A from Seafirst. But it has been B of A since 1983.

The OCC will not interject itself in a legal dispute between a bank and a customer in which no federal regulations have been violated by the bank.

Is B of A saying they will do nothing because they have no record of you as a depositor? There may be a difference between will or can do nothing.

Have you consulted an attorney?

Pale...thank you for that information I did not know that they acquired them back in 1983 which makes my claim even more prevalent. I got a call from the CEO's office of B of A in "response" to my complaint to the OCC. He apologized profusely like the rest of the customer service agents I had dealt with prior to this and then ended off with "but we will not be refunding the fees at this time." He went on to give me another excuse that the amount was to large, and at that point I just hung up since I have been given 50 different reasons from 50 different employees. The excuses have ranged from not having my debit card, to large of an amount, and the one in the bank which was that I was out of state.

The customer service I have experienced has been just awful from the banking tellers, the phone agents, and that stooge who called me from the CEO's office. I have since withdrawn all my money and opened a new account with another bank.

I have consulted an attorney but he also could not find a clear cut violation of any banking regulation.

After consulting with my attorney today I have found that they may be in violation of some codes of the UCC Title 3. See you in court B of A.