I have a personal credit card with BofA, along with my home mortgage. I have always had good experiences with BofA. On the credit card side (used for emergencies only), I have been impressed with their fraud protection (free) and customer service. Recently my credit card was stolen (not sure how, but guessing during an online transaction), and BofA emailed and called me immediately. All charges were dropped and the process was as seemless as possible to the customer (me).

Keep up the good work Flexo.

It's obvious that you work for the Bank of America "Damage Clean-up" department. BofA is a shady, predatory bank. Don't believe me? Google Bank of America and read all of the sad stories about how Bank of America is taking advantage of low income people by manipulating the order in which deposits, withdrawals are posted. They do this in such a way as to create billions....really billions of dollars in fees. It may be legal, but it's not right.

Free money is never a problem for me; sadly I already have a BOA checking account!

I've been looking for a national bank to move my local bank accounts to (I will be moving fairly soon) and I was about to choose something else before I saw this post. Thanks!

I moved my accounts to BOA a couple of years ago. Setting up the accounts online was not fully successful. I ended up going into my local branch to finish the process. Even then, it wasn't completely correct. I was able to transfer money from checking to savings but not savings to checking. That took a simple phone call to my local branch to correct. Everything has been great since then.

My bills get paid on time now - I use e-billing for phone and electric. I wish Comcast was available as an e-bill. For others, I set up the payment for the due date when I get the bill. I get emails when the bills are paid. I set up alerts for various things. For example, when my checking account balance gets below a certain amount, I get an email about it.

I'm very happy with BOA.

I opened my first checking acct with BofA about 8 years ago. At the time, the only way to get free checking is if you had a direct deposit. I lost a job and didn't have steady income and was charged a $4.95 montly fee. My linked savings account dropped below an account minimum and I was charged a $4.95 fee. At the time, BoA didn't have a better checking and savings options for me because my daily/monthly balances were too low and I wasn't in school to qualify for a college account.

It took 45 minutes to close my savings account. The rep kept trying to convince me to keep it open and was loathe to actually close the account at my continued insistance. Very frustrating. I still had my checking account with BoA and soon enough I got a job and was able to avoid the monthly fee.

2.5 years ago, one of my checks bounced and I was levied an overdraft fee. I never bounce checks; I know my balance to the penny. I soon discovered that BoA doubled debited a check that I had written. A call to customer service quickly restored my balance, but the rep would not return my overdraft fee. I had to eventually go to my local branch and talk to a manager to get the fee reversed.

I then opened a new checking account at another bank. When I knew that all my deposits/debits were coming out of my new bank account, I went to BoA to close my account. The same thing happened when I closed my savings account. The rep tried to convince me not to close my account, but when I explained why I was so frustrated with BoA, the mgr never listened to my concerns and plowed right ahead trying to convince me about better checking options (which there was, finally, but by then the point was moot). It took nearly an hour to close my account; way too long in my opinon.

BoA was quick to take my money from me but was painfully slow to return money due to me or let me move my money elsewhere. I saw too much of its horrible customer service and will never do business with BoA again. I've found that people fall into two camps with BoA: either they love them or they hate them. When BoA pisses people off, they really go out of their way to do it.

I will say that most of my family has BoA checking, savings, credit cards and mortgages and absolutely adore BoA. They've told me flat out that BoA isn't the bank for someone who carries low balances or doesn't have multiple accounts.
I won't say don't bank with them, but I wouldn't open an account with them to chase an extra $75.

I am started to get curious about which banks are offering the most bonuses for opening up new accounts; are banks offering more because of the growing financial frenzy? I guess they don't want to be the next Wa-mu.

Aya: Bonuses are a good way to attract attention to a brand and attract new capital -- something banks are looking for right now. The more tight a situation the bank it is, the more likely it is that a bank would be willing to pay customers (in the form of bonuses, high interest, and even affiliate fees) to attract new money.

@Flexo - Sounds like a good plan on our end, do banks really make that much more of a profit (with more people signing up) that its worth offering better bonuses in the long run? I wonder if some banks fail out because of these strategies by losing out to the competitor?

My first bank account was with BoA because they were simply the closest branch near me. In later years, after I've established other accounts, I thought about closing BoA but realized that I really like their "My Portfolio" feature, which is a Mint-like way to keep track of all of your accounts. I like how I can access it through my online banking and see all of my transactions, balances, net worth, and even budgeting reports easily.

Then, lately, I've come to enjoy another reason to keep my BoA checking and that is because of their Global ATM Alliance with other major banks of the world, which allows a customer to use the other banks' ATMs for free. This comes in handy if you're traveling to the UK, France, Germany, China, Australia, and so forth.

Although my checking has been relatively dormant for awhile, I still keep it open for the two purposes above since it doesn't cost me anything each month.

As my checks say, I've been a B of A customer since 1995. They're kinda the guy everyone loves to hate, it happens when you're that big and omnipresent. I've had almost no issue with them in my years of banking but I know others have. I stay with them because they have ATM's everywhere and I have so many automatic deductions from that account it'd be a pain in the you know what to change to them.

I use B of A for a checking acct - and credit card- and have never had a problem. I use the online banking to pay most of my bills, and their ATMs are everywhere so I never pay a nickel in fees. I'd have no problem recommending them

i had the same expirence as ML. it was pretty awesome, but with a crappy job those fees banged me pretty hard. i now know that if i dont pay late fees on anything i actually have enough left to eat and have treats. i was on vacation and bought something and returned it when i realized it cost more to ship it than it was worth. Somehow (and i still have the paper trail to prove than it never happened) BOA said i was overdrawn (5000 in the account and i spend 500 and i'm overdrawn?) and like ML said i got it straightened out but never got my money back, not even after i three day ride to the original bank to chew out the president. i was stalled for not an hour but days. they really wanted me to give up. but surely any one who spends $150 bucks and 23000 miles to correct a $35 fine is really cheesed off and a simply brush off wont do. Yet they never got that. i switch to WELLS FARGO after that who i've heard horror stories about but only had issues with once. and they worked with me other ways so that at least broke even.

if you want free money i notice Chase bank have a $125 coupon in the US post office coupon book for poeple who are moving and $100 for business account. Key bank will let you get $100 but if you wait til after spring break i notice they give away ipods worth more that a hundred, closer to two hundred. but note key bank is a little slow and in my opinion a bit shifty but not so much as BOA. National City is Giving away $150. that is all i have for now.

I've had a B of A checking account for many years. I also have a Wells Fargo account. My only complaint about my B of A checking account is the online banking. I am not sure why such a large company cannot find a way to post debits and credits to the online account information quicker. It's kind of ridiculous. It can take a week for things to show up. Having a Wells Fargo account has shown me what a GOOD online banking system can do. It posts things immediately. Always. So, with my B of A checking account, if I don't also keep a manual check register, I can find myself forgetting about items. My theory is that they keep it that way so that they can get more overdraft fees. When I inquired about this over a year ago, they said 'they were working on it'. No change at all so far. Personally, if given the choice, I would take Wells Fargo over B of A any day. In this day and age, it seems very archaic to have such a shoddy system to record your checking account usage.

They offered a similar promotion back in the beginning of July, which I signed up for. It's been nearly 5 months & I STILL have not received the $75. I have contacted customer service several times & no one can give me any answers. They either tell me they "don't know" or they're "looking into it". Very aggravating, why offer a promotion if you're not going to honor it?

I have similar experience as Ripped Off -- I opened a/c 4 months ago with B of A.
They are unable to locate the offer! unbeliveable

I also have a BoA credit card and opened a checking account online, but haven't heard anything about the $75. Has anyone who did this received their $ yet? Is there a "form" or something that you have to fill out like they do for rebates?

I opened a account online I did not have a credit card so I was told to go into the branch to make my first deposit. I had just had cancer surgery and have been sick since July. I got the atm card in the mail and I never activated it. I never puy the money in the bank so I thought the account was no good. Some stole my wallet all my id's and cards. They used the atm card at gas station 2-3 times and was allowed to buy gas on a unactive atm card and account. The bank is charging me 131.00 for an account I never officially opened. I explained that I am very sick with chemo and I don,t come out unless i go to the hospital. I feeled out the papers but they said they never got them. Now they want me to pay them 131.00.

What happens if I owe BoA $75 and just decide not to pay it? Like others here, they welched on my $75 account opening bonus. It's been 6 months and 10 calls. Perhaps the most clueless customer service I've ever encountered, at any level, in any industry. They were completely unable to do the right thing and honor this incentive. Their petty incompetence has lost them an entire family of future customers.

whenever you open your account? Make sure you have everyhting and you have to work hard to get your money
maybe need to call every month to make sure they still know your promotion. Otherwise they will told you
we will never have $75.00 promotion.
Never turst BOA, They will do the work for you.