I am livid. And it all starts with bad information at the hands of customer service reps. 

This tale starts back in May, when I first started setting up wire transfers to my contractors overseas. I guess I should have realized I'd trigger some fraud alerts when my first wire transfers were to Russia and China (I also wire money to Bosnia). In any case, I initiated the first wire transfer, which went into a pending state until I manually confirmed the amount (that's reaasonable). 

After the first wire transfers... my online access suddenly locked with a message that the account had some sort of security hold on it. An annoyance, sure... but no biggie. Just call the number they provided, right? 

First time I called, the customer service rep (CSR) told  me this was standard, and that I should wait a few days. Nevermind the fact I had already manually resolved the initial security concerns. So I let it go. 

I didn't need to do any wire transfers for the rest of the month, so I forgot about it - believing the CSR knew what he was talking about. 

So June rolls around, and I need to pay off the Russian. Go to the window - still says there's a security hold. 

I call back - THIS time, the CSR claims that it's a bug on the website, and that there's nothing I can do to fix it. Wait, what? I'm a bit astonished that they claim there's a bug that's been around for a month that prevents Small Business bank accounts from doing online transfers (not even wires - normal transfers!). 

The CSR tells me to go into a banking center to do the wire transfers. So I begrudingly go. 

If you've never done an international wire transfer at a bank, let me tell you - it's a LOT of paperwork. Took about 20 minutes to get the paperwork done and to do the transfer. I double-checked all the numbers on the form, then OKed the transfer. The bank manager returns with a receipt of the transfer, and I go on my way. 

Five days later, my dev in China still hasn't received it. I look over the wire transfer document. 

They put in the wrong number. And it's not off by a little - it's off by a LOT. For example, if the account number was:

615328370182618

They put in:

615328371826188

They dropped the zero in the middle and repeated the last digit. Ugh. Human error!

So I bitch and moan about this on Twitter. 

Now, to the credit of BofA, they have people on Twitter. And they were very responsive (and so far, the only competent people I've interacted with at BofA besides the tellers - they're always great). I DMed back and forth, and they looked into the online wire transfer issue for me. A few hours later, they DMed me a direct number - when I called, I got a guy who picked up immediately and resolved the security hold on my account. (Turns out, there was a security hold - but apparently they don't lift them unless I have to proactively call them... lame)

Now, one issue resolved. 

The second issue still looms: what happens to the money that was wired? I went back into the banking center, where a nice manager (not the one who did the wire transfer) realized the mistake - she sent an addendum to the wire transfer with the correct bank account. She took my number down and said she'd follow up with me. (She never did, but whatever). 

As of Monday, there was still no money received in my Chinese dev's account. So I go into the banking center. The manager (the same guy who did my wire transfer) rather snippingly informs me I need to wake up to 7 business days - but that there was no way to track the issue down. I leave pretty pissed, but whatever. 

Today was the 8th business day after the addendum. I go in again (again, no money). This time, he seems a bit more willing to hep me. He calls up the wire department, and then gives me some excuse about China being a "slow to pay" country and that this could take up to 10 business days. 

Excuse me - it might take 10 business days to resolve the addendum, but don't you know if the initial one failed? Don't bank account numbers have some sort of checksum to prevent this from happening?

So the only info I got today: there's some lady who is the "investigator" on the wire transfer. And the bank manager has my account number. But as far as if I'll hear back? "I don't know - We'll call you." When? "We don't know. That's all the info I have." I paid BofA to do a wire transfer for what reason?

15 days after I initiated a wire transfer, Bank of America has no idea where my money is. Basically I paid $45 for them to lose my money. AWESOME. And my Chinese dev has still yet to be paid. And no offers to credit back to the wire transfer fee or anything!

I decided to transfer an early payment for June to my Chinese dev today (online, of course), which should at least hold HIM over until we track down the other payment. 

Bank of America: What a mess. 

. . .

What I find amusing about this cascade of events: it all started with the CSR giving me bad information - had I known it was a security hold (correctly) and they put up the right phone number on the error page of the website... I would have resolved this, and none of the human error would had been an issue. I would have just used the website. 

But since I had to use the old process, and since the old process was subject to human error, and because the intl wire transfer involves Chinese banks... jeez, what a mess.