Working at Bank of America — Reviews by Employees

I worked for Bank of America for only two months. My previous supervisor from my previous job came in and told my manager that I was fired from my last job for stealing from the company. My manager then got me fired based on hearsay, when I was never fired from my last job for stealing. To top it off unemployment always sides with BOA, so I never got my unemployment. On top of that they cut our bonuses in half just before I left, we used to get bonuses every quarter, now they only pay you half twice a year. This also means that for 6 months in a row you have to hit your numbers or you don't get a bonus! I hope you people learn from my comment to not work for this horrible organization.

It's difficult to know which is worse: working in an abusive environment or abusing customers. Our customers hate the bank, so it is stressful dealing with them. The bank puts a greeter at the front door as a security measure since so many of our customers feel we have ruined their lives. They stay with the bank because after banking with us for a long enough period, we've ruined their credit rating to the point where they can't open an account anywhere else.

Female employees are encouraged to wear sexy clothes. I don't like having to show cleavage. We work long hours and no one thanks us for working so hard. The stress is absolutely unbearable because unhappy customers make angry customers. I don't know what would be more difficult, working here or serving in Iraq.

I have worked here for 5 yrs. It started out GREAT but has since become a living hell. If you have ever made ANY mistake in your career, thing the Unit leader wil make you remember it forever. I have advanced many times but demoted because of lame reasons that I do not think are even legal. It is like highschool all over again. If you are not in the "in crowd" ar of certain sexual orientation then forget it! The crap they put our customers through is beyond me, I can't see how this company is still making it! They do not require even a high school diploma or drug screen to work there, My manager who has been there for over 20 yrs is so incompetent its amazing!

It's been the career I really craved. If you work hard and can take coaching - you can go anywhere in this company.

this company is hands down the absolute worse company to work for. I recently quit due to stress from that job, it is mentally taxing I leave feeling physically exhausted EVERY DAY I work, and go into full on panic attacks right after I walk into the building. for the type of customers we have to deal with our pay is a joke, yes I make about 26k a year, but after my OVERPRICED insurance comes out (I have 3 people on it) and my 401k benefits and my taxes, my take home pay last year was 15k!! who the eff can live on that??? on top of that we now take calls for credit, customer assistance and marketing, WITHOUT A PAY RAISE!!! when I was hired to that company I was told "you have an oppertunity to make extra money every month but its not a requirement for the job" verbatim, now I'm being threatened with performance manangement because I'm not selling enough products or "solutions" as they skillfully call them, I'm sorry but I'm not going to con some 89 year old woman living social security check to social security check into paying for credit protection or privacy assist, the customers are completly ignorant, I've never spoken to so many ignorant, rude useless people before in my life!! I wanted to move to a different department, maybe customer assistance, I figured "I don't like to sell but I like the feeling of really helping someone" heres the b.s part, I couldn't move to a different department until I hit my "goals" consistantly for several months. so I couldn't move to a department that I know I would be more successful in until I was successful in something I didn't like. and our monthly goals were fine until the rolled out MPV, and here is where the "we feed you b.s and your gonna eat it" play into part, originally our goals were "12 products and 14 bt's" as well as various other metrics, late fee preservation, average handle time ect. well mpv was a way for them to get us to sell more with harder goals to hit, they have what they call "k performer" stating that you only had to be 20% to k to be considered hitting your goals however no one ever knows who k is, they are a mystery person, mystery because k doesn't exsist, they just randomly pull numbers out of there a$$ and tell us that we need to be here, and you can be hitting your goals but you have to EXCEED k in order to get payout. the phone calls are stressful, people are rude, ignorant and treat you like a pos, and if you have a question forget it...you won't find anyone to answer it to save your life, and manager calls are a joke, if you are lucky enough to get a manager to take a manager call right there, be prepared to hear them THROW YOU UNDER THE BUS!!! when I first started I thought they were great, I was excited to be part of something I considered a career and a real potential to move up in a company, but this job has given me nothing but stress related migrains and a job that has taken a year and a half from my life that I'll never get back. If you are an anti-social, single, childless person who has no problem sleeping around to get up the corporate ladder and you enjoy or are really good at conning people out of there hard earned then bank of america is the place for you

If you like working for the Devil himself, this is the place for you.

Gather round. Lets have a little fireside chat and let me tell you my tale.

It all started in 2004...

I first started working for this hell on earth 3 years out of college. I returned to Cleveland after trying to find a job that I could use my Psychology degree for. I found that MBNA (a credit card company which was later bought by BoA) was hiring. MBNA was great. I was a customer service rep in their credit card department. The people were wonderful, the benefits were great and the bonuses were exceptional. I knew several people who would max out on there bonuses on a monthly basis. The pay was an honest 28k a year I even maxed out a few times myself, hitting that magic number of $3,000. I could easily net close to 45-65k a year with those bonuses. All at the age of 22

Have you ever seen that movie Boiler Room? Thats how were were living. A bunch of young punks with too much money, and when we werent working, too much free time. I was living at my parents house and bought a new car, new computers, gaming systems, tv's, surround sound, went to the bars, the hottest parties, drank all the alcohol, went to Vegas 3 times a year, had plenty of women (mostly the big tittied skanks from the office lol) and lived the life of Caligula for about 2 years.

There were monthly contests, where the rewards were huge cash prizes, vacations, paid time off, electronics etc. One of my friends even won a 20lb turkey during a Thanksgiving contest! The schedule was a bit long, I worked a shift from 2pm-1am, but it was nothing that a 22 year old couldn't handle, especially since the pay and bonuses were so good.

Then the dark days came. 2 years after I started MBNA was purchased by BoA....

Change came instantly. Gone was my schedule of 2pm - 1am, which I did not complain about, however it was replaced by a convoluted schedule of working 11am -12pm Tues-Sat the first week of the month, then Mon-Thurs the second week fo the month, then Fri-Tues the third week and Thurs-Mon the last week of the moth. Confusing?

90% of the DM's and RM's who made MBNA great were fired and replaced by corporate shills from BoA. Bonuses were trimmed down from 2-3k to a max of $300-$500. Salary was reclassified to match your cost of living, meaning if you lived in an affluent area of Cleveland your salary would be higher than if you lived in a less affluent area. Guess who lived in the more affluent areas of Cleveland? Yup, you guessed it. The corporate shills of BoA. All of us customer service reps who mostly lived in apartments (which I moved into one about 3 months before the buyout) had our salaries lowered. My salary went from 28k to about 20k. They cut my salary by eight thousand dollars in one day and took away any earning potential buy lowering the bonuses from 2-3k to $300-$500. I went from Caligula to "just trying to pay my rent and eat" in a matter of hours. Yeah you can live off 20k and most people would kill for that, but the way they went about it was wrong especially since there was no prior warning and there were other people who counted on that money to feed thier families.

The management became obnoxious and overbearing. Micromanaging to the point of outright harrassment. I know one girl who purposely entered her password incorrectly 3 times, triggering a lockout so she wouldn't have to work. She did this on a Sunday when the tech people didn't work and no one would be able to help so the managers had no choice but to send her home. She did this several more times and ended up being fired for it.

The cubicles became cages. You were required to remove any non-BoA materials from your cubicle walls. Family photos, trinkets, everything. Basically removing any emotional tether you have to the outside world. Any sanity inducing object was to be taken down until you became nothing more than a cog in the wheel of the Devil's mighty war machine.

And what glorius war it made. Interest rates went up, some as high as 29%. 25 year, loyal, never-paid-a-late-fee-in-thier-lives customers of MBNA saw thier interest rates double and in some cases triple with out notice and without reason. We customer service and retention reps were given no resoning to this and at times were told to "make up" a reason why thier rates have increased. I remember one customer in particular that I spoke to, had not made a purchase on his card in three years, was simply paying off the balance, had never been late, had always made his payment the same time every month, saw his APR increase from 5.9% to 15.99%. When he demanded a reason, my manager told me to tell him, "Your APR increased because you are not using your card. We reward customers who use thier card, not people who simply pay off the balance." Now imagine having that conversation to 100 customers a day, 5 days a week times 4 weeks. And you have that conversation 2,000 times a month. Now take the year, you have 20 vacation days plus 5 sick days. 365 - 25 = 340 actual work days. 2000 * 340 = 680,000. I "made up" a reason why somebody's APR increased a total of six hundred and eighty thousand times. They made me lie to more than half a million people. Multiply that by the number of people on the floor, lets say 30 and Bank of America has lied to more than 20 million people in two years time.

Sickening isn't it.

In the end I was fired. I couldn't do it anymore. I would come into work and sit and stare at my blank computer screen for about 30 minutes everyday before doing any type of "work". I was becoming clinically depressed and gaining weight from such a sedentary lifestyle. Not to mention that there was always some type of catered lunch to placate the masses even more with empty calories.

Do not work here, you will only end up fat, unhappy, and emotionally scarred. Not to mention consiously bankrupt and morally destitute.

There is no life wwork balance. Just work. Expected to work overtime without the benefit of overtime pay. There is actually a class action lawsiut against BOA concerning this. Micro managing abounds!!! Very stressful. Not enough staff in branches. I used to enjoy working in banking. Not any more. I have been on medical leave for a year and a half and just the tought of having to back there makes my skin crawl. I can't even go into a branch without having an anxiety attack and know many other employees who have this same issue. If you like the idea of being shit on daily then this is the place for you! You'll love it!!

I love this place. My manager is always complimenting me and i get to wear the most stylish clothes. I can get promoted and enjoy my career. There is tremendous opportunity to learn about this industry. I have the coolest co-workers who are so, so nice to me. The lighting in our office is awesome.

Free coffee every morning. There have been lunch meetings with sales people and they sometimes include me. Wow. I, there is no better place to work in the whole wide world.

i get 30 hours a week but no benefits
they have huge sales goals but the pay is lik 10 bucks an hour
they also want you to be available 24/7
not a great place to work

I work in the RIo RAncho call Center and I have to say their is a lack of communication and consistency most of the time from management. But we have all the tools that gives us the updates which we have to READ. however I also believe that most people who have a hard time working here are incompetent Most of this people are like the customers we talk too who don't take ownership of their actions. yes, we do have a hard job dealing with dumb people who dont know how to add and take responsibility for over spending. BOA has lots of policies in place to help the customer if its the first time they messed up but if they mess up again we are not forgiving. I think that is fair. Most of the employees want to give fees back and can't handle the heat and of course the upper management is going to be on their asses because the employees dont have the ability to handle an upset customer. Plenty of training is given but most choose to make their own policies. I personally believe those people should quit and stop giving this company a bad name because they are no different from the custmers that call and yell at us because of their inability to do math. I do agree however that most managers come down on the reps when not hitting goals and perhaps they could use a different approach but I personally know that most of these people have been here FOR years and are still unable to service the customer efficiently and most of them don NOT take the time to review the policies and procedures so they are equip to handle the calls faster and able to explain why fees cannot be refunded. (if this was such a bad company they would of been fired a long time ago) What we are measured on is simple,what the customer thinks of our personal service-meaning how we convey the message and are we sincere and respectful, offering credit cards that by the way are approved! and it equals to about 2 a month. transfering call percentage which means you have to be knowledgable about how to help a customer so you are not fucking transfering the customer all over the place. Also being available to take calls meaning you are to work your shift and not full around or go take to many damn cigarette breaks. REALLY people is not that hard. ANd ofcourse calling in sick they allow 4 occurences before you are put in a verbal! you really need to be a lazy person or a really sick one to get in a written. This employees are just flat lazy. I had a terrible manager once who was so damn picky when grading my calls BUT I made it happen. I still got top rankings. why? because I'm not lazy and I take the feedback and do it I dont go complaining on how i think that shouldn't be blah blah blah. I dont let others put me down. I can do it. and so can you. As long as you are meeting no one will bother you. As long as you are not giving the house away in fees just cause the customer is yelling or transfering calls when you should be takin care of them or calling in sick all the time you will be okay. I do agree the benefits are now crappy but at least I have a job unlike most Americans right now. Their is opportunity for advancement however you have to be smart to get it. The entire world is the same, where there is humans. You must do the right things so that upper management see you are good and not step in peoples toes. Sometimes it is about who you know and sometimes it isnt. You just have to have the right attitude to make it in ANY job. and if you dont like it shut up and quit. Overall I'm satisfied and if I'm ever not I will simple go find another job.