I'm interested in taking out a loan from Bank of America. While I'm not currently a customer, I'm open to getting a bank account with them to acquire a loan if I can get the rate they're advertising. Before I do anything, however, I want to talk to someone about the loan options I've seen advertised on the Internet. It seemed to make the most sense to give Bank of America a call, so I found this number online and went ahead and called it.
Now, I'm aware that as a banking institution, there are security issues and they need to verify information. However, I don't understand why they need so much account information. There should be an option to talk to a representative if you don't have an account and want to get an account. This not only didn't seem to be an option, but then I had a weird message by the end of my call. To be honest, I'm thoroughly confused by my experience calling this number, and next time I will probably just go down to Bank of America in person and talk to a teller or bank manager.
Initially, it said, "This call may be recorded. Thank you for calling Bank of America. To get started, please say or enter your account number." So I thought this means I called the right number because the system identified itself as Bank of America. I actually called back to check when I got to the end of the call, and it was the same number and the same introduction. However, after this, things started to get odd for me.
I told the system I didn't have an account, and it said, "I didn't understand, please enter your account number, tax ID or social security number." I went through this loop twice. Then I tried to say new customer, thinking that would help me get to someone. The same thing kept happening and it would loop again, so then I said, "Talk to someone." Then it said, "You must enter valid information to use our automated system or talk to an associate."
While I was still trying to figure out how to get around this, it said something along the lines of, "We're a debt collector, please call us back when you have an account number and hung up on me." This was the part that thoroughly confused me. I still don't really know what happened but I will just have to find a branch office or another customer service number to deal with this.