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HEADLINE: BofA Computer Glitch Upsets Some Customers

By Loretta Kalb

Bee Staff Writer (Published April 14, 2000)

Some Bank of America customers have encountered unpleasant surprises -- overdrawn accounts -- after mortgage payments were prematurely withdrawn from up to 56,000 of the bank's accounts through automatic debit programs.

A bank spokeswoman Thursday blamed a software processing problem for the mistakenly early withdrawal of mortgage payments at the end of last month.

Instead of the regular mortgage payment withdrawal between the first and third of each month, the bank transferred the money in the accounts on March 31.

An unknown number of bank customers in California were overdrawn because of the untimely transfer, said Bank of America spokeswoman Lisa Margolin-Feher. Other customers with overdraft protection incurred fees when funds were transferred to cover the overdraft.

"Immediately when we learned about the problem, we took steps to correct it," said Margolin-Feher, who added that the problem software was installed only last month in a Bay area loan servicing site. "In cases where there were fees associated with the error, we refunded those immediately."

Bank of America customers with questions about fee refunds can call toll free, (877) 819-7681.

Copyright ) The Sacramento Bee http://www.sacbee.com/ib/news/ib_news03_20000414.html

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