Bank of America fined $225 million after blocking Iowans access to jobless benefits during pandemic

Federal regulators are fining Bank of America $225 million for freezing the unemployment benefits of thousands of jobless individuals in Iowa and 11 other states during the pandemic.

The bank is facing a $100 million penalty from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and a fine of $125 million from the Office of the Comptroller of Currency.

The two agencies have determined that Bank of America — which was hired by Iowa and 11 other states to provide unemployment benefits on prepaid debit cards — froze people’s accounts with an automated fraud detection program “and then gave them little recourse when there was, in fact, no fraud,” according to a news release announcing the penalties.

Jesse Dougherty, spokesperson for Iowa Workforce Development, said the agency contracted with Bank of America for the use of debit cards to distribute unemployment benefits to Iowans from 2015 until January 2021.

During the pandemic, Dougherty said, the IWD “learned of some instances” in which the accounts containing Iowans’ unemployment benefits had been frozen by the bank and so the agency worked with those individuals to “resolve whatever issue” they had.

“As far as we know, we were able to resolve any issues claimants had with Bank of America,” Dougherty said.

Dougherty was not able to say how many Iowans’ accounts were frozen by the bank or how much of their money was rendered inaccessible.

“It doesn’t appear there’s a way to give you an accurate estimate for that,” Dougherty said, noting that some Iowans may have contacted Bank of America about the issue without any involvement by IWD.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has reported that 100,000 debit cardholders nationwide lost access to their benefits.

Bank of America now must pay back the money it “wrongly denied to consumers across the country,” the bureau said. It added those payments are expected to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The bureau has highlighted Bank of America’s actions in California, where regulators say the bank made it difficult for people to access their money or report fraudulent behavior. The bank allegedly boasted of 24-7 customer service, but its call center actually operated on a limited schedule and directed consumers to overwhelmed labor officials at state agencies.

Bank of America should have known after meeting with California labor officials in summer 2020 that “it was essentially redirecting people into a black hole,” the bureau said in a news release.

“Taxpayers relied on banks to distribute needed funds to families and small businesses to rescue the economy from collapse when the pandemic hit,” bureau director Rohit Chopra said.

“Bank of America failed to live up to its legal obligations. And when it got overwhelmed, instead of stepping up, it stepped back.”

The bank previously has been sanctioned by federal regulators. In 2014, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined the bank $727 million over illegal credit card practices, and in May it imposed a $10 million civil penalty against the bank for unlawful garnishments.

In addition to Iowa and California, the states affected by Bank of America’s debit-card practices are Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina and South Carolina.

This article first appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch, part of States Newsroom, a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit supported by grants and a coalition of donors and readers.