Bank of America and FIA Card Services on Your Credit Report: Disputing Tradeline Errors

If your credit report shows BANK OF AMERICA, BK OF AMER, BOFA or FIA CARD SERVICES and you cannot place the account, there is one thing about Bank of America you should know before you do anything else: a 2023 federal consent order found that the bank opened credit card accounts in consumers' names without their knowledge, and required the bank to ask the credit bureaus to delete the resulting tradelines. That order has real limits, described below, and a great many affected accounts were never covered by it. This page explains how Bank of America reports, what the order did and did not reach, and how to dispute an entry that is wrong. We represent consumers whose credit reports contain inaccurate information. If the account is yours and the reporting is correct, no lawyer can lawfully change it, and we will say so.

Who is Bank of America?

Bank of America Corporation is headquartered at 100 North Tryon Street, Charlotte, North Carolina 28255. Its principal banking subsidiary, Bank of America, N.A., is the furnisher that reports your account information to Equifax, Experian, TransUnion and Innovis. It is one of the largest banks in the United States by assets and deposits and one of the largest consumer card issuers, with a retail footprint spanning most of the country.

Bank of America's credit reporting history carries a complication most large banks do not have: the acquisition of MBNA in 2006 and the subsequent operation of FIA Card Services as the card-issuing subsidiary. FIA was folded into Bank of America, N.A. years ago, but tradelines opened during that era can still display the FIA name on older files. A consumer looking at a twenty-year credit history may see three different furnisher names for what was, in substance, one continuous card relationship.

Contact information: credit card customer service, 800.732.9194. Billing inquiries and written disputes, 866.266.0212, or by mail to Bank of America, P.O. Box 672050, Dallas, TX 75267-2050. Deposit and general banking questions are handled at the numbers printed on your statement. Bank of America routes many card disputes through Online Banking rather than by mail, so check the address on your own statement before sending correspondence.

Which cards and products does Bank of America issue?

The proprietary card lineup includes Customized Cash Rewards, Travel Rewards, Unlimited Cash Rewards, Premium Rewards and Premium Rewards Elite, and the BankAmericard family. The co-branded portfolio has included Alaska Airlines, Air France KLM, Free Spirit (Spirit Airlines), Allegiant, Amtrak Guest Rewards and the Susan G. Komen affinity card, among others.

Beyond cards, Bank of America originates residential mortgages, home equity lines of credit, auto loans and personal lines, and it operates one of the largest deposit franchises in the country. Each of those products can generate its own tradeline, and each can generate its own reporting error — a mortgage reported as delinquent during a loan modification, a HELOC reported as charged off after it was closed at your request, an auto loan reported after payoff.

The affinity and co-brand cards matter for the same reason they do at any large issuer: the brand on the card is not the name on the tradeline. An Alaska Airlines card reports under Bank of America, not Alaska. If you are scanning your file for accounts you recognize, scan by open date and credit limit rather than by brand.

How Bank of America appears on your credit report

The strings you are likely to encounter are:

BANK OF AMERICA — the standard form. BANK OF AMERICA, N.A. — the full legal entity, common on mortgage and deposit-related entries. BK OF AMER — an abbreviated form used on some bureau files, and one that consumers regularly fail to recognize. BOFA — a shorter abbreviation seen on some reports. FIA CARD SERVICES — the legacy MBNA and FIA card book, which still surfaces on older tradelines.

FIA CARD SERVICES deserves particular attention because it is a genuine not-mine trigger. A consumer who opened an MBNA card in 2004, saw it rebrand to FIA, and then saw it rebrand again to Bank of America may have a tradeline whose displayed name matches none of what they remember. That is not an error. But a FIA CARD SERVICES entry that does not correspond to any card you ever held is worth investigating rather than shrugging at.

As with any furnisher of this size, watch for duplicate tradelines: the same debt reported twice under two different strings, both carrying a balance. Duplicates inflate your reported obligations across every scoring model and are among the most provable errors in a credit file.

The 2023 consent order: tradeline deletions, and what they did not cover

This section is the reason many people find this page, so it is worth stating carefully and without exaggeration.

On July 11, 2023, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency entered a joint consent order against Bank of America, N.A. (CFPB File No. 2023-CFPB-0007). The bank was ordered to pay approximately $100 million in consumer redress, a $90 million CFPB civil money penalty and a $60 million OCC civil money penalty. Among the findings: employees opened credit card accounts in consumers' names without authorization, and in doing so obtained consumer reports.

Two provisions matter directly to your credit file. Paragraph 37 found that the bank obtained consumer reports without a permissible purpose, violating FCRA section 1681b(f). And paragraph 55(c) required the bank to request deletion of all tradelines associated with the accounts that resulted in individuals being classified as Account-Opening Affected Consumers. The notice period for that classification ran from January 1, 2015 through December 31, 2021.

Now the limits, which are the part almost nobody states. The order contains no inquiry-deletion provision. It reaches tradelines only. If an unauthorized account opening generated a hard inquiry on your report, that inquiry was not covered — even though obtaining the report without a permissible purpose is precisely what paragraph 37 addressed. And the order reaches only accounts within the January 2015 to December 2021 window. An unauthorized opening outside that period was not covered either.

The practical takeaway: if a Bank of America tradeline from an account you never opened is still showing on your report, or an unexplained Bank of America hard inquiry is still there, the consent order did not solve it for you. That is a live FCRA problem and it is disputable on your own initiative.

Bank of America's broader enforcement record

Beyond the 2023 order, several other actions establish the pattern and the scale.

On July 14, 2022, the CFPB ordered approximately $100 million in consumer redress and a $125 million civil money penalty over the bank's handling of prepaid cards used to distribute state unemployment benefits, with the OCC adding a further $125 million, for roughly $225 million in penalties combined. On April 9, 2014, the CFPB and OCC resolved credit card add-on product claims for roughly $727 million in consumer relief plus a $20 million CFPB penalty and a $25 million OCC penalty. On November 28, 2023, the CFPB assessed a $12 million penalty for falsely reporting that mortgage applicants had declined to provide demographic information required under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act.

A December 2024 CFPB suit concerning Zelle fraud handling, brought against Early Warning Services along with Bank of America, Chase and Wells Fargo, was dismissed on March 4, 2025. It was never adjudicated, and we note it only so you are not misled by a summary that treats it as a finding.

What ties the credit-reporting-relevant items together is a recurring theme: accounts and records created or maintained in ways the consumer did not authorize and could not see. That is exactly the condition that produces a tradeline you do not recognize.

The furnisher rule: Bank of America's legal duty when you dispute

The Fair Credit Reporting Act gives the credit bureau one job and the furnisher another, and the difference is what determines whether you have an enforceable claim.

Under 15 U.S.C. 1681i, a credit reporting agency receiving your dispute must conduct a reasonable reinvestigation, generally within thirty days, and must forward all relevant information you provided to the furnisher. Under 15 U.S.C. 1681s-2(b), Bank of America must then investigate, review all relevant information the bureau sent, report the results back, and correct, delete or permanently block any information found to be inaccurate, incomplete or unverifiable — with every nationwide bureau it reported the item to.

The mechanic that decides cases: section 1681s-2(b) is triggered only by a dispute routed through a credit reporting agency. A call to 800.732.9194 does not trigger it. A letter to the Dallas billing-inquiries box alone generally does not trigger it. Section 1681s-2(a), the duty to furnish accurate information in the first place, is not privately enforceable by consumers. So the bureau dispute is the operative act, not a preliminary one.

Bank of America files raise a second statute worth naming. Section 1681b(f) — the provision paragraph 37 of the 2023 order addressed — makes it unlawful to obtain a consumer report without a permissible purpose. If a hard inquiry appears on your file from an application you never made, that is a separate potential violation from any inaccurate tradeline, with its own remedy. Negligent violations carry actual damages plus attorney's fees under section 1681o; willful violations open statutory damages of $100 to $1,000 per violation plus potential punitive damages under section 1681n.

Is the Bank of America account on your credit report even yours?

Three categories, three different answers. Sort yourself into one before writing anything.

• It is yours under a name you did not recognize. Check BK OF AMER, BOFA and FIA CARD SERVICES against the cards you have held over the years, including any MBNA card and any affinity or co-branded card such as Alaska Airlines, Allegiant, Amtrak or Air France KLM. Compare open date, credit limit and last four digits. If they line up, the tradeline is accurate.
• It is an account you never authorized. Given the findings in the 2023 consent order, this is not a remote possibility at this bank — it is a documented pattern. If the tradeline was not caught by the order's deletion requirement, or falls outside the January 2015 to December 2021 window, you will have to dispute it yourself. Treat it as identity theft in method: an identity theft report, a fraud alert or security freeze at all three bureaus, and a block request under FCRA section 1681c-2. See our identity theft page.
• It is not yours because your file is mixed. Another consumer's Bank of America account has been merged into yours through partial-identifier matching at the bureau. That requires pressure on the bureau as well as the furnisher. See mixed credit file cases.

Check the inquiries section of your report at the same time. An unexplained Bank of America hard inquiry alongside an unexplained tradeline tells a different and stronger story than either one alone.

How to dispute a Bank of America account on your credit report

Pull all three reports from AnnualCreditReport.com, the free source named in the statute. Read the Bank of America tradeline field by field and write down precisely what is wrong: balance, payment history grid, account status, date opened, date of first delinquency, credit limit, or the fact that you never opened the account.

Dispute in writing with each credit reporting agency reporting the error. That is what starts the section 1681i reinvestigation and, through it, the section 1681s-2(b) furnisher investigation. Name the item, name the specific inaccuracy, state the correct information and attach documentation. If your account falls within the 2023 order's Account-Opening Affected Consumer population, say so in the letter and identify the date range; it is a relevant fact the bureau must forward. Our dispute letter guide covers the structure.

Dispute the inquiry separately if there is one. The consent order did not require inquiry deletion, so it will not come off on its own, and an inquiry from an application you never made is disputable in its own right.

Send certified mail with return receipt and keep a full copy of everything. Proof of what the bureau received and when is often the single most useful document in an FCRA case.

You may also send a direct dispute to Bank of America at P.O. Box 672050, Dallas, TX 75267-2050, or through Online Banking. That is useful for getting an account identified. It is not the step that creates your legal claim, so send the bureau dispute regardless. If the item comes back verified and is still wrong, get advice rather than resending the same letter.

How The Kim Law Firm helps with Bank of America credit report problems

We represent consumers nationwide, and only consumers. The Bank of America cases we take involve reporting that is wrong: an account you never authorized still showing after the consent order should have reached it, a hard inquiry from an application you never made, a balance that does not match what you owe, a paid or settled account still reporting a balance, a mortgage reported delinquent during a modification, a HELOC reported as charged off after a voluntary closure, a discharged bankruptcy debt still showing as owing, a duplicate tradeline, a re-aged account, or late payments in months you paid on time.

What we do not do is help anyone remove accurate negative information. If the card is yours and the delinquency happened, the only remedies are time and payment, and we would rather tell you that here than after you have retained us.

Where the reporting is inaccurate and Bank of America has already received a properly routed dispute and left the error in place, you may be entitled to actual damages — credit denials, higher interest rates, a lost apartment or job opportunity, and the emotional harm courts recognize in these cases — plus attorney's fees and costs. The FCRA shifts fees to the defendant when a consumer wins, which is why we handle these cases on contingency with no fee unless we win.

Our FCRA lawyer guide explains how these cases run, and our credit reporting errors overview covers the patterns we see most often. When you are ready, contact us for a free case review. Other furnishers we handle are listed on our creditors and lenders page.

Frequently asked questions

What is FIA Card Services on my credit report?

FIA Card Services was Bank of America's credit card issuing subsidiary, formed after the bank acquired MBNA in 2006. It was folded into Bank of America, N.A., but tradelines opened during that era can still display the FIA name on older credit files. If you held an MBNA or affinity card in that period, an FIA entry is expected.

What does BK OF AMER mean on a credit report?

BK OF AMER is an abbreviated form of Bank of America used by some credit bureaus. BOFA and BANK OF AMERICA, N.A. are other forms of the same furnisher. Which one appears depends on the bureau and on when the account was opened, and the same account can display differently on different reports.

Bank of America opened an account without my permission. Was it deleted?

The July 2023 CFPB and OCC consent order required Bank of America to request deletion of tradelines tied to unauthorized account openings for consumers classified under the order, covering the period January 1, 2015 through December 31, 2021. If your account fell outside that window, or the tradeline is still showing, the order did not resolve it and you should dispute it yourself.

Did the consent order remove the hard inquiry too?

No. The order's deletion requirement covered tradelines only and contained no inquiry-deletion provision, even though the order separately found that reports were obtained without a permissible purpose under FCRA section 1681b(f). An unexplained hard inquiry has to be disputed on its own.

How long does a Bank of America account stay on my credit report?

A closed account in good standing can remain up to ten years and generally helps your file. A negative item such as a charge-off must come off seven years from the date of first delinquency. If the date of first delinquency has been reported later than it actually was, that restarts a clock that should have expired and is itself an FCRA violation.

Wherever you are located, we can help. The Kim Law Firm represents consumers nationwide in Fair Credit Reporting Act cases, from our offices in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. If a Bank of America tradeline or inquiry on your credit report is inaccurate and disputing it has not fixed it, we would like to hear from you.