Some Bank of America Customers Questioned about Citizenship Status, Had Accounts Frozen

This is a heads-up for any Bank of America customers: you might be getting questions about your citizenship status and even have your accounts frozen with no warning.

And many viewers are questioning why. CBS 17 investigator Felicia Bolton tracked down that answer.  

Bank of America customer Josh Collins said he received a notice in the mail claiming to be sent by Bank of America. It asked for his personal information and citizenship status.

He said he thought it was a scam and that the bank would follow up if it was legitimate. But the next thing he knew, his accounts were frozen without notice.

"So, at that point, we decide to go into the physical bank and it took about 15 minutes, but the first question they asked me was, 'Are you a citizen?'" he said. "Again? 'Yes,' and then they wanted to know if I had dual citizenship," said Collins.

They eventually unfroze Collins' accounts, but not before sending an email notifying him all of his automatic bill payment accounts were wiped out.

Bank of America officials release this statement:

"Like all financial institutions, we're required by law to maintain complete and accurate records for all of our customers and may periodically request information as required by law and regulation. This is not unique to Bank of America. This type of outreach is nothing new and the information must be up to date. Therefore we periodically reach out to customers, which is what we did in this case. Over time, we reach out to all customers to verify their information, not only specific customers. If we don't hear from a customer in response to our outreach, as a last resort, we may restrict the account until we can confirm it is in compliance with regulatory requirements."

Article originally published on WNCN.com