Bank of America Closing Three Card Services/Collection Call Centers

By Mike Bevel, CollectionIndustry.com

Behold Bank of America’s new business plan: cutting over 2,000 jobs and closing 3 collections/customer service call centers by year’s end.

Call centers in Colorado Springs, CO (670 employees); Dover, DE (760 employees); and Horsham, PA (600 employees) will be affected by the plan, unveiled Monday and reported Reuters. The cuts are only the latest in a series of sweeping reductions that have come in the wake of Bank of America’s $34.2 billion purchase of MBNA, a Delaware-based credit card giant.

The purchase made Bank of America one of the largest U.S. credit card issuers, with over 40 million cardholders and balances totaling $140 billion.

The Colorado Springs cuts are the largest local job cuts for the area since the collapse of Western Pacific Airlines in 1998, according to the Greater Colorado Springs Economic Development Corp.

Delaware is getting mixed messages. Judy McKinney, a top state economic official, told Delaware’s The News Journal that she believes that the bank has reached the end of its job reductions, relating that she received this information from unnamed Bank of America officials. However, Bank of America spokeswoman Alexandra Liftman said she would not rule out further cuts in Delaware.

Liftman has also said, in a related story in the Philadelphia Business Journal, that Bank of America of Charlotte, NC, will close call centers in Greenville and Christiana, DE, and relocate those employees to other locations in New Castle County, DE.