I made the first payment on my new refi loan online, single payment, as I have always done with the Lender - BOA ( Bank of America ) - The original mortgage ( XXXX ) was with Countrywide which ultimately was converted to BOA. I made the online payment XXXX XXXX, XXXX. Then BOA said something about needing to make test deposits and withdrawals from my bank account to validate the routing and account numbers. These transactions proceeded normally. Without further concern I assumed the payment was made. Then on XXXX XXXX, XXXX when I reconciled my account ( statement attached for reference ) with the bank source of funds I use for paying my mortgage I noticed that the payment had not been drawn. I immediately called BOA and was put through the touch tone misery and spoke to three representatives before I finally was convinced no one had any idea of how those test transactions had occurred let alone actually caring about anything other than my payment had not been made - I made it with a {$5.00} penalty and a {$20.00} fee for the telephone transaction. I am upset that now this will have an impact on my credit rating which has been pretty good up to now since I separated from my wife in XXXX. Nevertheless, even more important than that, I am concerned that BOA uses tactics such as this to deny any knowledge of a transaction, despite it being their website that accepted it and their engines that made the test transactions. Further, it is the same pathway I used to make payments on my new BOA credit card - that did not require test transactions and went smoothly. I also used this account to pay my mortgage with BOA which was refinanced so they had my banking information all along. I submit that they use this as a method to raise their income. I point out that it does an effective job at degrading customer satisfaction- good faith and trust. I will never recommend BOA to anyone except as an example of a heavy handed institution that uses deceptive practices. 
