Bottom line:  B of A took 3 days longer.  Period.

""...and the were UTTERLY unhelpful..." wah wah..blah blah...

Both of you, are UTTERLY clueless about ACH processing. A bank cannot withhold an ACH deposit. Not intentionally. Under ANY circumstances. There can be processing delays along the way, and YES, it can post quicker at one institution than another. If the direct deposit credits accounts at the same bank where the employer banks then it by-passes ACH processing and is there the same day. If deposits go to different ACH clearing houses or if receiving banks by-pass an ACH clearing house and use a 3rd party processor to receive transactions there can be a delay to a particular institution due to different circumstances.

On more than once occasion we've taken calls from the opposite perspective. Employers who do not bank at BofA calling ACH to find out why BofA employees got paid and some others at other banks didn't?
The answer is with THEIR ACH ORIGNATING institution that can track a file, or any portion of a file from release from the originating source to receipt at any end-point--down to the "minute/second" of receipt. And the posting to the receiving account is instantaneous. There is no option for a receiving bank to delay an incoming direct deposit--they cannot legally do that and delayed direct deposits that are due to a bank error, would mandate refunds of any overdraft fees that were incurred on those accounts.

This time of year, call after call comes in to our centers, and I listen in, and hear customers who call to see if their IRS REFUND was received. They all call on Wednesdays and Thursdays looking for direct deposits, and all our reps tell them the direct deposits are not in, and of course they say " Well I got me an email that told me they put it in my account today!" All of them!

WRONG. The email says the direct deposit was "sent" or in some cases "deposited" on Feb 1. But banks don't get them until Friday Feb 3. Every year its the same scenario. Every year these same customers call and are told year after year "the IRS REFUNDS ONLY POST ON FRIDAYS" and every year it's the same thing. We direct them to the IRS website that actually has a schedule thats states when a direct deposit will be "sent" based on a tax filing date. They ALL want to escalate to a supervisor!

You sit there and make the assumption that a scenario stated by an OP is correct and factual verbatim when for the most part, none of these customers can even articulate their issues nor correctly relate the events around their own issue. And they come here and another group of clueless wonders reply to them and make them feel they are correct and the bank is wrong!

When clueless customers, who can't figure out that 100 + 100 = 200, have their concerns addressed by clueless lay persons here on this site, who have no idea at all about ACH procedures, or any process, they are being dealt a great disservice. These "clueless wonder" customers have enough issues of their own without others, out of the loop, giving inaccurate information and making assumptions that are not factual, wrong and misleading. None of you have that have replied on the majority of these issues have the expertise or knowledge or background to provide an answer that even has the semblance of accuracy.

Credit unions post prior to major banks, major banks have more customers and follow the date your employer wants to get debited. So If u get paid on friday, and ur credit union gives it to you thursday. Stop crying. Ur pay day is friday. Deal with it

Heh. Too bad you didn't answer the phone when the OP called, because that was actually a plausible answer. What is the actual turnover rate in your call centers? Care to offer that up? A little "honesty" for the masses? I've heard a lot about all the training they receive, but no matter how much you train someone, it cannot compare to, for example, the knowledge you, yourself, have gained by sticking around and moving up the ranks. So how long does the average employee last in that job? How many people out of your entire rank and file front line staff do you replace in a year? in your best call center? in your worst? You can be proud of your customer service in theory, all the effort you make, and whatnot, but I'm telling you, in practice, it sucks.

"Don't know what the rate is where BossMan is..."

Come on, you and Bossman are the same person.  Same syntax, misspellings, etc.  Sad and obvious. 

There are about 15 centers in the country with about 700 associates in each. Thats almost 11,000 associates on the phone. Not everyone is going to be up to par, regardless if they were impressive during an interview, regardless of their past experience, and regardless of the 6 weeks of training. When they are on the phone 8 hours a day--five days a week--it's a lot different than anything they've done in customer service before, and it can get to the best of them.

BofA looks for consistency in the majority. Sure you can have a bad call, and maybe lose it a bit, but if that call is heard and 10 of your other calls are listened to randomly, and you're consistent with whats expected of you, well even Joe Biden was caught whispering in Obama's ear "this is F-ing BIG!" Right?

And I'm sure you didn't get transferred 3 times every time you called. Transfers are a no-no, they count against your availability and they coun't against your handle time, but a HUGE majority of transfers are because customers do NOT know how to articulate their problems, they have no clue what type of accounts they have, and they have no clue on how to help themselves get the service they need.

They call their debit card a credit card becasue they have a Visa logo. They'd call and say they need to talk about their credit card but they would be calling checking/savings. I'd ask them if it was a debit card or a credit card and again they'd say credit. I'd ask them what type of accounts they'd have and they'd say ONE a debit account, then I'd go through the process of asking them for their card number and they'd say they didnt have it. Their account number? They didn't have it. Then I'd ask for their social, verify them and yes they had a checking account with a debit card, and a credit card. Then I'd ask them to tell me the dollar amount of the transaction--most of the time its ball park to them, and THEN i can finally tell by looking at both cards what card they were talking about. In the meantime 5 minutes have gone by and my stomach is in a knot! Why? Because they are troooly stooopid.

Not everyone is gonna probe as deep as I did--nor are they required to. But I wanted my calls to be listened to as "above and beyond" so I always went the extra mile. But, if you ask a customer 2-3 times what type of account it is and the tell you credit-adamantly, then get them to credit. When they get there, they won't have the credit card and be transferred back--then say CREDIT to someone else and go back to credit! I mean come on!

I've transferred customers over and have told them exactly what to ask for and what to say--since we weren't supposed to do that many warm transfers in our gate, and I'd tell them, "leave out all the details-just say A, B and C," and I'd listen in for a bit and 9 times out of 10, they started the whole story all over again, told the rep they had been transferred 2-3 times and AGAIN could not explain their own issues. I finally took a "to hell with them attitude," told them I need to get the to a specialist in credit card or mortgage and let them fend for themselves once they got transferred because I could not baby sit and hand hold 90 - 100 calls a day! Nor would I want to!

Regardless of the vetting, or their work history, or how they come across in the multiple interviews or how well the do in class, being on the floor "live" is just something some people can't handle.