6th Time’s the Charm!

As you know, I’ve been having my own corporate customer service nightmares recently, but it’s that much worse when they’re being incompetent with your livelihood.

This reminds me somewhat of the Verizon not recognizing cents vs dollars thing I listened to recently, for those that haven’t: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp0HyxQv97Q It’s over 20 straight minutes of the worst customer service I’ve ever heard. Considering I’ve fought with phone companies myself at times, that’s saying something.

I had Bank One ‘misplace’ $2000 of my dollars five years ago. Once they misplaced it, they then provided to charge me huge check bouncing fees on about 10 checks that hit all in one weekend. This was in the startup days at Ninjaneering, so we’re talking about entering sheer desperation mode on a personal level.

Even though I could bring them proof that it was their fault, it was like pulling teeth to get them to correct the issue (first, put the 2000 dollars in the right account, and second, wipe the $500+ dollars of check bounce fees).

My hatred for Bank One once it was all over was so strong that when Chase acquired them later on, I stopped using my Chase card. I transferred to Wells Fargo the day I got my $2500 back.

I blame California.

I hate automated phone torture devices.
And the fact that uttering obscenities helped scares me.
GO MR. MIHALY!

Go librarians! =P

I hate banks in general. I had a nice problem with Wells Fargo a few years back in which I was charged for overdrafting, then got charged for further overdrafting (which was of course caused by the $30 fee), and so on. Long story short, I overdrafted 6 times in 3 days without spending a penny, which drove me to drive to the local bank.

I explained the situation, they said there was nothing they could do. I asked them to get the manager, at which point they explained the manager wasn’t currently at the bank and couldn’t do anything anyway.

So I told them to get me the highest ranking person currently at the bank, which they did, and it was someone of the same rank as them. So I told them to cancel my bank account, so they said they had to call a manager to authorize this.

You could imagine my frustration at this point, primarily because they could have called said manager the entire time, so I told them further to wipe all of the overdraft fees and immediately cancel my account, and that I would call them in an hour to confirm it had been done. And I did, and they did. It may be in part because I’m a fairly imposing figure, but it was still pretty insane.

Although it hasn’t been with banks, I’ve been having a hell of a time lately trying to find out information from companies. I’ve been calling an assortment of places either trying to find out some test results, or if someone got some files I sent them…very simple things that could be answered in about twenty seconds.

It never fails that the numbers I am given are wrong, when I finally get the right person they’re not there, and when I finally finally get them on the line, they say “oh, yeah, I got your messages a month ago, but I was too busy to call you back.”

Are you really too busy to take less than a minute to call someone who left you a message and say “yes, I got your fax, thank you for following up”? You’re going to be a lot busier later when that person gets pissed off and has to talk to you for half an hour because the fax wasn’t confirmed and there were problems because of it.

If IRE ran their customer service like that, it would have been dead a long time ago. Good thing you don’t!

I tried to order a projector over the internet from www.tigerdirect.ca. I placed the order on Jan 1st, and called my bank on Jan 2nd to confirm that the charge had been received and that everything was okay with it. The bank said it was fine and they were going to approve it. I then gave them my new address (which I had moved to 2 months before, but I didn’t get around to telling them, until I was on holidays).

Almost two weeks later, I found out that my order was on hold because tigerdirect.ca had somehow (electronically?) sent the billing address I had provided—the old one—to my bank, and my bank’s visa department had indicated to tigerdirect.ca that it was wrong. So they put my order on hold. I then called tigerdirect.ca and waited for 50 MINUTES on hold. The entire time, forced to listen to a recorded woman’s voice reading advertisements to music, being interrupted every thirty seconds for a man’s voice with no music to tell me that my call was IMPORTANT to them and someone would be with me MOMENTARILY—that was extremely annoying because about every 30 seconds I had the false hope that a human being had answered. Eventually, one did and I almost missed it because I thought he was the recording again. He looked up my order, I asked him the postal code, he told me the old postal code, I figured out what had happened, and mentioned to him that I had changed the address on my visa, and they should submit the charge again using the shipping address (the new one) instead of the old billing address. But as soon as I mentioned the magic words “changed my address” he said “I’m sorry, our policy is to not accept any orders with credit cards whose address has changed in the last 60 days”. And that was the end of the call.

It doesn’t matter that I had already LIVED at my new address for 60 days. Basically, I can’t get my Christmas present until March, because they assume that anybody who changes their address is a *fraudster* stealing someone else’s identity, unless 60 days go by without the owner of said identity complaining to their bank.

I work at a bank. A medium sized bank in the US…not in California. And we do have the occasional hick-up. Usually it is just the product of inter-departmental nonsense. We of course aren’t so big that we cross state lines…which helps. But sometimes, even with the wonderful intranet database I developed…our customer service people run around in circles trying to match an account holder to the officer in charge of their account.

I have concluded that “users” are a pervasive personality and that they infect every organization and every culture and society. I will never understand why a graduate of high school can’t count, can’t read, and can dial the correct phone number.

I am sorry for your pain with BoA. I wish there was a real reason. A miraculous answer. But the reality is that you were a subject of a bunch of users acting like retarded users. I see it all day every day…and I work with them. I can fix hardware, networks, software, even teach somebody how to use an application. But I can’t do anything about a teller who can’t count…brings the money to the electronic counter…runs it through 3 times, and after the counter tells her there is X amount of cash in the stack…and she has personally counted and determined that there is indeed X dollars in the stack…she still writes down Y, and credits the customers account for Y. That time it was in the customers favor…but most of the time it is not…

…sad world we live in bud. Sorry for your issues with BoA.

cl

Yeah, there are plenty of examples of terrible customer service. It always amuses me when someone acts like online game services have some sort of monopoly on poor service. On the other hand, banks have to be super careful about things: giving improper access to someone else’s information is not only harmful, but also potentially illegal. That said, there are a lot of stupid policies in place, like California not being part of the rest of the BoA network.

I think one reason why it’s so pervasive is because, like the ancient comedy skit goes, “they don’t have to care.” All banks are pretty much equally crappy, and in this day and age of electronic banking the costs of switching your account are huge, even just to give out the new account numbers to all the other companies who send you wire deposits, etc. So, you get crap service and can only really post on your blog about it. But, you aren’t likely to change your bank because the alternatives all mostly suck.

It’s a bit amusing because NDS uses BoA as well. We were originally going to use Citibank, but they gave us the third degree when trying to open a business account. They wanted tax forms, utility bills, and all sorts of other personal information from the company co-founders that were trying to open a business account. The other guy basically said, “Screw this,” and we went to BoA where it was a breeze to open up the account.

Such is the world today, I guess.

Have fun.

I have a rather recent experience with customer service. I was buying something online, paying through a bank transfer. I tend to get nervous when money is involved and I don’t hold the whatever I’m buying in my hand, so I e-mail about it, and sure enough, the money has arrived at the transfer company, and is on hold for verification. Great, I think, so I don’t think much about it.

Time passes. Due to renovations and general chaos at home, and that I don’t actually need what I was buying just yet (still don’t), I don’t think much about it for a while, so after about three weeks, I realise nothing has happened with that. So I e-mail again, and I get basically the same answer. However, the guy answering the e-mail also says it’s a problem they’ve had with the transfer company before, so he e-mails them to complain about it. The next morning when I wake up, I have an e-mail stating everything is done with, and it worked out just fine.

Thanks, Matt, IRE customer service is great!

The reason BoA treats California as “a separate country”, as you aptly put it, is because California (itself) and Idaho and Washington (collectively) have some special banking rules.

I, myself, opened an account in California, but then it became clear that I would be spending a lot of the time on the East Coast, so I elected to close my California account and open a new one so I could manage it easier. (Personally, I’ve not had any problems with BoA, though I’ve heard several horror stories.)

I’m not sure what you prefer, the trek or the hours on the phone, but you might find going to a branch office more efficient. The other thing is BoA’s Contact Us webpage, you’ll notice they have separate phone numbers listed for each of the categories, so maybe you can cut out some middlemen (or since this is Cali, maybe I should be PC and say “middlepeople”). My last recommendation: save all those phone numbers you got this time, for next time.