Friday, February 25, 2011

Seriously We're In America

Have you ever dealt with customer service people in different countries? Does is frustrate you as much as it does me?!
I recently found out that the bank that owned our car note, was bought out by a new bank. Let's call this bank," Bank A". While I was with the previous bank, I NEVER had a problem with customer service, online payments, or mailed in payments. All was smooth sailing for five years(two different cars, I have not been paying on one car for five years!). Anyway, since my former bank was bought out, I have had to create a whole new online account with Bank A. Should be easy right? NO. It took me over half a hour to create a simple online profile account. Seriously to set up my email, password, and car info took over a half hour. How insane is that? Anyway, when I went to pay my car note, the website wouldn't accept my payment. I tried three times, and it kept sending me the same "call customer service" note. After contemplating through my mom's laptop on the ground, I opted to pick up the phone and call customer service. When I let the phone ring about 20 times before the automated menu finally picked up, I started to get worried that maybe I was being scammed.
After I went through the prompted menu, and finally got to someone in customer service( my cell phone, said I had been on the phone for almost 7 minutes) I was a little shocked to hear someone with an Indian accent, but spoke perfect English, pick up. While this lady was friendly and attempted to help me to the best of her ability.... she ended up getting one of her coworkers yelled at. After explaining my situation to her, ( my car note was due the next day and the website wouldn't let me pay), she told me that I could pay over the phone with out having to pay the $15 service fee. Great, I was more than happy with that. But of course, she had to forward me to the billing dept. Well, she ended up transferring me back to customer service. After reexplaining what was going on, the second lady, which barely spoke English, she got a little bit of an attitude and told me that I had to pay the fee. I told her I would not pay $15 to make up for their mistake. It wasn't my fault the the website wouldn't let me pay online. The first lady had even told me that they had been having major problems with their website. I asked to speak with her supervisor, and she refused! At this point my temper was about to get out of control. After telling her for the second time that I wanted to speak to her supervisor, and she refused again, I lost it. I in a not so polite way told her to let me speak to her supervisor, or I would be reporting her and taking my business somewhere else. Where would I report her? I don't know! But at this point this little Indian lady didn't want to mess with me any more. She finally transferred me to her supervisor and after another ten minutes of waiting, I was finally able to speak to someone who could help me.
After explaining me whole ordeal for a third time, the supervisor politely explained what would have to happen. I would have to pay for the service charge on the phone call, but I would be issued a check in the exact amount and would have said check in my hands in five business days. I was okay with that. Had the second lady explained it was me, I would have been okay. But she didn't.
All in all, I was on the phone for over 30 minutes. And I still can't log into my online account with Bank A. Thankfully my car will be paid off by the end of the year!

1 comment:

  1. I totally understand how you feel. Years ago when Chase outsourced overseas & I still took calls in the call center we would always get customers talking about our 'new' agents that didn't speak English. It's really sad when a business tries to save a dollar at the cost of loyal customers. I hope all of your other transactions go smoothly!

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