Ever feel like you're just another number to your bank? Want to call a customer service line and talk to a real, live human being instead of a machine? At [insert bank name], we know you're a person, that's why we'll treat you like one. Receiving excellent customer service from your bank is important to you, that's why providing excellent service to our customers is important to us. Talk to a real, live human being on our service line, or visit a local branch, where the average wait in line is under three minutes.
We recognize clichés like these from bank commercials as just that: clichés. I'm going to quote (then, with some bracketeering, butcher) my friend David Foster Wallace*, because I think he says this best: these are
Actually, whether or not one believes banking commercials—or advertising in general—is sort of irrelevant to this posting. (Maybe subconciously I just wanted to share some of what I've been reading lately.) My real gripe with my bank is something infinitely more important than whether I interact with an automated phone system or a "real, live human being" when I call their service line. Though I suppose my complaint could fall under the all-encompasing umbrella of "customer service," it's nothing as frivolous as what we usually gripe about when we say a bank has disapointed us in that department. It's something so elementary, so essentional to personal banking that, until this week, I never considered that my bank might fail at something so basic. My bank will not let me access my own money."the [banking] industry's proven sales pitches, exactly the same way 'Anti-Tartar' and 'Fresher Breath' are the toothpaste industry's pitches. We may [use their financial services], the same way we may go buy the toothpaste. But we're not inspired. They're not the real thing.
It's not just a matter of lying or not lying, either. Everyone knows that the best marketing uses the truth—i.e., sometimes a brand of toothpastes really is better. That's not the point. The point, [bank]-wise is the difference between merely beliving somebody and believing in him.†
In my attempt to withdraw money from an ATM here in Beijing, I was denied for an unspecified reason. Perplexed and not a little annoyed, I came back to my hotel room, and composed the following message to WaMu via their online messaging system:
I am currently in Beijing, and I am having problems withdrawing money from the ATM. It worked fine the first time I tried it, but subsequently I have been unable to withdraw.I received a very prompt response:
I spoke to a representative a few weeks ago by phone, and told him I would be traveling through China until April 1, and he assured me that the travel alert would be activated on my account until that date.
Is there currently a hold on my debit card? If so, please lift it so that I will have access to my money here.
Dear James H___:To which I responded:
Thank you for your email. I'm sorry to hear about your recent experience and regret any inconvenience this situation may have caused you. I understand that your Debit MasterCard* provides a convenient way to do banking and I'd like to help.
Upon researching your account, I have discovered that our First Data Resources department has placed a temporary block on your Debit MasterCard* until you are able to contact them and review some transactions for validity. You may contact them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 888.387.2447.
I apologize for any concern.
[A bunch of contact numbers and instructions for making international phone calls to their toll free service.]
If you call, you may be asked for your confirmation number, which is ***
Sincerely,
Judith
Washington Mutual Customer Service
Thank you for your prompt reply.Some of my readers who know me personally have accused me of being a little loose (i.e. hyperbolic) with my use of English. These readers may now be scoffing at the phrase "rapidly running out of money," but I will put this into concerete, numerical terms for those unbelievers. After conversion at the going exchange rate, I had less than $10USD in my pocket at the time of writing that email. Granted, I tried to select diction would lend a sense of urgency to my request in hopes that "Judith" would be compassionate and understanding enough to help me out. Still, having no kitchen in my hotel means having to eat out (at least) three times a day, and these expenses are adding up. Whether Judith is compassionate or understanding is still up for debate, but "Daniel," who responded to this second plea, turned out to be neither:
It is very difficult for me to make a collect call (or any operator assisted call) here due to the language barrier. I have a cell phone here, but I cannot add minutes to it because I am rapidly running out of money.
Is there any way I can validate the transactions via email (or this messaging system)? If you ask me my security questions, I can answer them back, and I my ability to log in to my WaMu account helps identify me.
Dear James H___:As of this posting, my difficulties with WaMu have been resolved, but after that message from Daniel, I was livid. Imagine not being able to access my own money—my own money (!!!) that essentially I have lent to WaMu with the full and expressed understanding that it is mine to retrieve in part or in full at any time. It's as if you lent a few thousand dollars to your billionare friend...Then, when you asked him to pay some of it back, he kept making all these excuses about not being sure it's really "you" trying to collect your money. Even though you have your ID card, the secret 4-digit code that only you and stingy Billionare know, and you have all the correct answers to a series of confidential questions upon which you and Billionare have previously agreed to prevent exactly this kind of identity crisis.
Thanks for contacting Washington Mutual.
Unfortunately the Fraud Prevention department are not available via email. The Fraud Prevention department can be reached at 866.841.7642 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
I apologize for any concern or inconvenience.
[Same contact numbers and instructions as Judith had given, verbatim!, leaving me to suspect that I am actually dealing with some very complex automated system rather than a real, living anything.]
If you call, you may be asked for your confirmation number, which is ***.
Sincerely,
Daniel
Washington Mutual Customer Service
The details of exactly how WaMu and I patched things up are many and tedious, so I needn't bore you with them here. What follows is an entirely ficticious conversation with my mother, a conversation I made up for the amusement of my readers. In it, I imagined what we might say if my mother had had to call the bank on my behalf. It should in no way be used to implicate her or myself in any kind of fraud. Again, just a fiction: nothing that could be used to convict either of us of having perpetrated a crime.
Tomato JT: hello?
Mom: hello
Tomato JT: did you get the emails?
Mom: hold on, let me read them…
Mom: ok, i printed all 3 of them.
Tomato JT: ok
Tomato JT: are you going to call?
Mom: yes.
Tomato JT: what about the security Qs? i think you should know all the answers.
Tomato JT: i think one of them is ____.
Tomato JT: or ____.
Tomato JT: The answer is ____.
Mom: can i call the 800# for outside the US so it looks like i'm calling from somewhere else?
Mom: i know the answers, quit typing them!
Tomato JT: oops. those are the TRICK answers
Tomato JT: to throw off anyone reading this!
Mom: ok.
Tomato JT: i know you know the right answers ;)
Tomato JT: you have to yell at them [the WaMu representatives.]
Tomato JT: because i called them before
Tomato JT: and they SAID that everything was ok 2 wks ago
Tomato JT: tell them youre MAD
Tomato JT: and you are switching to ING Direct bank.
Tomato JT: but you will do that later.
Mom: did u get the name of the person with whom you spoke?
Tomato JT:no, i dont remember
Tomato JT: it was only a first name anyway
Tomato JT: tell them youre mad, because it's too hard to call from china
Tomato JT: look what i wrote to them!!!
Tomato JT: i said i am rapidly running out of money
Tomato JT: and it's too hard to call collect
Mom: i'll call now. do you want to wait? or want me to e-mail you?
Tomato JT: ok, i'll wait
Tomato JT: i am watching a movie in my hotel now on my computer
Mom: ok
[Some time passes.]
Mom: they asked me for the last 4 of your social
Mom: i didn't have it right w me
Tomato JT: so what did you say?
Tomato JT: it's _ _ _ _.
Mom: they asked for your date of birth, and SSN.
Mom: i gave that
Mom: i have to call back.
Mom: give me you driver's lic.
Tomato JT: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.
Mom: exp?
Tomato JT: how do i know you're not somone else at my mom's desk trying to get secret info????
Tomato JT: you SPY
[More time passes.]
Mom: ok, everything's ok
Tomato JT: what happened?
Mom: they kept calling me ma'am & i had to tell them i'm a man - hehehehe
Mom: i tried to make my voice deeper
Mom: i called back & told her i was disconnected. then she saw the block on the card. i told her i called a couple of wks ago. she said they had to verify the integrity of the transactions.
Mom: she asked the same 2 quesitons as before. then she verified the last 2 transactions on jan. 22.
Mom: SHE SAID THE CARD IS GOOD TO USE RIGHT NOW.
Tomato JT: ok
Tomato JT: thanks
Tomato JT: i will sign off now then! bye!
Mom: maybe u should get more money out
Mom: do you need more money in your acct?
Tomato JT: no, i'm ok right now
Tomato JT: thanks again!
Tomato JT: they are so stupid
Tomato JT: did you remember to threaten to change banks?
Mom: oh, i forgot the threat.
Mom: the girl was very nice.
Mom: good night. love you!
*Whose influence, namely in the realm of the footnote, I have mentioned here.
†Wallace, David Foster. "Up, Simba." Consider the Lobster. New York: Little, Brown & Company, 2005. pp 227-8.
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