if you didn't believe Bank of America was evil before

[lauralh]

They are phasing out free checking by February 2nd. When Reg's Dad tried to argue with the customer service about it, they hung up on him.

Comments

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

reg's dad kind of wants physical locations, he'll probably switch to WaMu

[henry.livejournal.com]

These days they're almost as bad as BoA. If he's in Seattle there's nothing better than Homestreet Bank.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

he's incorporated in bellevue/issaquah

[henry.livejournal.com]

They have a Bellevue branch.

[zorbathut.livejournal.com]

I had bizarre problems with WaMu - they refused to send me bank-by-mail envelopes so I could send them money. It's like they didn't want to hold my cash, I can't understand it.

As I remember you are in Seattle, you may want to try the Group Health Credit Union. The credit union network is neat because there are credit unions country-wide that will let you do transactions for any other participating union. Which works pretty nicely. Plus they actually value your money as you're not just yet another of their ten million accounts containing less than seven figures of money.

On the other hand, I haven't heard many bad stories about WaMu, and mine is less a "bad story" than a "confusing business decision". So YMMV. Might work fine.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

not my decision anyway

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

SWITCH I TELL YOU

[infinite-hiatus.livejournal.com]

As someone who's worked in CS for 5 years, I say more power to them for hanging up. Did Reg's dad really think that yelling at some 20 year old kid on the front lines was going to make a difference in the BOA corporate strategy? If he doesn't like it, he should go to another bank, not yell at some Indian or Filipino making minimum wage.

[velvet.livejournal.com]

Wow, you've definitely got a perfect picture of the conversation. Yes, my dad yelled at some 20 year old kid about corporate strategy. I applaud you for your wiretapping skills.

[velvet.livejournal.com]

Also, I'm pretty sure he was Bangladeshi.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

Um, yeah, he didn't yell at the 40something american woman named Sue, he just asked to speak to her supervisor because she kept saying she couldn't help him. So then she hung up on him.

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

Choor. Still, what are the odds that the battalion of phone monkeys are going to be able to do anything about corp policy, no matter how polite you are to them?

From the phone monkey's perspective, a question like that is bad times three, because there's no possible way they can satisfy you on it, and the longer you spend on the phone with them, the more calls they're going to have to process per minute for the REST of the hour to make quota. It's just lose-lose all the way down the line.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

well, yeah, that's why you transfer to the supervisor instead of hanging up...

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

unless you also get fucked for having to escalate the call.

[toastednut.livejournal.com]

really though.

[infinite-hiatus.livejournal.com]

What would the supervisor have done? I'm a CS supervisor, so I'm sure I'll find your answer interesting.

[xaotica.livejournal.com]

when i did tech support, supervisor mostly translated to "the person who has to talk to the angriest people all day"
it generally didn't have anything to do with being able to do anything for them other than being the public toilet for whatever awful decision people at the top of the company had made recently

[velvet.livejournal.com]

What the supervisor would've done is irrelevant at this point, as long as he didn't hang up on the customer.

[velvet.livejournal.com]

Well, or do something equally un-supervisor-like. Like take a shit on the phone.

[fritz-da-kat.livejournal.com]

Now take this - my credit union, First Tech, has had a policy of "no interest for cash advances" forever, which enabled me to never pay interest on my credit card, and was the only reason why I kept my money with them. Now, starting december 15... it's gone!

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

yeah but WOW that was a pretty bad deal for them. my cash advances are straight up 10% deducted upon receipt of Direct Deposit.

[fritz-da-kat.livejournal.com]

True, bad deal for them, but I got used to it. I should't complain about it too much... FTCU cash advances are just subject to their reular yearly APR.

[victory-goddess.livejournal.com]

Credit Unions ftw!

[freyja.livejournal.com]

where have they said that?

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

in a bunch of letters. if you have direct deposit and/or minimum of $500 in the account it is still free

[freyja.livejournal.com]

ahhh. hmm. i think those were the only options for checking in california anyway :P

[xaotica.livejournal.com]

i haven't been notified about this, and i'm sure it's illegal for them to make that change without notifying customers. so it seems as though it must only apply to certain accounts. i've had my account for years though and it was originally opened when i was something like 15-16 and working in an eddie bauer call center. they had some kind of eddie bauer employee account. so it's possible that they still have me flagged as an eddie bauer employee 11 years later, tho i doubt it...

i'm honestly not convinced that a non-evil bank exists. if they aren't getting you on checking account fees, it's on cash advance fees, or credit card apr raises, or some other crap. it's always something

[velvet.livejournal.com]

My sister also uses BoA, and she's excluded from this fee because she is listed as having had direct deposit back from when she was working at starbucks like 5 years ago.

Essentially, if you have direct deposit (or have within the past god knows how many years), you don't have to pay the fee. Or you can choose the account where if you have $500 in your account at all times, you don't have to pay the fee. Unfortunately, I have never had direct deposit with this particular bank, and I don't have $500 to keep in my account. On the other hand, with these accounts I can go into the bank and yell at tellers, instead of doing all my banking at ATMs and over the internet! And for this convenience I only have to pay $5.95 a month!

[xaotica.livejournal.com]

oh, that could be why. i always do direct deposit. i can't stand going to the bank. or even ATMs for that matter. i get cashback at grocery stores. i visit a bank maybe once every 6 months if that.

for some reason there are certain normal human errands that i really dislike... going to the bank is one, getting gas is another. that's one of the things that makes me long for an electric car.

in general i prefer avoiding talking to actual human beings by phone or in person about customer service related matters whenever possible. i'd rather talk to people when i'm talking to them as individuals vs a business transaction.

that said, i don't think people should have to pay a fee for the privilege of talking to someone in person. it would make sense to me if they gave some kind of DISCOUNT to people who agreed to do all their banking internet-only... like lowered fees or something. but charging people for that is wack