> The sudden account closures have put financially vulnerable customers under stress. Of course they have. It's no accident that accounts like these are heavily marketed to people with terms like "faster access to YOUR money" and "virtually no fees" and "manage YOUR MONEY from anywhere, down to the penny!" These companies are targeting people for whom every single dollar is of vital importance. To then yank the accou…
With regard to “automated customer handling” (I.e. intentionally wasting customers’ time and energy in the hope they give up) - I can’t help but feel that society has lost a critical social regulatory mechanism, in the form of being able to physically beat up people who repeatedly exhibit scummy behavior. If some airline or bank puts you on hold for 4 hours, there’s no way to throw a few punches or whatever at the people who are responsible. For most of human evolution, there was always someone you could hold personally and physically accountable. Now that this check no longer exists, it’s no surprise that kafkaesque bureaucratic bullshit has exploded in popularity with customer-facing megacorps. I don’t really have a solution to propose here - maybe encourage people to vandalize corporate HQs if they’re egregiously wronged? It doesn’t feel like a very good solution.