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A short conversation with a bank

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Re: A short conversation with a bank

#111

Post by nkurz »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #63
avg_dev wrote: post #10

that was beautiful. > bank: sir this conversation is recorded but I blinked my eyes very slowly twice I laughed out loud at that. Edit: Also, I never realized why Amazon stopped putting the name of the thing I purchased on the email receipt. Now it makes sense.

> Now it makes sense. Can you enlighten me? Why don’t they include that in the email receipt?

To prevent Google from tracking purchases. Google scans all email that passes through its servers and parses out who bought what. If the information isn't in the email, it makes it harder for Google to do this. Presumably Amazon wants to keep this information for its own competitive advantage. Further reading: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/17/google-gmail-tracks-purchase...

Also, your comments seem to be auto-dead for the last couple days. Glancing at your comment history, I'm not sure why. I vouched to recover this one. You might want to check in with Dan (hn@ycombinator.com) and ask him what's up.

Re: A short conversation with a bank

#112

Post by robocat »

cantrevealname wrote: post #62

> with Gmail, where you were so aggressive about mining receipt data from Amazon that when I get a receipt from Amazon now it doesn’t actually include what I bought Wow, he's right. The item name no longer appears on emailed receipts I receive from Amazon as of about late 2019 or early 2020. I can't think of a plausible explanation for this change other than preventing Google from pilfering your detailed purchase his…

> with Gmail, where you were so aggressive about mining receipt data from Amazon that when I get a receipt from Amazon now it doesn’t actually include what I bought

Anyone have a factual source that confirms that gmail is mining receipt data for advertising?

One refutation https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/google-gmail-purchases-priv... said in 2019 that Google’s Purchase’s page said “Google won't sell the [Purchases] information or use it to choose which ads you see”; however I did just log into Google and looked at https://myaccount.google.com/purchases and couldn’t find that text now, so who knows if that is still true.

Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20067714 refers to a second refutation from 2017 - “Google Will No Longer Scan Gmail for Ad Targeting”.

Edit: I did read an article talking about other companies scanning receipts to target advertising, so that could be a motivation of Amazon’s.

Re: A short conversation with a bank

#113

Post by alasdair_ »

monktastic1 wrote: post #22

A short conversation with Blue Shield of California last month: BS: Have a question? Ask us via this very useful secure messaging form! Me: Great! Can you explain the difference between these two arcane out-of-pocket limits that you display that are un-Googleable and nowhere in your documentation that I can never find anyway? BS: Sure! We will wait two days and then send you an email suggestively titled "a response t…

This sounds exactly like my kids school district. They send an email telling you you have a "secure message" and you need to log in to see it. So you try to sign up to see the message, but can't because you don't have the password. So you try calling them and they say they will reply via email. What they mean is that they will send you a secure message about your inability to receive secure messages. So you call again and they transfer you to a number that is only open between 9am and 4pm on weekdays. So you call back on Monday and, because this is the start of term, can't get through, like, at all, ever. So eventually on Wednesday you get through and they transfer you again, only this time you manage to invoke XKCD 806 and get a real person who knows how to "reset" the password you never set in the first place. So you finally manage to log in to the secure messaging portal and look at the email. Oh, it's a PDF download. You download the PDF and see it's a physical letter that has been scanned in to the system manually (seriously!). The letter? The reason you went to all this trouble? It's a welcome letter to the new "secure messaging" platform, with instructions about how to reset your password...

Re: A short conversation with a bank

#114

Post by b3morales »

_jal wrote: post #103
reaperducer wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Needless to say, I closed my BoA accounts. I've read a number of BoA horror stories on HN, and didn't think anything of them. I just assumed there were a lot because BoA is big in California. Then, recently, I tried to deal with BoA customer service. - I'm saving up a few thousand dollars for a Christmas present, but don't want my wife to see the money in our joint account at another bank. - Since I have BoA credit c…

> Bank of America doesn't deserve to represent itself as the bank of America Oh, this story is quintessential US Americana, right down to the name. I've long maintained that one of the biggest gifts to US corporations is how few of their customers visit other countries. If more of them ever saw functional banking (or humane healthcare, or competitive telephony and broadband, or a number of other things), a lot of ren…

It is, indeed. BofA is only as big as it is because it was allowed to Kirby up dozens of regional banks in the late 90s/early 00s. It did nothing to earn its position and has done nothing but exploit it since. It is a poster child for anti-customer consolidation.

Re: A short conversation with a bank

#115

Post by datavirtue »

dylan604 wrote: post #32
blibble wrote: post #24

the existence of a terrible bank doesn't mean they're all awful like any market, there are competently run companies and there are terrible ones (e.g. HSBC)

Can you please name for me any that you think are good?

Capital One. Only bank that actually ever helped me when I had nothing.

Re: A short conversation with a bank

#116

Post by el_benhameen »

bityard wrote: post #106

One thing that really needs to start taking hold in the public consciousness is that credit unions are far superior to banks in almost every way. They usually offer 100% of the same services but with lower (or no) fees, and with far less bullshit. I've been a member of multiple CUs and every time I've had a problem, I just walked in, described the situation, and they just fixed it. If I call, I don't get bounced arou…

I want this to be true, but when looking at both home and auto loans, the CUs around me were not remotely competitive on rates.

Re: A short conversation with a bank

#117

Post by datavirtue »

macinjosh wrote: post #68

Find and use a local credit union. They will always have better customer service. Avoid national and multi-national banks at all costs. You are nothing to those banks and they will treat you like it.

I have all my loans now through credit unions. On purpose. There are no drawbacks.

Re: A short conversation with a bank

#118

Post by jiggunjer »

bityard wrote: post #106

One thing that really needs to start taking hold in the public consciousness is that credit unions are far superior to banks in almost every way. They usually offer 100% of the same services but with lower (or no) fees, and with far less bullshit. I've been a member of multiple CUs and every time I've had a problem, I just walked in, described the situation, and they just fixed it. If I call, I don't get bounced arou…

This seems very US centric?

Re: A short conversation with a bank

#119

Post by redisman »

Nullinker wrote: post #66

My wife wanted to close her US bank account: Customer: I don't live in the US anymore, how can I close my bank account? 1 week later... Bank: Sorry for the delay, we were unable to answer your question in time but assume that you have found the answer already and closed the ticket. Customer: Repeats the question. Bank: To close an account you need to come in person to one of our branches that are only in a few states…

I closed my bank account by being abroad for many years and not updating my KYC info when they asked for it

Re: A short conversation with a bank

#120

Post by b3morales »

Anon1096 wrote: post #53
coffeefirst wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. And the good ones tend to be smaller or regional chains. At a certain size you just become too big to be competent, and the incentives get FUBAR. After that they don't really care about customer satisfaction because they're really focused on investors or the next 1mm corporate customers.

If you're looking for good technical support and features you're not going to get it with your local credit union, they're even worse than the major banks.

If my local credit union has an accessible branch office where I can speak to a human who can assist me, I have no need for technical support. Which is the way I prefer it anyways. Most financial corp tech that I've had to deal with has been trapped in an uncanny valley, doing a horrifying ineffective mimicry of secure services and account management. If they're incapable of crossing the divide to being actually good, I'd rather they'd just stay on the no-tech side.
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