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A short conversation with a bank

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Re: A short conversation with a bank

#151
I've been trying to get my energy provider to change the electricity meter serial number on my account for 4 months. The meter was changed 2 years ago, hence reset to zero, and I now can't provide them with readings because the current readings are lower than the last.

4 months, 3 separate calls, 5 separate email threads.

Even getting them to understand the problem is a huge challenge.

It's just a fucking database entry for godsake. 30 years in to the IT revolution and most businesses are still hopeless.

Re: A short conversation with a bank

#153

> 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…

I don't see this.

I ordered something from Amazon today and a full description of the item I bought, including size and price, is in purchase confirmation email...

Re: A short conversation with a bank

#154
Disclaimer: I work in a bank and have worked closely with the customer support team.

Here's the thing: retail banking margin is actually quite low and customer support is expensive.

If you are someone who routinely calls your bank then your long-term value (LTV) is going to take a huge hit, so, of course banks want to keep everything as "low-touch" as possible.

A small anecdote: there were plenty of elderly people who were calling customer support every day to ask for their balance, because they did not trust the digital app. At some point, their calls started being routed to some chat-bot.

Customer support is also "embarrassingly outsource-able". The first layer of contact is usually done by someone who does not, in fact, work for "The Bank". They are actually employed by some huge contact center company who happens to have access to the bank's Salesforce CRM, and are instructed on how to solve most of complaints. It's only when they are faced with a very specific issue, that the ticket is then escalated to the in-bank operations team.

IIRC, we actually divide tickets in four categories: "L1, L2, L3 and L4". L1 and L2 are done by outsourced teams, L3 is usually the bank's operations squad, and L4 is the tech team with read-access to the database.

Re: A short conversation with a bank

#155

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…

I heard somewhere that telegraph is a legitimate form of communication for some official routes - unless they aren't specifically prohibited. Has anyone tried this? I would reallt like to force my bank to respond to my telegraphs... or pony express letters

Re: A short conversation with a bank

#156

Disclaimer: I work in a bank and have worked closely with the customer support team. Here's the thing: retail banking margin is actually quite low and customer support is expensive. If you are someone who routinely calls your bank then your long-term value (LTV) is going to take a huge hit, so, of course banks want to keep everything as "low-touch" as possible. A small anecdote: there were plenty of elderly people wh…

> Here's the thing: retail banking margin is actually quite low and customer support is expensive.

Is this because banks don't need retail money any more, since instead of acting as intermediaries between savers and borrowers, they now act as intermediaries between the Federal Reserve and borrowers, and only take savings because they're required to by law?

Re: A short conversation with a bank

#157

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…

Every time I hear this I try a different credit union around me. Sometimes they have arcane rules like "oh you don't actually have dollars in this account. You have 500 shares. At this time you may sell shares back to the credit union at a rate of $1/share". Or recently a credit union in my area emailed me my password after I signed up, and then they kept sending me it in the mail as a reminder that I hadn't activate…

FWIW this is how banks work. You always have shares. Sometimes they just pretend they are dollars.

I am not a customer of one, but I assume that using a CU instead of a bank is like using Linux on your desktop instead of Windows.

Re: A short conversation with a bank

#158
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> go bankrupt /../ the wrong doctor at the right hospital This is the real problem. If we could solve that , none of the rest would be an issue.

I thought that was already solved by the No Surprises Act that went into effect this January.

>I thought that was already solved by the No Surprises Act that went into effect this January.

Are you serious? Is this a real act? We need an act of congress to not be surprised by health care?

Re: A short conversation with a bank

#159
post #61

Two anecdotal- I will say simple was a joy to work with, even for things that were old. I would never have closed on my house in time if not for them. Sadly- it seems that since BBVA -> PNC … everything historic for that account is gone. Unrelated to banks: Me: I’m calling because I got a notice that you’re cancelling my healthcare due to non payment of my premium? Healthcare service line: yes. You had a responsibili…

Time for small claims court!

Re: A short conversation with a bank

#160
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s a service that is not blocked in the EU you can often send a GDPR request to have your data deleted. https://www.datarequests.org/generator/

In practice, a lot of companies lie and may not actually have functionality to delete accounts. A UK fintech claimed they closed my account, while in reality they changed the email to VOID@ and presumably suspended future logins, but guess what, all the data is internally still there including the foreign key relationships which by themselves are unique enough and can be used to reidentify me and/or correlate my acti…

... does it happen to be your own domain with a wildcard email inbox?
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