Livid With Wachovia
jewel March 19th, 2009
So a couple days ago, we finally got around to depositing our tax refund checks into my checking account. We’re using it for our next trip to Mexico later this year.
Exciting, isn’t it. I know we’re excited.
Well. We made the deposit 2 days ago. I logged into my bank account this morning and the deposit wasn’t there. I looked in the “Deposit Holds” section. Not there either. Very strange. I didn’t have my receipt with me this morning, so I waited until we got home, I located the receipt (just for piece of mind) and I sent a message to Wachovia Customer Service through their online portal, since our branch was already closed. I fully expected them to either tell me there was a glitch and I should see the deposit tomorrow – or – tell me I should contact my branch directly. Bzzzzt. Nope.
The response I got reminded me just exactly why people hate “customer service professionals”, and I’ve been a customer service professional for most of my working life. But the difference is, I’m actually good at it. But I digress.
The response I got was:
Our records do not indicate any deposit in the amount of [deposit amount redacted]
Then there was 4 paragraphs saying basically that holds get placed on check deposits so they may not be available right away. Then this lovely gem:
For questions or comments regarding tax refund check, please contact the originator of the checks.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I mean, seriously.
Not once did the “customer service professional” actually make any useful suggestions. It was already my plan to call and/or stop by my branch (where the deposit was made) tomorrow, but it would have been nice for them to maybe suggest it. Nothing.
So, I’ll be calling them and I will be as nice as I can manage, considering they’ve lost my cash. I’ve been relatively happy with Wachovia up until now. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow at this time.
Crap! I hope this works out, thank goodness you have the receipt. I’ve never been good with scraps of paper. Keep us posted!
“Customer Service” is so variable it is unbelievable. I often call until I get someone who actually is helpful.
Banks can be amazingly inept and unconcerned. Had an automatic transfer from checking to savings once that was supposed to be done on the 1st – but also got done on the 31st whenever it occured! Caused some bounced checks, and they seemed completely unconcerned. When it happened the second time, I changed banks.
One bank missed crediting a curtailment on our mortgage, and they couldn’t figure out how much interest they owed us! Their first payment was $15 short. When we got the difference down to fifty cents I gave up on them.
Good luck. I hope you get things straightened out easily and quickly.
Clear skies, Alan
Thankfully, they managed to “find” my deposit. I really didn’t want to have to ‘go down there’.
I am glad I always keep the receipts — at least until everything clears. I would have been sooo screwed. Although they did not tell me what the problem was, I figure they originally credited the cash to someone elses account. Unless that branch had some sort of clitch that caused a 2 day delay in all their deposits, which I don’t really find likely.
Oh well, all is good now.
That’s what happened to our mortgage curtailment – it was credited to someone else. We only got a year end statement, so it was some months before we found out.
Glad your problem got taken care of easily.
Clear skies, Alan
Your situation sounds like it was loads of fun Alan! I’d be beside myself…
Back in January I use an ATM at Bank of America (not my usual bank). It kept telling me to take my cash even though I didn’t see any come out. Too late, I realized the cash dispenser was down low & out of site from my car window. It had pulled my cash back in!
The following Monday the $300 withdrawal showed up on my account when I checked online. I contact the Bank of America branch and they gave me an 800 number to call. That was hell on Earth because whenever I took the ATM related questions option it would ask me to log in. I tried other options, but I would always end up with a message telling me to log in. But since Bank of America wasn’t actually my bank, I couldn’t. Eventually I somehow reached a live person, got shuffled around to a couple of diggerent people, and eventually ended up at the ATM department which was again telling me to log in.
So I waited a couple of days just to see if the $300 would show up in my own account again. When it didn’t, I had to repeat my fruitless phone exercise with Bank of America. This time I finally got a lady who told me I had to go to my own bank to file a claim. I pointed out that the problem was with a Bank of America machine, but she repeated that I had to go to my own bank.
So I did, and the assistant branch manager looked at me and said, well, what are we supposed to about it? She made a phone call, and eventually someone told her I had to write a brief note explaining what happened. Surprisingly enough, the $300 finally showed up in my account a week later.
The whole episode was frustrating beyond belief. But the thing that REALLY pissed me off was, why does Bank of America charge $3.00 bucks for non customers who use their ATM’s if they’re not going to provide any support when there’s a problem?
Wow. That sounds like it was a nightmare. Banking can be such a pain in the ass. I’ve had a couple not so good experiences with Bank of America, too, although nothing like what you went through.
My own frustration with my situation was really with the customer service aspect. I knew that they’d fix the deposit, I had a receipt. But the attitude of the person that responded to my inquiry really is what pissed me off. I know that most of what was in the email was a canned response, but there are times when you need to at least acknowledge the frustration of your customer. Ya know like when you misplace a large deposit. I think that would warrant a little bit of understanding. They could have called the branch, they could have suggested that I visit the branch to talk to someone in person, they could have suggested a number of things that would have left me feeling like they at least gave a little bit of a damn. And they did none of those things. And the suggestion that I contact the IRS about the checks was ludicrous. I mean really.
The response I got letting me know it had been corrected and that the money had been credited to my account had the apologetic tone that the first response should have had. And had I gotten that kind of response the first time around, I probably wouldn’t have blogged about it. Or, if I would have felt compelled to blog about the experience it would have been with a completely different tone.
I just got a “corrected” 1099 that is, again, incorrect. It appears to be even more incorrect than the first one.
Clear skies, Alan
I think the banks are trying to cure us of the delusion that it is in any sense “our” money…
I think you’re on to something there.
Can I tell my favorite banker incompetence/innumeracy story? Can I, can I, can I, please?
I had just moved and was opening a new account (which required separate savings and checking accounts to avoid big service fees). So I asked the accounts manager how much interest I was going to earn on each, commenting that I remembered the good old days when savings accounts earned 5% interest. She replied: “Well, your checking account earns 1%, and your savings account earns 2%, so although it’s not as good as 5%, 3% is pretty close.”
To this day I wish I had been quick enough to ask if I could open 50 savings accounts at 2% each so I could earn 100% interest.
P.S. You know how your bank got its name, don’t you? Their in-house motto is: “If you fall down, we’ll Wachovia.”
Hey, I remember when we earned actual interest on bank accounts! Ah, the good old days. lol.
When I was growing up, we pronounced it “Walk all over ya”… When we opened the account, our bank was First union, but Wachovia absorbed them a few years back. And now Wells Fargo is absorbing Wachovia. Joy.