Comments on: “Nothing can be done about it.” Phooey.

By: kaet

kaet — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:55:14 +0000

Not necessarily a bank-related response, but of retail: Sometimes, there is literally nothing the clerk can do. I used to work for a large, corporate retail chain and was trained in taking returns. If certain information was not present, the computer system simply would not refund the money, regardless of “the human side”, as you put it; i.e, you yourself could have processed the sale, it could have been your fault, or you helped them find the item, or what have you, and there was still nothing that could be done from the store. From there, the customer had to enter the phone-based realm of the corporation ladder. Needless to say, most don’t bother.

I think that some of this is reflected in this growing tendency to accept “There’s nothing we can do”. I know it’s something that I have had to relearn, that just because there’s nothing the person I’m talking to can do about my problem, doesn’t mean there isn’t someone higher up the chain who can. So thank you for this article, it’s a good one to keep in mind, and thank you also to user GeekMommy, for her story as well. Good to know that it is possible to win, if you persist intelligently.

By: David

David — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 17:36:32 +0000

US Bank did the same type of thing with an account for my daughter. She had two charges of $1.56 and $3.89 that went negative on a Saturday. I went online on the same Saturday and transferred $50 into her account and at the time the charges were in the system but not yet reflected in the balance, ie - the balance was still positive when I made the deposit. The next week I noticed a $75 bank charge on her account which of course pushed the account negative again. I went to the bank and tried to stop the merry-go-round and get what seemed like a logical error on their side because her account never actually showed a negative balance until the $75 bank charge. The end of the story was they forgave the last charge that was the result of the $75 bank charge but I had to pay first because that their policy that I agreed to when account was opened. I voted with my feet and went to a local bank and after asking questions on how handled similar situations, I open a new account for my daughter and said bye to US Bank. twitter me @hisgrace Davids last blog post..It has been a full day in Minnesota.

By: GeekMommy

GeekMommy — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:35:31 +0000

I had that happen once years ago.
$300 in fees later, I had a teller tell me nothing could be done about it. So I went into the bank – which was a branch bank – and spoke to a teller who said the same. I looked at her and said “please get the Bank President – I will be happy to hear that from him directly.” She glanced at his closed office door and replied with “I’m sorry ma’am, but I really don’t think he’s got time for that,” and I dug my heels in. I said “I’m quite certain that he’s got time for that, it’s his job and I’m also quite certain that if I suddenly get loud enough about this issue for the other customers in the bank to hear what’s going on, he’ll be out here directly to deal with it. Let’s skip the dramatics and please go tell him that he needs to come out and deal with a potentially dissatisfied customer who is threatening to make a scene, okay?”

She did. He came out. I calmly explained to him the issue behind the double ring, the bank’s errors with applying payments and continual fees, and how I had now been told twice that there was nothing they could do. He looked at me like I had grown a second head and said “well, I’d be angry too… of course we’ll wave the fees. I’ll fix it right away.”

And he did.

Lesson learned on my part.