BoA Procedures: Titanium Steel Bike Lock Tied In Place With Twine

[Jurph]

Sometimes I wish bank locations in America were more like Swiss Banks in the movies.

You go in, say something ridiculous like “I would like to close the account bearing the number I have written in green magic marker on my forehead. I’d like the money divided into Yen, Iraqi Dinars, and Euros, please.” A woman with her hair pulled tightly back into a bun and dressed in a suit that cost more to tailor than your wardrobe answers “Yes sir; we’ll have your funds in just a moment.” A gentleman of ambiguous sexuality wheels a dolly with two bulletproof ABS trunks on it and a small steel briefcase on top. He proffers a piece of very expensive paper and a heavy fountain pen with which you can sign the document. You sign the form with the words “Cherry Garcia” and take the money. The woman looks at the wall clock, the money, and then fleetingly makes eye contact so that her soulless impersonation of a cheerful “good afternoon” will seem less forced. Elapsed time: two minutes, seventeen seconds.

Now that is value added.

[Triskadecamus]

[QUOTE=LunaV]
What’s wrong with a bank manager making it a point to find out why a customer has decided to take their business elsewhere?
[/quote]
I explained it to the teller at the first bank that BOA bought while I was a customer.

Perhaps it’s a problem they can fix, a higher interest rate they can match, a fee they can waive, a question they can answer…

And perhaps teaching bankers how to be good bankers is a career you might wish to follow. I just want my money.

I find it disenheartening that everyone jumps on the ‘evil banks’ for doing what every other business does - retain customers.

I find it disheartening that I can’t have my money. But, to be completely fair, I was pretty much unwilling to play customer retention games with AOL either.

So you don’t like listening to sales pitches?

No.

How would you like it if we had a product that was perfect for your needs and never mentioned it to you?

I would find the banking services I wish to have by asking for them.

You can bet we’d be hearing about our inadequacies from you then, like it’s our fault you can’t be bothered to listen to something a teller says that might *actually * have relevance to your account.

You cannot possibly have anything to say, relevant to my account, except “Here is the money you wanted to take out of it.” After that, I will not have an account, and you will loose your bet about what you will hear from me. You will not hear from me. I don’t wish to do business with the Bank of America, nor do I wish to explain my reasons for not doing business with the Bank of America.

Had the teller given me my money, I would have said, “Thank you.” If, after giving me my money, the teller had asked if I might be willing to tell him what caused me to be unwilling to be a customer of the Bank of America, I might have at least begun to explain the four or five most egregious difficulties I have had with the Bank of America. After three or four, he would probably not be interested. In the past the Bank of America has never expressed any interest in my opinions except while not giving me my money. I also know that they are much more willing to take my money than to give it back. They bought three banks of which I was a customer, and the first time I spoke with the officers of the Bank of America enough to know that I do not wish to do business with them. No, I don’t want to help the Bank of America become a better bank. I actually don’t want the Bank of America to be a better bank. I don’t understand why they are still a bank at all.

I like my new bank, although I have never been in the building where they do business. There are no branches within hundreds of miles of my home. They manage to get my money to me without any trouble every time I want them to. In fact, they send my money to anyone I want, any time I want, and it has never taken more than three days for the person to get it. They have never charged me a single penny for any service they provided for me. Their phone has automated help. If you say “representative” at any time while on line, they answer, within a minute, every time a live person, with a name spends as much time as necessary to find out what I want to know.

At the end of the year, they pay me a portion of the annual profits. And every year, they manage to make some profit. Their interest structures are far more favorable to customers than those offered to me by the Bank of America (which still sends me lots of mail about how much they miss me.) They offer me more services than the Bank of America offers. If I tell them no thank you, they stop.

I really don’t mind explaining how thoroughly incompetent I find the Bank of America to be, but first, I want my money. I talk with the representatives of my new bank quite often. I even answer their survey questions! I never take surveys! But, they are very nice to me. Not just pleasant, but really helpful. One of their investment agents gave me a virtual tour of the Treasury Direct on line purchasing of Treasury instruments, because he said it would be more suitable to my needs than buying them through the bank. They same guy told me to do another purchase transaction on line rather than with him over the phone, because the rate would be less, because of an on line only special promotion. They are nice because they are nice, not because it is a policy of the bank to act nice.

I really like my new bank. Did I mention they are also my insurance company? They would have been my stock brokers, too, but the same investment guy told me that I should keep my current agent, because his rates were lower, and it would cost something to transfer all the accounts.

If Americans were not willing to be poorly served, they would be better served. I am not willing to provide reasons for wanting the services I want. I simply go where I can find them. Fixing up bad businesses holds no interest for me.

Tris

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” ~ Carl Jung ~

[Roland_Orzabal]

[QUOTE=Jodi]
I have absolutely no patience for the rationale “the computer software demands X” – your telephone number, a reason for closing the account, whatever. I don’t give a shit what your computer wants; if it wants a full body massage and chocolate chip cookies I’m not giving it those either. If YOUR COMPANY creates roadblocks to giving me what I’m entitled to, don’t act like that places upon me some responsibility to cooperate. I don’t mind if you ask, but if the answer is “no,” please spare me the dirty look, rolled eyes, and intimation that I am making your life harder, because I’m not.

“May I have your telephone number?”
“No.”

“May I know why you’re closing the account?”
“No.”

“May I ask who you currently have service with?”
“No.”

“May I ask why you say you are NOT interested in saving money and time???”
“No.”

That’s my answer – deal with it.
[/QUOTE]
Absolutely fine. Are you willing to deal with the same in return?

“Can you give me a better interest rate?”
“No.”

“Can you waive this fee?”
“No.”

“Can you raise my limit?”
“No.”

“Can you pay this check instead of returning it?”
“No.”

“Can you make my deposit available immediately?”
“No.”

“We charge you interest and fees, set your limits, pay your checks and post your deposits all according to the terms and conditions you agreed to when you opened these accounts. That’s my answer – deal with it.”

As a manager at a corporate bank (not B of A, and I don’t work in a branch), all of the above are things that I can do entirely at my discretion. If you are a customer in good standing, I will gladly work with you if you’ll work with me. If, on the other hand, you simply can’t be bothered, then neither can I. Works for me; it makes our relationship a lot easier when we both know where we stand.

I have a feeling, though, that you’d expect a little more courtesy and understanding from a bank you’ve done business with for some time…you’d want them to hear you out, to listen to your point of view and to go just a tiny bit out of their way to help you out when mistakes were made. That same, ever-so-slight inconveniece is all that the bank is asking of you in this situation.

But hey, that’s just my take from a pure business standpoint, and I’ll fully admit it’s arguable…as I said, if you don’t want anything, you needn’t give anything, and we’re all good.

From a personal standpoint, it gets a bit different. Before I begin, I should say that the following paragraph doesn’t necessarily apply to Tris’ specific situation; the things he said do not strike as particularly rude (depending on tone), and certainly not abusive. I do think he made things harder on himself and others than they needed to be, but I’ll address that later.

As has been said many times in this thread, the customer service folks do not set the policies you disagree with. As Jodi pointed out, that fact does not make those policies any less wrong. It does, however, mean that it IS wrong to waste both your own time and the representative’s by lambasting and lecturing them on the evils of those policies over which they have no control. Perhaps I’ve simply watched one too many of my representatives become reduced to tears as irate dumbfuck wastes of life scream out death threats and racial slurs because the ATM ate the customer’s card, but verbal and behavioral abuse of persons who did absolutely fucking nothing to cause your problem, and are doing everything they can to HELP your stupid ass, is something I absolutely will not tolerate. So, if anyone reading this has ever bitched out a customer service rep because of corporate policy: from the bottom of my heart, fuck you.

With that out of the way, even if you aren’t directly abusive to servicepeople – and here we edge into the territory of Tris’ situation – it is nothing but a waste of their time and yours to offer lectures or “passive resistance” when faced with a policy you don’t like. If you walk into one of my bank’s branches and request a service that requires manager approval* (we don’t require this for account closures, and frankly I think that’s a bit goofy, but that’s beside the point, so let’s say you want an out-of-state check deposit made available instantly), and the teller informs you he needs to get a manager, standing there and insisting that he perform this function is accomplishing precisely dick. You are doing nothing whatsoever but delaying the goal you wish to achieve. No matter how you rant and rave – or, alternatively, how calmly and rationally and logically you offer myriad proofs of your “rightness” – that teller CANNOT do what you want him to do without getting a manager. So, if you do this, congratulations; you’ve wasted the shit out of your time, his time, and the time of everyone the teller could have helped if you’d let him do his job and gone on your merry way.

Let me repeat that: you have accomplished nothing. Maybe you convinced the teller that you were right. He can’t change shit. Maybe you convinced the manager that you were right. He can’t change shit either. Maybe the manager was so thoroughly convinced of your righteousness that he took the time to convince his managers that you were right. It doesn’t matter, because they can’t change shit! YOU HAVE NOT ACCOMPLISHED SHIT! Now, any decently-run corporation has people whom you can complain to that can change shit. At my bank, I would give you the address for the Office of the President. I’ve been to OotP, and I can guarantee you that a well thought out, calm, rational suggestion or complaint that passes their desks will reach the eyes of somebody with the rank of Senior Vice President or above. Any company with half a clue has avenues through which you can make your voice heard in a productive manner.

Bitching out the goddamned teller is not one of them, and neither is a one-man reenactment of civil disobedience, and you all fucking well know it. There is no reason – none – to do this other than to be an asshole. Tris, Jodi, and a few others: I can safely say that, by what I know of you from your posts, I do not believe you would act with the sole and specific intention of being assholes.

So, now that you’ve read my rant, I ask you this simple question: why?

[sub]*To head off any argument based on the fact that the teller/customer service rep/salesperson is the one who ultimately hands over the money/provides the service, sometimes “manager approval” means nothing more getting a nod from the boss so you can write “Approved By:” in the notation…but you’d damned well better have that notation there when Corporate reviews the accounts. The rep still cannot do anything without getting a manager, at penalty of his job.[/sub]

[Triskadecamus]

I wanted to close my accounts. I wanted nothing else. I had already made my decision, and had already had more discussions with BoA than I wanted. I was polite. I was completely reasonable. I waited far longer than I wanted to, yes. But that was not because I was unreasonable; it was because they were unreasonable. How hard was it to figure out that all I wanted was to close my accounts, and get my money? How good a reason do I need to have?

If the Bank of American had not already provided really poor, and overpriced services to me in the past, perhaps my attitude would have been more amenable to promises of better performance in the future. But the performance of the last three times I had been their customer were more than enough to make me sure of my decision. In the later two cases of my relationship with them I had specifically chosen small local banks where I could deal with people I could come to know. Both times, the Bank of America bought them out, and began sending me letters about “changes in our agreement.”

I changed our agreement. I ended it. And all three times they expected me to justify that decision. But I don’t have to do that. And I will not do it. If (God forbid) they buy my current bank I will immediately close all accounts. I won’t explain it then, either. They have a lousy bank. Their rates are overpriced, with poor service, and an extraordinarily high level of errors. They minimally make up for errors, and then only if forced to do so. And they never pass up an opportunity to charge the customer for any trivial thing. Well, other banks are better. But explaining that to them doesn’t benefit me in any way.

Give me good service, keep my money for years. Give me bad service; expect me to ask you to make it good. Give me bad service again; expect to see me leave. Needing an explanation is just one of the symptoms. AOL was pretty much the same song, different music. No, I don’t want any free extensions. No, I don’t want to keep my email address.

I am not a dissatisfied customer. That ship already sailed. I am a former customer. Or, at least I will be one, as soon as I get my money.

Tris

[Roland_Orzabal]

Understood. A perfectly reasonable and well-spoken argument from the business perspective. You absolutely have the right to tell B of A that their services are no longer required, and you do not owe them any further explanation than that. I respect that.

From a personal standpoint, though, my question still stands. You say that “they” were unreasonable – “they” meaning Bank of America – and perhaps they were (actually, knowing B of A’s practices, they quite probably were, but this is not the point). You were fed up with it, and you wanted your money and nothing else. Now, when you requested this of the teller, that teller went about providing you that service in the manner in which he was trained. It so happened that you did not agree with this prescribed manner (and I don’t either, but this again is not the point). So, as I asked before: why? Why did you act as you did rather than initially complying with what needed to be done – which, of course, you ended up having to comply with regardless – and taking your money as quickly as the teller could possibly have provided it to you under those conditions? What did you honestly, rationally hope to accomplish by attempting to refute and circumvent corporate policy (however calmly) with the teller? What did you hope to gain?

[Gary_Kumquat]

[QUOTE=LunaV]
What’s wrong with a bank manager making it a point to find out why a customer has decided to take their business elsewhere?
[/QUOTE]

There’s nothing wrong with them asking. But there’s nothing wrong in saying you don’t wish to discuss it.

And really, if want to retain their customers, it might be an idea to ask them if there’s something wrong BEFORE a customer has decided to close the account.

[Gary_Kumquat]

[QUOTE=Roland Orzabal]
Bitching out the goddamned teller is not one of them, and neither is a one-man reenactment of civil disobedience, and you all fucking well know it. There is no reason – none – to do this other than to be an asshole. Tris, Jodi, and a few others: I can safely say that, by what I know of you from your posts, I do not believe you would act with the sole and specific intention of being assholes.

So, now that you’ve read my rant, I ask you this simple question: why?
[/QUOTE]

Not the tellers fault…you’re only wasting her time and yours…nothing they can do about it, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Nonsense. Absolute, grade 1, enabling, apologist, nonsense.

At some time in the past some idiotic corporate twit with a fascination with multiple choice questionaires came up with the great idea that customers have some obligation to answer irrelevant questions purely to benefit whatever monstrosity of a firm he worked for. Unfortunately, at the time this was first tested, not enough customers gave the correct response to these questions (namely “none of your bloody business”) and the infection spread.

The idea that we should play along just because that’s the policy of your instituion, or that we’re just being mean to the teller, or that we’re wasting her time - tough shit. The script should have stopped as soon as “May I ask why?” got a no. If your scripts/procedures don’t recognise this, then I’ll have as much fun as I want loudly asking why I can’t get my money back. Your own post acknowledges the effectiveness of this policy:

“if you do this, congratulations; you’ve wasted the shit out of your time, his time, and the time of everyone the teller could have helped if you’d let him do his job and gone on your merry way.”

So by doing this I can irritate a large number of your customers? Splendid. I’d imagine you don’t want irritated customers, so if this happens too frequently you might just change the procedures that cause these little scenes?

But playing along with your rules is enablement for you to inflict them on others. Why would I want to do that?

[Triskadecamus]

[QUOTE=Roland Orzabal]
What did you honestly, rationally hope to accomplish by attempting to refute and circumvent corporate policy (however calmly) with the teller? What did you hope to gain?
[/QUOTE]
I just wanted my money.

Really.

I won’t pretend that I was unaware of how difficult it would be, but I remember how long it took when I did it their way. (I have been through it three times, remember?) It was pretty much the same, all three times. However, I didn’t have to wait quite as long, once it became an embarrassment for the manager. It also required fewer impertinent questions.

A small part of me hopes that a few other customers might become aware of the quality of service they could expect, but only a very small part. And even that part knows that American consumers don’t even want better service. After all, Bank of America is still growing fat on their money.

Tris

[Mollie_Magill]

Stupid question: Do BoA tellers have the authority to close accounts, or are officers required to perform that transaction?

[RTFirefly]

[QUOTE=Roland Orzabal]
Absolutely fine. Are you willing to deal with the same in return?

“Can you give me a better interest rate?”
“No.”

“Can you waive this fee?”
“No.”

“Can you raise my limit?”
“No.”

“Can you pay this check instead of returning it?”
“No.”

“Can you make my deposit available immediately?”
“No.”

[/quote]

If those are the answers, then fair enough. I as customer can decide whether I should take my business elsewhere, and I will if another bank is more accomodating.

But the whole point is that Triskadecamus wanted to take his business elsewhere, and they did their best to simply not let him. That is NOT a legitimate customer-retention approach.

“We charge you interest and fees, set your limits, pay your checks and post your deposits all according to the terms and conditions you agreed to when you opened these accounts. That’s my answer – deal with it.”

As a manager at a corporate bank (not B of A, and I don’t work in a branch), all of the above are things that I can do entirely at my discretion. If you are a customer in good standing, I will gladly work with you if you’ll work with me. If, on the other hand, you simply can’t be bothered, then neither can I. Works for me; it makes our relationship a lot easier when we both know where we stand.

Fine and dandy. But once I cease to want to be your customer, the only way I want you to “work with me” is to let me take my money out of your bank, without making an issue of it.

Tris would have been delighted if BoA had been willing to “not be bothered” - the problem was, when he finally wanted to walk out the door with his money, they were quite energetic about trying to impede him from doing so.

As has been said many times in this thread, the customer service folks do not set the policies you disagree with. As Jodi pointed out, that fact does not make those policies any less wrong. It does, however, mean that it IS wrong to waste both your own time and the representative’s by lambasting and lecturing them on the evils of those policies over which they have no control.

If someone has signed on to a job that requires them to be a mechanized asshole, then they have indeed chosen - they had control over their lives, and chose to continue in a job that required them to behave assholishly.

Perhaps I’ve simply watched one too many of my representatives become reduced to tears as irate dumbfuck wastes of life scream out death threats and racial slurs because the ATM ate the customer’s card, but verbal and behavioral abuse of persons who did absolutely fucking nothing to cause your problem, and are doing everything they can to HELP your stupid ass, is something I absolutely will not tolerate. So, if anyone reading this has ever bitched out a customer service rep because of corporate policy: from the bottom of my heart, fuck you.

And fuck you right back. If you are willing to execute an assholish corporate policy, then you’re an asshole. “I was only following orders” hasn’t cut it for several decades now.

With that out of the way, even if you aren’t directly abusive to servicepeople – and here we edge into the territory of Tris’ situation – it is nothing but a waste of their time and yours to offer lectures or “passive resistance” when faced with a policy you don’t like. If you walk into one of my bank’s branches and request a service that requires manager approval* (we don’t require this for account closures, and frankly I think that’s a bit goofy, but that’s beside the point, so let’s say you want an out-of-state check deposit made available instantly), and the teller informs you he needs to get a manager, standing there and insisting that he perform this function is accomplishing precisely dick. You are doing nothing whatsoever but delaying the goal you wish to achieve. No matter how you rant and rave – or, alternatively, how calmly and rationally and logically you offer myriad proofs of your “rightness” – that teller CANNOT do what you want him to do without getting a manager. So, if you do this, congratulations; you’ve wasted the shit out of your time, his time, and the time of everyone the teller could have helped if you’d let him do his job and gone on your merry way.

Again, you are conflating two very different situations: one where a customer wants a special service that requires a manager, and another where a customer just wants to cease being a customer.

Yes, being belligerent to employees is never good. But calmly and steadfastly standing one’s ground in the face of less-than-reasonable requests, as Tris describes, is quite reasonable.

Let me repeat that: you have accomplished nothing. Maybe you convinced the teller that you were right. He can’t change shit. Maybe you convinced the manager that you were right. He can’t change shit either. Maybe the manager was so thoroughly convinced of your righteousness that he took the time to convince his managers that you were right. It doesn’t matter, because they can’t change shit! YOU HAVE NOT ACCOMPLISHED SHIT!

If you convince other customers present in the branch that there’s a problem, that in fact accomplishes something, as they may vote with their feet.

Now, any decently-run corporation has people whom you can complain to that can change shit. At my bank, I would give you the address for the Office of the President. I’ve been to OotP, and I can guarantee you that a well thought out, calm, rational suggestion or complaint that passes their desks will reach the eyes of somebody with the rank of Senior Vice President or above. Any company with half a clue has avenues through which you can make your voice heard in a productive manner.

I can personally attest that there are several corporations you know by name that do not have such avenues, or make them extremely difficult to find.

For instance, someday I will find the right person to talk to at United Air Lines so that they stop ringing my cell phone with somebody else’s recorded customer alerts. Did you know their corporate HQ doesn’t seem to have a phone number? You can’t get there from here, and the people at their customer service line in India won’t tell you how to get there. There’s a place on their website to send an email to “Customer Service” but with no suggestion that anyone important might see it. I suppose I could research their 10-K’s to get addresses for their top execs, but the point is that they’re not making it easy.

[DrDeth]

Continuing Triskadecamus’s minor hijack:

Sorry, but the Teller was right in asking and you were wrong in not explaining. The explanation could have been “I am not happy with the bank’s service, and I have already go into in depht with other bank employees, thank you”. What would have been wrong with that? That teller had nothing to do with your problems with the bank, why give her a hard time? Would *one sentence * of explanation have killed you?

Many dudes have been conned into withdrawing cash or closing their accounts through various scams- the “bank examiner scam” and various other cash scams like the Nigerian Oil scam. Bank tellers are trained to try and protect customers from these scams, which include asking questions about unsual cash withdrawals. Not to mention Title 31 USC requires a certain amount of questioning depending on the amounts and the level of suspicion. Was the total cash over $2000?

You were rude. You may have well have had excellent reasons to be mad at the BANK, but none at the teller.** Roland Orzabal** is correct.

So- Triskadecamuswould being polite to a fellow human, one who had not given you any offense, and giving her one short sentence of explanation have hurt that much?

[Roland_Orzabal]

[QUOTE=Gary Kumquat]
Not the tellers fault…you’re only wasting her time and yours…nothing they can do about it, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Nonsense. Absolute, grade 1, enabling, apologist, nonsense.
[/QUOTE]
Nonsense? Which part, exactly, is nonsense?

“It’s not the teller’s fault” - this is undisputably correct. It is not. The teller did not make the rule that requires him to get manager authorization to close an account, nor could he change that rule if he wished to do so (and he probably does).

“There is nothing they can do about it” - okay, this isn’t necessarily true. If the teller is physically able to close an account and hand over the money without a manager entering in a special code – which he may actually have no way whatsoever to do, but it IS possible – then he could have done that, and gotten fired. So, in your ideal realization of this situation, you’d like to get some guy fired. That’s nice, and very productive toward your end goal, I’m sure.

“You’re only wasting her time and yours” - the only part here that’s arguable, so let’s continue.

At some time in the past some idiotic corporate twit with a fascination with multiple choice questionaires came up with the great idea that customers have some obligation to answer irrelevant questions purely to benefit whatever monstrosity of a firm he worked for. Unfortunately, at the time this was first tested, not enough customers gave the correct response to these questions (namely “none of your bloody business”) and the infection spread.

The idea that we should play along just because that’s the policy of your instituion, or that we’re just being mean to the teller, or that we’re wasting her time - tough shit. The script should have stopped as soon as “May I ask why?” got a no. If your scripts/procedures don’t recognise this, then I’ll have as much fun as I want loudly asking why I can’t get my money back.

I ask this in all seriousness: did you read my first post to this thread? You’re conflating the two sides of the coin here. On the one hand, you have Bank of America, a company with myriad questionable and irritating practices that you have quite rightfully grown fed up with. This is the business level. You no longer wish to do business with this bank, and it is your absolute right to end it immediately and with no explanation if you wish. You’ll get no argument from me on that. Right up until the last sentence quoted above, you have 100% of my support.

When it comes to “If your scripts/procedures don’t recognise this, then I’ll have as much fun as I want loudly asking why I can’t get my money back”: and you’re doing this at whom? The guy who can’t do anything about it? Now you’re entering the personal side of the equation. On this side, there are two people involved: you, and the teller. The teller is a person, a human being, just like you, standing there performing his job just like you do when you’re at work. I believe the confusion may stem from yet another piece of brilliant corporate terminology: according to the company, the teller is a “representative” of Bank of America, meaning that to you, at that moment, he IS the company. But he isn’t. This is corporate bullshit. He is not Bank of America any more than I am the state of Virginia. You know that he is not the entity you are angry with, you know that in his position he is powerless to change the situation that is angering you so (and if you believe nothing else I say in this post, believe this: he wishes very strongly that he could), and that that same entity that pissed you off in the FIRST place is also responsible for what he’s doing to anger you now. And yet, whom are you taking out your anger upon? Him. Because he’s convenient. Because he’s there, and you’re angry, and you can’t control your own frustration well enough to not be an asshole to a guy (one person, who, again, is NOT Bank of America) who couldn’t help you any better if he wanted to. On the business side of the coin, you’re completely right; on the personal side, you’re completely wrong. You’re being an asshole. And for your trouble, and that caused to the teller, you gain nothing.

Ah, but you dispute that too.

Your own post acknowledges the effectiveness of this policy:

“if you do this, congratulations; you’ve wasted the shit out of your time, his time, and the time of everyone the teller could have helped if you’d let him do his job and gone on your merry way.”

So by doing this I can irritate a large number of your customers? Splendid. I’d imagine you don’t want irritated customers, so if this happens too frequently you might just change the procedures that cause these little scenes?

But playing along with your rules is enablement for you to inflict them on others. Why would I want to do that?

So, it seems you think you accomplish something by doing this after all. Let’s explore this lovely delusion. “I’d imagine you don’t want irritated customers, so if this happens too frequently you might just change the procedures that cause these little scenes?” Nope. And do you know why? Because in a company the size of B of A, that little scene you just put on – and it happens multiple times, in every branch, every day; you’re hardly the Lone Ranger of Corporate Protest – will never reach the ears of anyone who can do anything about it. Never. Of course, as I mentioned in my first post, there ARE methods to complain that can get things noticed and questioned and changed that A) actually have a snowball’s chance in hell of working, and B) don’t involve being a fucking asshole to somebody who isn’t responsible for you being pissed off, but doing so is both extra work AND doesn’t give the immediate gratification of getting to show your ass in public. Hmm. I begin to wonder if Changing The World For The Better is really your goal, o benevolent defender of consumer rights.

This leaves you with one final little petty pathetic-ass goal that you might possibly be accomplishing: pissing off the other customers who are in that branch at that moment with you. If the branch is particularly full, there might be fifty other people in it waiting to be served when you start your little self-righteous civil disobedience showdown. Now, assuming that all fifty of them are even paying any attention to what you’re doing at all, and assuming that they actively listen to and comprehend you words well enough to extract your point rather than simply thinking “oh, a screaming asshole, brilliant” and hoping you go away, and assuming that your rant includes anything that might be construed as an argument against the bank’s policies (you may recall that they’ve not been privy to whatever of the bank’s actions originally angered you) and does not consist solely of you shouting at the teller to give you your money when he/she cannot, and assuming that every single one of them comprehends your argument and agrees with it and decides right then and there that they can absolutely no longer continue to conduct business with Bank of America rather than just blaming YOU for the disturbance because you, not the teller, are the one being an asshole – and that’s a metric fuckton of assumptions if ever there was one – then you have accomplished getting fifty other customers to close their accounts. Fifty customers. From Bank of America. You think that did something? Wake the fuck up.

So, after all that, we are left with the one question that remained at the beginning: have you, in fact, wasted the teller’s time and yours? Yes. Yes, my hypothetical asshole, you have.

[clnilsen]

[QUOTE=Gary Kumquat]
Not the tellers fault…you’re only wasting her time and yours…nothing they can do about it, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Nonsense. Absolute, grade 1, enabling, apologist, nonsense.

[/QUOTE]

Let me preface this by saying I have a base level burning LOATHING for banks in general. I not only get the pleasure in dealing with them in real life, I also deal w/ corporate bankers daily at work.

Dante needs to create a few more levels in order to accomodate bankers.

Recognize this: Bank window tellers are basically minimum wage jobs front line hourly positions.

Complaning to a bank teller has about the same probability of effecting corporate policy as telling a McDonalds Fry cook that they should have 3 kinds of Prime Rib available for a full dinner daily. You can yell at them all you want, but they can’t change anything.

[Roland_Orzabal]

Oh, and Gary, one other thing: I’d sincerely appreciate it if you’d stop using the word “you” in reference to those who inflict corporate policy upon you. You might not be talking about me specifically, but either way, it plays into the mindset that “guy who works for the corporation = the corporation”, which is exactly what the people who are actually in charge would love you to believe, so that you’ll bitch at their customer service representatives instead of them and they don’t have to deal with any of it. Seems to be working well for them thus far. Remember, when it comes to everything you’ve said about corporate policy and the way things ought to be, I personally agree with you.

Oh, and Tris: my argument with you ends here. As I said before, I really don’t think what you said and did was all that unreasonable. I think it would’ve been slightly less painful for you to just eat the corporate B.S. one last time, but you’ve acknowledged that, and given that we ARE all people and we all have emotions, I can’t really fault you for a slight bit of indignance…and thank you for not being an asshole.

[Lionne]

[QUOTE=Roland Orzabal]
The teller is a person, a human being, just like you, standing there performing his job just like you do when you’re at work. I believe the confusion may stem from yet another piece of brilliant corporate terminology: according to the company, the teller is a “representative” of Bank of America, meaning that to you, at that moment, he IS the company. But he isn’t. This is corporate bullshit. He is not Bank of America any more than I am the state of Virginia. You know that he is not the entity you are angry with, you know that in his position he is powerless to change the situation that is angering you so (and if you believe nothing else I say in this post, believe this: he wishes very strongly that he could), and that that same entity that pissed you off in the FIRST place is also responsible for what he’s doing to anger you now. And yet, whom are you taking out your anger upon? Him. Because he’s convenient. Because he’s there, and you’re angry, and you can’t control your own frustration well enough to not be an asshole to a guy (one person, who, again, is NOT Bank of America) who couldn’t help you any better if he wanted to. On the business side of the coin, you’re completely right; on the personal side, you’re completely wrong. You’re being an asshole. And for your trouble, and that caused to the teller, you gain nothing.
[/QUOTE]

Can I come work for you?
Seriously, thank you for sticking up for tellers. It’s not very often that we hear this from managers.
You’ve explained the bank’s side far better than I ever could have, and I sincerely hope that the next time a Doper goes into the bank and comes across a ‘goofy’ policy, they remember this thread.

[Triskadecamus]

[QUOTE=DrDeth]
Continuing Triskadecamus’s minor hijack: That teller had nothing to do with your problems with the bank, why give her a hard time? Would *one sentence * of explanation have killed you?
[/quote]
I gave him a one word answer to his question. I was well aware that I would have to have the manager ok the payment of my money before I entered the bank. The teller could have said, “Oh, sorry sir, we tellers are not allowed to give customers their money.” But, he didn’t. He attempted to elicit private information from me, I declined to provide it.

Many dudes have been conned into withdrawing cash or closing their accounts through various scams- the “bank examiner scam” and various other cash scams like the Nigerian Oil scam. Bank tellers are trained to try and protect customers from these scams, which include asking questions about unsual cash withdrawals. Not to mention Title 31 USC requires a certain amount of questioning depending on the amounts and the level of suspicion.

Interesting point. Except the neither teller, nor the manager expressed any of those concerns. They did not tell me how to protect my money, or how to assure myself that my money would be safe. I wasn’t just withdrawing my money. I clearly was closing my accounts, and leaving the bank, no longer to be a customer.

Was the total cash over $2000?

Yes.

You were rude.

No, I was not.

You may have well have had excellent reasons to be mad at the BANK, but none at the teller.** Roland Orzabal ** is correct.

Yes, he is.
[QUOTE= Roland Orzabal]
Oh, and Tris: my argument with you ends here. As I said before, I really don’t think what you said and did was all that unreasonable.
[/quote]

@DrDeth

So- Triskadecamuswould being polite to a fellow human, one who had not given you any offense, and giving her one short sentence of explanation have hurt that much?

I was not impolite. I was not compliant to his expectations. I already knew that the teller would need to get the manager, and that nothing he had to say would change my mind. Why have a conversation with him that will only have to be repeated with the person supervising him? The one short sentence, of course is as unlikely supposition. (Keep in mind, I am not in unfamiliar territory here, I had already been down this path twice.) The only reason that the teller didn’t try harder to convince me to stay is that my one word response communicated my level of dissatisfaction with the bank succinctly, and, by the way, entirely politely. Now the teller is free to summon the manager, since he is not allowed by the Bank of America to give customers their money, and it is perfectly obvious that I do not want any other banking services from him. If he finds this distressing, he needs to find another bank even more than I do. However, giving career advice seemed inappropriate, at the time.

Tris

“You can’t always get what you want.” ~ M. Jagger/K. Richard

[Una_Persson]

[QUOTE=LunaV]
What’s wrong with a bank manager making it a point to find out why a customer has decided to take their business elsewhere?
Perhaps it’s a problem they can fix, a higher interest rate they can match, a fee they can waive, a question they can answer…
I find it disenheartening that everyone jumps on the ‘evil banks’ for doing what every other business does - retain customers.
[/QUOTE]

When I told BoA that I was closing a rather large account with them, they asked me why and I told them. They immediately gave me a substantial cash credit to stay (more than $100), and bumped my account to a “special” one which had a better rate. Money makes everything better…but I still moved most of my account to a different bank later on.

I understand being upset at stupid policies. BoA almost lost me as a customer again last month when they categorically refused to give me the balance on all my accounts without my ATM card (which I never carry with me, FTR). My driver’s license wasn’t good enough, they demanded my ATM card. WTMFH?

[Evil_Captor]

Banks offer important and necessary services, but they often take every advantage of customers possible, and you are well advised to think of them as predators who are constantly thinking of ways to get money out of your account and into theirs. For example, overdraft check charges cost $29 even though it costs less than $2 to process them, and the vast majority of such charges are for simple accounting errors – the customer almost always covers the check.

Banks charge those fees to get your money, it’s as simple as that. They know they can get away with it because people see it as a “sin tax” although it’s almost always just a math error. Apparently banks collude on this sin tax, because you’d figure some banks would go with a lower fee, but it’s $29 just about everywhere.

Just this morning on NPR they had a woman explaining about the rising popularity of cash cards as a gift. She said that the cards issued by stores had little or no fees attached, but that the cards issued by the banks were the worst of the lot, laden down with all sorts of fees that diminished the value of the card. Frex, one bank offered a service of giving you a balance on the card at an 800 number. What they didn’t explain to customers was that there was a fee for the service, so your balance was a few dollars less for making the call. Some banks even had a “non-use” fee attached to the card.

Most folks need the services offered by banks, but I wish more people understood how predatory they were toward their own customers.

I’m with Trisk on this one.

[Gary_Kumquat]

[QUOTE=Roland Orzabal]
Nonsense? Which part, exactly, is nonsense?..“There is nothing they can do about it” - okay, this isn’t necessarily true…“You’re only wasting her time and yours” - the only part here that’s arguable
[/QUOTE]

Which part is nonsense, you ask, before accepting that one part of your premise is often not true, and another is arguable. As you admit “there is nothing they can do about it” is often not true. If the script is halfway decent, then they can opt out as soon as it’s apparent you don’t want to play. If the script is not decent, then enough negative feedback from incidents should hopefully see it changed in time.

When it comes to “If your scripts/procedures don’t recognise this, then I’ll have as much fun as I want loudly asking why I can’t get my money back”: and you’re doing this at whom? The guy who can’t do anything about it? Now you’re entering the personal side of the equation. On this side, there are two people involved: you, and the teller. The teller is a person, a human being, just like you, standing there performing his job just like you do when you’re at work.

You see something assholish in saying “no” when being asked “would you explain why you’re closing this account” or some similar question, and lecture that the teller is only a human being. I am glad their humanity is as important to you as it is to me. Tell me something - in a situation where a company takes a person, forces them to read through a script, gives them no margin for variation, or ability to use their own judgement, why do you defend such dehumanising tactics, and take offence at people who choose not to play along with it?

Because he’s there, and you’re angry, and you can’t control your own frustration well enough to not be an asshole to a guy (one person, who, again, is NOT Bank of America) who couldn’t help you any better if he wanted to. On the business side of the coin, you’re completely right; on the personal side, you’re completely wrong. You’re being an asshole.

You have fabricated completely allegations of anger and assholish behaviour, of being unable to control frustration. Such accusations are blatant strawmen. No-one in this thread, other than yourself, has mentioned anything about angry behaviour or losing control. Argue your position honestly.

So, it seems you think you accomplish something by doing this after all. Let’s explore this lovely delusion. “I’d imagine you don’t want irritated customers, so if this happens too frequently you might just change the procedures that cause these little scenes?” Nope. And do you know why? Because in a company the size of B of A, that little scene you just put on – and it happens multiple times, in every branch, every day; you’re hardly the Lone Ranger of Corporate Protest – will never reach the ears of anyone who can do anything about it.

While the BoA may not give a rats arse about many things, I’d imagine even they monitor customer throughput for teller staff, as well as customer complaints. By your own given this is something that happens “happens multiple times, in every branch, every day”. It should be within your grasp to realise that sort of occurence leads to perceivable negative trends, either increased complaints from customers at lenthy delays, or increased costs through having to put on more teller staff. Unless you feel those aren’t the sort of factors that companies look at when revising procedures?

This leaves you with one final little petty pathetic-ass goal that you might possibly be accomplishing: pissing off the other customers who are in that branch at that moment with you. If the branch is particularly full, there might be fifty other people in it waiting to be served when you start your little self-righteous civil disobedience showdown. Now, assuming that all fifty of them are even paying any attention to what you’re doing at all, and assuming that they actively listen to and comprehend you words well enough to extract your point rather than simply thinking “oh, a screaming asshole, brilliant” and hoping you go away, and assuming that your rant includes anything that might be construed as an argument against the bank’s policies (you may recall that they’ve not been privy to whatever of the bank’s actions originally angered you) and does not consist solely of you shouting at the teller to give you your money when he/she cannot, and assuming that every single one of them comprehends your argument and agrees with it and decides right then and there that they can absolutely no longer continue to conduct business with Bank of America rather than just blaming YOU for the disturbance because you, not the teller, are the one being an asshole – and that’s a metric fuckton of assumptions if ever there was one – then you have accomplished getting fifty other customers to close their accounts. Fifty customers. From Bank of America. You think that did something? Wake the fuck up.

And again with the strawmen. My objective when going to a bank is neither to piss off other customers, shout at a teller, or even to get people to close their account. The goal is to conduct my affairs as quickly as possible. If I’m held up in doing so, then I will try to clear up this delay as quickly as possible, in a manner I find acceptable. I do not find acceptable being coerced into some silly exit interview to ask questions that a decent business should ask during a business relationship rather than at the end. In such circumstances, I view it completely acceptable to answer in the concise, to-the-point manner that triskademus has mentioned. I’m more than happy for that to take me a few more minutes and am quite prepared to hold up other customers, as I would view such a situation as purely the responsibility of the bank involved.

[Cheesesteak]

I was with Trisk up until the point where he was deliberately making a scene in the bank in order to embarass the teller and manager who were attempting to follow through with a process that they had no input into designing and were required to follow. He just admitted that he was well aware that it would require a manager to close his account, yet when told this he starts raising his voice, asking if the bank is refusing to give him his money. He knows very well that he’s going to get his money, but is going to punish the teller and manager every second of the process.

When closing an account, the bank has to do more than just give you your money back, they have to end the relationship between you and the bank. They have to ensure that no more statements get sent, no fees are charged, no deposits made, etc. It is entirely reasonable to think a manager (or at least a floor person) should be involved in making sure all the steps are complete.

Trisk wants to speed through the process in 60 seconds, but I’d bet the house that if anything went wrong, he’d be screaming from the rooftops about how incompetant BofA is.