[banking] How not to run a bank, s2e2
Yes, we ARE going to recapitulate the madcap shenanigans of Citibank with BoA!
I had failed to mention, in part because I wasn't yet convinced that it wasn't just error on my part, but, no: when I call in to BoA's small business customer service number, I have to do the authentication dance, which at one point in the process askes me to enter the last four of my SSN, and.
It doesn't recognize it the first time. Consistently. It prompts me; I enter it (and on my cell, the digitsshow up on the screen as I do, so I can see they are correct); it tells me it didn't recognize the number, and could I try again please; I enter the exact same string a second time; it lets me in. *headdesk*
I have confirmed this on the occasions of my third and fourth calls to customer service. Yes!
Shortly after midnight, I checked my email and discovered:From: BoA
To: me
Subject: Activity Alert: Your Card Is on the Way
Activity Alert
Card ending in WXYZ
Your card is on the way,
$PRACTICENAME
Your debit card ending in WXYZ was mailed on 12/11/2015 to this address:
[THE_ADDRESS_I_TOLD_THEM_THEY_MUST_NEVER_MAIL_THINGS_TO]
Your card will arrive in an envelope with a Bank of America logo and a Wilmington, Delaware return address within 5-7 business days.
After stressing to the banker that it was very, very, very important that nothing ever be shipped to my physical business address owing to the utter lack of security and even shelter - I told him the story of the Very Soggy Statements - for mail there and that that is why I had a perfectly good mailing address I was spending serious money on, and he had to make sure that all correspondence to me MUST go to my mailing address... of course they sent it to my physical business address.
But wait! It gets better. WXYZ are the last four numbers on my temporary card.
I occurs to me to check, because at this point I am paranoid experienced. I wondered if it's possible that the system auto-generated this email in error because I had been given the temporary card, and this isn't about my regular card at all. But that also makes little sense, and I opened the account on 12/10 not 12/11.
I call customer service. I dance through the phone tree (entering my last four of my SSN twice), and discover that, of course, small business banking customer service is closed.
I pull out my banker's business card and attempt to call his direct line to leave him vmail, but it goes to the branch general number, and there is no way to leave him vmail.
I call customer service again, and this time I just go down the "lost or stolen card" tree, until I'm talking to an actual emergency customer service agent.
I explain the situation, and she is sympathetic and apologetic. I learn a bunch of astonishing things:
• The reason that the last four digits on my temp card are the same as the last four digits on my being-issued permanent card, is that they use the same number as a convenience to the customer. Thus, thanks to this "convenience", it's not possible to cancel one card without canceling the other. If I have them preemptively cancel the card they sent to my office, I will wind up with no card at all, until they generate a fresh one that they manage to get to me.
• But that's okay, because, contrary to what it said in the email, they most certainly haven't actually gotten as far as putting the new card in an addressed envelope, much less put it in the mail, and there's still time to update my account with the correct address, such that when the computer outputs it, it gets the right one. Or so saith the customer service rep.
• I asked her if she could fix it, but, alas, no, she can only do personal banking, not business banking, unless it was to suspend cards and freeze accounts and so forth.
So tomorrow I will deal with this, and maybe it will even get fixed.
This is very similar to what happened with Citibank, only in that case, we to this day have no idea what happened to my first permanent debit card. It never made it to me, and was never heard from again. We wound up having to cancel it and try again.
(Which reminds me. Citibank also, somewhere in there, gave me a defective temporary card. I remember the banker going with me to test the original temporary card in the ATM and it was fine, but then I wound up with some other temporary card. Maybe they did the same thing with card numbers as BoA, and so when the banker found out my permanent debit card never arrived, both had to be canceled? Anyways, so there I was with a new temporary card, at something like 10pm, trying to deposit income into the ATM, and the ATM wouldn't recognize it. So I whip open my cell and call customer service. While I'm on the phone with them and we're trying various things to diagnose the problem, I happen to turn the card over and see a massive defect in the mag stripe. "OH I THINK I FIGURED IT OUT!")
I had failed to mention, in part because I wasn't yet convinced that it wasn't just error on my part, but, no: when I call in to BoA's small business customer service number, I have to do the authentication dance, which at one point in the process askes me to enter the last four of my SSN, and.
It doesn't recognize it the first time. Consistently. It prompts me; I enter it (and on my cell, the digitsshow up on the screen as I do, so I can see they are correct); it tells me it didn't recognize the number, and could I try again please; I enter the exact same string a second time; it lets me in. *headdesk*
I have confirmed this on the occasions of my third and fourth calls to customer service. Yes!
Shortly after midnight, I checked my email and discovered:From: BoA
To: me
Subject: Activity Alert: Your Card Is on the Way
Activity Alert
Card ending in WXYZ
Your card is on the way,
$PRACTICENAME
Your debit card ending in WXYZ was mailed on 12/11/2015 to this address:
[THE_ADDRESS_I_TOLD_THEM_THEY_MUST_NEVER_MAIL_THINGS_TO]
Your card will arrive in an envelope with a Bank of America logo and a Wilmington, Delaware return address within 5-7 business days.
After stressing to the banker that it was very, very, very important that nothing ever be shipped to my physical business address owing to the utter lack of security and even shelter - I told him the story of the Very Soggy Statements - for mail there and that that is why I had a perfectly good mailing address I was spending serious money on, and he had to make sure that all correspondence to me MUST go to my mailing address... of course they sent it to my physical business address.
But wait! It gets better. WXYZ are the last four numbers on my temporary card.
I occurs to me to check, because at this point I am paranoid experienced. I wondered if it's possible that the system auto-generated this email in error because I had been given the temporary card, and this isn't about my regular card at all. But that also makes little sense, and I opened the account on 12/10 not 12/11.
I call customer service. I dance through the phone tree (entering my last four of my SSN twice), and discover that, of course, small business banking customer service is closed.
I pull out my banker's business card and attempt to call his direct line to leave him vmail, but it goes to the branch general number, and there is no way to leave him vmail.
I call customer service again, and this time I just go down the "lost or stolen card" tree, until I'm talking to an actual emergency customer service agent.
I explain the situation, and she is sympathetic and apologetic. I learn a bunch of astonishing things:
• The reason that the last four digits on my temp card are the same as the last four digits on my being-issued permanent card, is that they use the same number as a convenience to the customer. Thus, thanks to this "convenience", it's not possible to cancel one card without canceling the other. If I have them preemptively cancel the card they sent to my office, I will wind up with no card at all, until they generate a fresh one that they manage to get to me.
• But that's okay, because, contrary to what it said in the email, they most certainly haven't actually gotten as far as putting the new card in an addressed envelope, much less put it in the mail, and there's still time to update my account with the correct address, such that when the computer outputs it, it gets the right one. Or so saith the customer service rep.
• I asked her if she could fix it, but, alas, no, she can only do personal banking, not business banking, unless it was to suspend cards and freeze accounts and so forth.
So tomorrow I will deal with this, and maybe it will even get fixed.
This is very similar to what happened with Citibank, only in that case, we to this day have no idea what happened to my first permanent debit card. It never made it to me, and was never heard from again. We wound up having to cancel it and try again.
(Which reminds me. Citibank also, somewhere in there, gave me a defective temporary card. I remember the banker going with me to test the original temporary card in the ATM and it was fine, but then I wound up with some other temporary card. Maybe they did the same thing with card numbers as BoA, and so when the banker found out my permanent debit card never arrived, both had to be canceled? Anyways, so there I was with a new temporary card, at something like 10pm, trying to deposit income into the ATM, and the ATM wouldn't recognize it. So I whip open my cell and call customer service. While I'm on the phone with them and we're trying various things to diagnose the problem, I happen to turn the card over and see a massive defect in the mag stripe. "OH I THINK I FIGURED IT OUT!")