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Letters From North America |
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There’s an old saying about the “Squeaky wheel gets the grease.” having said that, you get an idea of what I’m going to write about this week. Nearly two weeks ago, I drove over 400 miles to get to a bank that had some money in it that belonged to me. Like the good little soldier that I am, I patiently stood in line and waited for all of those ahead of me to take care of their business. Finally I arrived and presented my documents. You feel as though you are at the border in some Communist country and that if you don’t have your “papers” together or in the right order, a door will suddenly fly open and out will jump 3 leather coated Gestapo agents to take you to the vaults below. And you only thought that’s where the money was kept! Anyway, after being thoroughly scrutinized, examined and observed, the cashier or teller, whatever she is called, decides I am “qualified” to have my money. “You’ll be getting a check in about 7-10 days, she cheerily announces and then looks over my shoulder to the next person in line.” …I stand there for a second and then ask her.”You mean I can walk in here and put my money into your place in a matter of minutes, but have to wait a few weeks in order to get it back?"”Well, you know we were just bought out and we have new rules to go by, that’s how it is, sorry.” I get in my car and drive back. Then I wait, and I wait, and I wait. I let 11 days go by, and then I call and ask what happened to my check. “The same person tells me she’ll check on it, calls back and says she can’t get through to the main office, the lines are busy, (no wonder, I bet everyone is wanting their money as well) …then she calls and tells me that it is “in the works” and should be another 11-13 days. “Sorry, but rules are rules.” Unbelievable. Well, I start looking up numbers. Forget the 800..so called”customer service” numbers, you only get the person who could care less about helping you, they are just there to answer the phone. Probably isn’t any real live person in there anyway, just some computer handling the zillion voice mail calls each day. I’ll bet some of these “800” services are just contract people who handle complaints for lots of companies and corporations. Just answer the phone, act interested for a moment or so, then onto the next unhappy camper. They all respond in the same way, so what difference would it make what product you are supposed to be concerned with? I even get onto their web site and leave a message where they ask for it, but as of yet…no response. I’m glad that 911 doesn’t operate this way, we’d be dead and long gone. . Anyway, after about 3 hours on the phone, I finally get through to some guy in California, who says he’s sorry, but can’t help me….but I tell him that’s ok, since he has really helped me anyway. He asks how and I tell him that I needed something to write about for my weekly column for about 30 newspapers and they have provided me with the material. Thank you very much. Well, don’t you know that he told me to hold and he gets someone to help me in about 30 seconds flat. Next thing, I know there is some lady on the phone telling me that they have all of my papers and they seem to be in order and guess what? Yep, they can get that old check out today and send it overnight to me so I’ll have it in the morning. Sure enough, the check arrived yesterday, right on time. They even paid the express charges. At first, I thought well, that’s nice, I’ll have to find something else to write about, since they came through. Then the more I thought about it, the more I thought …no, I need to go ahead and get this out so people can be aware of possible problems in the future. What if someone’s husband or wife dies and they need their money quickly? What happens to those folks buying a home and they are counting on their money for the closing? What happens if your brother-in-law gets put in jail? Wait, you might want to use this to your advantage sometimes…”Sorry, Fred, but the bank won’t give me the money for 3 weeks., we’ll come over and see you on Sunday.” Seriously, this isn’t right; and you shouldn’t have to put the pressure on companies to do what they are supposed to do in the first place. Next time something like this happens to you, just remember what I did. You have the power to write to your paper and complain…so tell XYZ Corp that if they mess with you, you’re going to write an article about them. I don’t know if it’ll work all of the time, but it did this time for me. |
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