So I recently blogged about my experience with a local bank in trying to change credit card products.

Although a little delayed, I thought I’d update on the situation…

Within 5 minutes of sending the fax, the branch manager had called me to personally apologise. The issue has been sorted, and the situation explained.

Apparently the card I wanted to change to was ‘so new’, that their internal systems hadn’t been updated to allow me to swap, so they were cheating the system and doing it like a new application.

I’m a little disappointed that they make customers sit through such a process. I think overall, a better experience would have been to have said that it wasn’t possible and to contact me again when they had the system in place.

Oh well.

Update: this has been resolved, actually quite quickly after sending this on. read about the response and my afterthoughts.

I got a bit annoyed today at my bank. They really dropped the ball recently while I was trying to switch credit cards. I was trying to make a point, but I think some personality spilt out into my letter as well.

Anyway, I read the letter back after writing it, and thought it sounded a lot like something you’d read online as a forward.. So I sent it.

Fax to: [fax number]
From: Sam Jarrett, samjarrett@me.com. [my address here]
For urgent attention of: Branch manager, or [Person 1], or [Person 2], or anyone who will actually acknowledge this has been received!

Dear [Bank & branch here],

Hopefully this is the branch manager reading this. I’ve got a few things I’d like noted as feedback from my recent experiences:

Attached is correspondence I’ve had with your office over the past few days. It highlights that while you have not received any of these documents, they have indeed been emailed twice already.

In addition to this, I’d like to mention that your service during this “application” has been appalling. My employer informs me that not one, but two people called up to do an employment check, asking identical questions.

The second person I’d spoken to had no information of the items discussed with the first person ([Person 3], I assume?), and no email has been answered, although they have been all replied directly to emails I had received, and I did not receive a bounce message, therefore I assume should have been received.

Along with that, I’m very confused with the entire process. I merely asked to change my existing Platinum card to a new [New CC type] one of the same stature. Instead, I’ve gone on a roller-coaster ride, involving spending nearly 4 hours in a branch filling out credit card application forms (umm, why?), and being told my application was due for scrutiny of some majestical creature who would make an all-knowing decision as to if I was worthy of receiving your latest product line.

I request that you immediately contact me to clarify exactly what process I’ve gone down, if it was the most appropriate for the situation, given what I’d requested and how quickly this issue will be fixed up.

If I’d have known, going in, that this would be the process, I would have stuck with my existing service, paid off the debt, and closed the account. I notice that many of your competitors have card offerings that are similar to the “[Current card name]” card that I already have, and I’m certain that my banking business would be very attractive to them instead.

As a customer-service employee, turned programmer and user experience champion, I really have to question how much of this process was required, and if all of your customers are required to jump these hoops?

If your answer is “all of them”, I seriously recommend that you consider revising this process, as it will cost you customers. It’s not difficult to move a credit card to another provider – in fact, they try to make it easy with Balance transfer offers like your own current offer.

If, for some reason, I’m special, and this isn’t the norm, I’d appreciate an explanation as to why this has wasted so much of my time?

Thanks for your time in reading this and I am looking forward to hearing from you, unknown [Bank name] branch manager.

Warm regards,
Sam

I faxed this to them, including the previous correspondence, and the form I was requested to sign (which I still feel was unnecessary) after the first two emails went unanswered/unreceived. We’ll see how this turns out.

This may be one of the most wrong things I’ve ever read. It’s bigoted, racist and.. well. just backwards.

Nevermind the fact that most ‘Australians’ are at most one or two generations Australian prior to immigration, or that we’re apparently a country that celebrates our diversity and multiculturalism (which, I note, you can only achieve through immigration). Or that there’s supposed to be a culture of helping eachother when in need & backing the underdog. I digress.

Let me pick it apart.. seriously, there’s so much here

I drive Australian-made cars, and I believe in Australian products and buy them whenever I can.

Are there still any Australian-made cars, really?

I don’t pity the poor, I hate the way they are always crying that they are hard done by!!

What ever happened to the Australian way of “helping eachother out“?

This is AUSTRALIA….We like it the way it is and more so the way it was… so stop trying to change it to look like some other socialist country!

If we’re so Australian, why does this sound like a line out of a conservative American’s mouth? (think; USA ‘socialist health care‘!)

At a Victorian high school foreign students raised a Middle East flag on a school flag pole.
Australian students took it down.
Guess who was expelled… the students who took it down.

Which sounds exactly like what should happen? where’s the problem here? Can schools not have other any other country’s flags raised? Where’s our multiculturalism gone?

4. Dress as we Australians Do

Clearly this is a dig at burqas and other typically concealing dresses – I don’t see why so many people have a problem with this? We’re fine for 14 year olds to wear next to nothing, we should be fine for those who want to dress conservatively doing so as well. This just highlights the underlying racism in this email.

Finally:

Made in AUSTRALIA & DAMN PROUD OF IT!!!!!

Nevermind your origins, mate.. unless you’re an (Australian) aboriginal.. then nevermind.

OK. I think I’ve torn it apart now. I’m substantially less angered now.

Here’s the email in its entirety after the jump Continue reading →