LOL!
Posted on 06/05/2007 12:29:06 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It should have taken five minutes. OK, maybe 10. I got my latest bill from Chase Credit Cards, and it included two things I'd never noticed before. One was a fee for $39, which was labeled my "Rewards Program Fee." I never knew Chase had a rewards program, much less one I paid a fee to participate in. I certainly don't remember signing up, or agreeing to another fee to encourage me to use their card.
There was also a "Flexible Rewards Summary," telling me that in addition to the 39 points I would get for paying the fee, I have thousands of old points that I never knew I had and must have accumulated over the 20-something years I've had a card from Chase.
Does that mean we get a new TV, my son asked hopefully.
Does that mean I get a vacation to somewhere, I thought hopefully.
I didn't have a clue, but in very little letters, the bill listed an 800 number to call to redeem my flexible rewards, plus a website where I could log on for 24-hour access to my rewards program.
Now, granted, I only have 17 years of education, and I've only been teaching law for 26 years. Oh, yes, and I live on my computer, aided by a 14-year-old prodigy who happens to be my son. So I actually thought I could handle this, at least with my son's assistance. How wrong can you be?
First, I tried the website. In order to get any information, I needed an access code. I have no access code. I'm one of those old-fashioned types who still write checks. My bad. I asked online for an access code. Sorry, they couldn't give me one because they didn't have my e-mail address. And I couldn't submit my e-mail address. In fact, I couldn't do anything.
Time to talk to a person. So I dialed the 800 number. After entering my account number and my zip code twice, and sitting on hold because of the huge volume of calls that must be coming in at 11 p.m. eastern time, I actually got a person on the phone. Unfortunately for me, it was not an American person. WE could barely understand each other. I tried speaking my clearest, the way I was taught to do when I used to read radio ads. No go. My request, which seemed simple to me (as in what's this rewards program, and how do I figure out which reward I'm eligible for), was beyond either his knowledge or understanding.
Where are you, I asked him, before he transferred me to his colleague. There was a long pause. Chicago, he said. He didn't have a Midwestern drawl.
The next person was more honest. She needed my help spelling such tricky words as "law" in my e-mail address. That's a stumper. But at least she didn't lie. Where are you, I asked. India, she said. Where was the last man I talked to, the one who transferred me to you? India, she said. So why did he say he was in Chicago, I asked. Why did he lie?
Would you like to speak to a supervisor, she asked me. By now, half an hour had passed, my kids were getting ready for bed, and I was loaded for bear.
She transferred me to a supervisor, a Ms. Garcia in Texas. I explained the situation. WE don't have a service center in Chicago, she told me. Obviously not, I said, you have one in India, with people who are not quite up to the job. But what really got to me was the guy lying about where he was, covering up a practice of outsourcing that was turning a simple request into a ridiculous nightlong activity.
I would like to speak to someone about your employees lying about their whereabouts to cover up outsourcing, I said, in my firmest lawyer/syndicated columnist voice. Polite, but firm.
Her response was simple: NO.
No, I asked incredulously. Isn't there someone with whom I may discuss this endless waste of time abbreviated by a bold lie that might very well suggest a company policy to hide its outsourcing behind dishonest employees?
No, she said. There is no one you can talk to, no one you can write to, no one you can get in touch with. I'll make note of your complaint, and you may (not will) receive a letter from someone in three to five business days. Who will write that letter, I asked. Perhaps I could write to them first.
No, she said, you can't.
Now, I hate to do this, particularly when all I'm trying to do is figure out whether to pay the $39 and whether I get anything worth $39 if I do, but I was not happy. Listen, ma'am, I said, getting firmer by the moment, I'm a syndicated columnist. I'm sure I'm not alone in facing these problems, or in worrying about the losses and costs of outsourcing, and I plan to write about this tomorrow. Now, is there anyone I could speak to?
You know what she said? No.
And then we hung up. I tried entering the access code the second woman had given me, but that only got me to the page with my bill on it. I didn't even ask the next person where he was. Where is the list of rewards, I asked, for the fourth time. He told me. It took 30 seconds.
The rewards program, by the way, stinks. My toaster oven works just fine. You have to spend a fortune to get anything good. And believe me, that's one thing I have no plans of doing. Let them push their lies in India. I'm done.
Really, at that point in time, they ought to have started listening. But, on principal, they never do.
I have trouble laughing at anything by Ms. Esterich, and I didn’t laugh much at this. I did, however, empathize. It’s bad enough when you know next to nothing about computers and when you have to call tech support you’re expecting to have to have them explain even the simplest stuff to you, because you’re such a computer dummy, and you can’t even figure out what they’re saying when they’re just giving you their name and saying “how may I help you?”
Lots of people claim they are a VIP/big shot/friend of the CEO or whatever in a customer service complaint setting. How was Miss Garcia supposed to know whether this person was actually telling the truth? Please notice I didn’t use the made-up Ms. title, as it’s a leftist invention, sort of like “kwanza” or “immigration reform” or somesuch.
” Gupta! Gupta! What ees sinful dated columnist?”
LOL!
An e-mail address simply demands to be nothing less than exact, to the last dot and hyphen. Maybe this is new to her.
Difficult to believe; however, there was a time when American corporations prided themselves on giving customer satisfaction. Now they just want the cash, and scr*w you, Buddy.
Oh, you mean back when: the man was the head of the household, parents raised their own children, one income was enough to support a family, laws were enforced fairly, divorce was rare, illegal immigration was against the law, self-defense was legal, children respected adults, every able-bodied person worked and morals were taught in the classroom? I vaguely remember that country. What happened to it, pray tell?
Sounds like trying to get repair service out of Verizon!! In fact, trying to get anything out of Verizon unless you are buying. Rudeness doesn’t even begin to describe them.
OB
Bump!!
Well she’s right..Chase sucks. I hate credit card companies that do that. It’s sleazy. They send these little mailings to you that if you don’t reply to in exactly the right way will cost you something extra on each billing. I’ve almost got mine paid off and as soon as it is I’ll never use them again.
http://www.daveramsey.com That will cure you of credit cards... :0)
For throat lozenges?
Her response was simple: NO.
Actually I think that is pretty cool - honest with no equivocation and no platitudes.
Nothing would be accomplished by paying staff that do nothing but listen to whining about outsourcing from people that won't be assuaged by anything they say or do anyway. Nothing but increase the cost of service. They acknowledged receiving and registering the complaint and there was nothing else productive that could be done there and then.
Now if she had asked to talk to someone about the reward program and got the same response, that is a different matter but in this case all she wanted to do was unload on someone.
This isn't an essential service or one without alternatives. There is lots of competition in the marketplace. If she doesn't like the service from Chase then take her business elsewhere.
That's the truth - I've talked to more CEOs, heads of the board, doctors, lawyers, reporters than I could shake a stick at. But it doesn't matter to me - as much as I hate my job, I'm going to do the best I can for whoever I have on the phone.
-Eric
People like Susan Estrich sold us down the river.
Decreasingly so. I had bad experiences with Chase 25 years ago in NYC and, in good economist fashion, took my custom elsewhere and told them why. I have now had two separate banks, with which I was quite happy, end up acquired by what has become JP Morgan Chase, and two loans made by other lenders end up being serviced by them. Every transition to Chase I have had has been botched in one way or another.
Every time I have had to deal with customer service in India, it's been a problem. And, one of the greatest problems is the lying - in one case, two separate Indian customer service representatives of a major software company told me they had resolved a problem and even gave me an 'order number'. When the problem wasn't resolved, and I finally got to a third level supervisor in the US, I found taht the 'order number' was a fake, and the Indian guy (and the supervisor in India) had just flat lied to me.
In part the problem is cultural (India is a country in which lying is endemic and they are not used to our expectations of a representative's ability and willingness to make problem-solving decisions as opposed to read a script), part of it is language (in my experience Indians simply cannot accept the fact that most Westerners cannot understand their English, are offended when we can't understand them, and become testy - I first encountered the problem in the '70s with Indian graduate student TAs), and part of it is simply a lack of knowledge (the cs reps really don't understand the services they're supposedly helping with)
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