June 9, 2006

Collusion?

During finals, my bank's ATM ate my card.

Now that it's the bar, the stakes are higher. Now, my bank has lost a large check that I deposited in one of their on-site ATMs.

I received a very impersonal letter stating, "Your assistance in replacing the check is requested." In other words, you need to go convince the person who wrote you the check that we lost to write you another one before 6/19.

Awesome. I totally have time to deal with this right now.

I called the number, then sat on hold for 35 minutes only, found out that the number in the letter is wrong, was connected to another number, sat on hold again for 20 more minutes, only to be told that it was still the wrong department, and finally I was transferred to the correct place.

There, I was told that the person I needed to speak with had left for the day and that I should call back tomorrow. When I said I didn't have time to call back and that I didn't cause this problem, so perhaps I shouldn't be the one to call back, I was informed that, "normal business hours are 8 to 4" and that they don't actually know whether I made any deposit at all, so they can't take me at my word as to whether I caused the problem or not.

It's unfortunate, because I've been very happy with my bank for the last 8 years, but in the last year they've done two things that have made it clear that they are not very careful with their maintenance of ATM machines. That's a risk I don't have time to deal with. You can guarantee that if this isn't handled well tomorrow I'll be leaving my bank just as soon as the bar exam is over.

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