Customer Service Chronicles: Bank of America
Consistent, straight answers are really all I ask from any business I patronize. I’m not always going to be able to get what I want, and that’s fine; just tell me that at the beginning of a situation and neither of us will waste our time.
I’ve got two Visa cards, one from Bank of America and one not. I’ve had both cards for several years, and been reasonably happy with them; two from two different banks seems like plenty to me. A couple years ago, though, I started to notice the odd merchant that only took MasterCard; conveniently, though, BofA offers MasterCards as well, so I decided to inquire about whether my Visa could simply be converted. Same credit line, same account age, same bank, same everything but the account number and logo at the lower right. Shouldn’t be a problem, right?
According to the online chat customer service window last Saturday, sure — if I called the 800 number on the back of my card. But I could also apply online for a new MasterCard, and have the accounts consolidated once my new card was issued; would I like to do that? No thanks. Ten minutes later on the phone, I find out the phone-line conversion, with credit line and account age, would be possible Visa-to-Visa, but not Visa-to-MC; for that, I’d have to do the new-card and consolidate dance. OK, I can handle that; I might as well do the online application, then, and we’ll talk in a week.
Six days later, I’m holding a shiny new Carolina Hurricanes MasterCard, and it’s time to get on the phone. Now the story changes. “Oh, we can consolidate the credit lines to your Mastercard, but your date of account creation remains July 2007.” Excuse me? I talk to a supervisor, and it gets even crazier. First he tells me that he actually can’t consolidate Visa to MasterCard, but only MC to Visa (entirely pointless in my situation, not to mention directly contrary to what his first-line “account manager” just told me). Then he notices, “Oh, you don’t have a Bank of America MasterCard, it says here you have an NHL Platinum Plus MasterCard, that’s the problem.” The card’s issued by Bank of America. It has a Bank of America logo on the back. “Oh. Yeah.” Then he decides maybe he could go Visa-to-MC after all. But either way, the July 2007 account date isn’t budging, despite explicit assurances to the contrary from two different sources last week.
“Cancel the MasterCard. This is absurd.”
It’s a good thing I’m not expecting any UPS packages in the next four days, or we’d probably be talking oh-for-July in competent customer service experiences.
27 July 2007 / 4 Comments / Tags: customer service, idiots, life