BANK OF AMERICA SUCKS!!!

Have you ever noticed that if you call a giant company for “Customer Service” you get routed into voicemail. Yet if you call for a “New Account” you can speak to a person right away?

Wow, I can't believe he was *that* patient with you. You are a complete bitch and why no level of customer service will satisfy people like you. Have a day.

It wasn't me, I swear! I don't work for BOA!

As somebody who used to answer those kinds of chats for Web hosting companies, that is some bad customer service from BOA.

Ummm, sorry but while I ussually agree with ya, I think maybe you're a bit overboard here, Ponz. :)
B of A is a big company, and the fact of the matter is that the credit app people are probably in a completely different city (not to mention building, department, specialty, etc) than the people who can actually help you with your billing and account question. In a company that size, you simpley have to talk to the right people. I don't go to the HR deprtment where I work to get a code fix put into production, and I don't go to the Engineering staff to try to get help with my health insurance.
Also – For my part, I'd rather the bank maximize its investments and not have a whole slew of customer service people onlline 24/7 – that's just expensive. It also makes *sense* that the sales organization would get it first – after all, the bank is in the business of making money, and you first put technology where you gain the most and risk the least. I like th idea of my bank being smart about making money – that makes my money more stable.
Anyhow – Bank of America is at least putting in the effort to leverage technology like customer chat capabilities and whatnot, and those systems take time and a lot of effort to make sure they work (else people will complain about ow the chat system sucks). Be glad they're on the move. Most banks aren't. I imagine their customer service people will all be on that type of system eventually.
I'd say call them on Monday and ask about your non-account. See if they can help. I bet they can.
Actually, you might want to pick up the phone and call their fraud department this weekend. If someone opened an account in your name and has a card, you didn't know it, you need to find out right now. That's a lot more important than the method of communication.
:)
-gh

I agree with the comment above, you were a total bitch. You jump down their throat for something that isnt their fault. The guy was a simple 'new account specialist' and you walked all over him. It wasn't his decision to not offer online chat for customer support. How lame… between you and chris, all you do is bitch on your blogs these days… I guess you can't think of any real content to post…

My name is Corbin. Yeah, I know, like the Movie. In regard to this blog I believe Ponzi has valid points!
I would not say she was unreasonable at all. She has a right to be angry at being given the run around.
You see, I work for one of these huge financials like she is talking about. I know the truth behind the call routing. It's my job to route calls away from human agents as much as possible. IVR's are far cheaper, but less than capable of porviding good service to people.
I say keep fighting PONZI!
Corbin

Corbin: Perhaps that's exacty why they don't do support for regular customer support via web based chat? Because they couldn't forward you to the appropriate person as easily as with a regular phone system? Some amount of forwarding is going to be needed once you pass simple account signup and there's a wide array of things someone would contact their bank about
From what I see, Ponzi's gripe was that she couldn't use the instant chat option to handle something, when she thought calling a phone number would end in her being put on hold.

I'm guessing the main reason that “Jason” couldn't help was that he was located in India.

I think Ponzi is in the wrong here. Sorry, but you were trying to use a tool (online chat for new credit card applications) for something other than what it is designed for. My impression from the transcript is that this person was trying to help you within the structure of the company that he works for. In my opinion, you don't have a basis for getting upset for not being able to use a tool for something other than it was designed for. It's like trying to use Excel for building a blog & then getting pissed at the results. Just my opinion.

Sorry, but as was pointed out, you are WAY out of line here, Ponzi. Maybe you were having a bad hair day, but you were really out of line with this poor employee. Nobody should have to deal with people that behaved like you, period.
Like someone said, the chat feature was designed specifically for APPLYING for a new account. You were mis-using it, and grandstanding at that. Kind of like driving into a gas station, ignoring the “self serve” sign on the pumps and yelling that the attendant better “damn well pump my gas this mnute,” or you are going to “blog them.”
You also obviously felt “insulted” by the interest rate based on your attack motions…as if someone of your special stature should get a lower one, along with the silver tea set.
You should be genuinely embarrassed by your behavior.
And I thought Chris was the one who had a huge ego and a superiority complex. Sheesh. Really sad and will probably just evolve into worse.

Right on, Ponzi, right on. As a former customer service rep, I understand that there was only so much JASON could do, but I'm sure he had a supervisor somewhere.
But I suppose it's a lot easier for them to cheap out on online discussions.
I don't think you were in the wrong, though. Customer service SHOULD be better, especially in such circumstances. That's just BAD customer service. And if Jason couldn't deal with it, he wouldn't be working there. He chose his job, he'll deal with it just fine.

The credit card business offers third parties incentives to have credit card applications filled out. Clipboard holding smilers at malls and amusement parks, college campuses, etc. They often approach you (and your ego) by characterizing it as a personal interview/questionaire on your opinion of the mall. Usually this kind of duping opens an account at the highest interest rate allowed by law.

I love Bank of America. I've been with them for 15 years and have always accommodated me very well. Sorry to hear about your trouble.

Is it just me, or has anyone else considered the real possibility that “Jason” is a bot? I've read through the chat session a couple of times now. I don't see any evidence to indicate that the responses were actually coming from a real live humin bean – and plenty to suggest that they're canned answers programmed into a cruddy AI system only marginally more flexible than Eliza (http://www.manifestation.com/neurotoys/eliza.php3).
WDYT?

Well i use B of A (for now) I have had problems but mainly with the Check Card. But on the issue of online support it does exist in the online banking centre buty you need a login which you can get from useing your B of A card infomation (debit or credit) and use a “secure” email from there and they reply pretty fast.

You: This completely blows my mind to be honest. I'm going to blog this conversation. I HAVE TO.
You: Any last words on the behalf of BofA – this is going to be posted on the web
thats the most annoying thing I think anyone in the world could possibly say. do you often make threats of blogging? I have newfound respect for BOA reps, dealing with this.

It sounds like an automated email system not an actual person…..so it’s run on basic recognition. It should of asked you if you want to call for a live chat with a representative (which i highly recommend). It’s just a machine….talk to a real person and see if they’re really that bad. Trust me it will work =)

I am SO pissed I am vibrating right now. Seems that when I called Bank of America on March 19th about their debt consolidation loan mailer (and was of course turned down as you NEVER get the rate the offer is for with them) they took it upon themselves to close both of the cards I have with them. Of course they did not see fit to tell me or send back the overpayment of $91.90 still setting in my account. In fact they just sent me checks to use to transfer money at 3.99% onto a card and their website shows both cards as still active! After having the card declined I called customer support which told me the account I was calling about was closed and asked if I’d like a check sent with the money they owed me. I asked why they had not done that already and he said “we hang onto it till you ask for it”. BTW per my quarterly report from Discover my credit score as of March 10th was 777. One card had a $20500 limit and the other $17000. One can only imagine how they treat people with average credit. I also have cards with Discover, AmEx, Capital One, Household and 3 with Chase after mergers and I am not seeing this nonsense with them. Though Cap One has other privacy issues. (They gave my number to collection agencies looking for my ex-wife.)

BOA is the same company that screwed me on a promotion last year. I transferred a balance onto one of their cards and signed up for e-statements. I setup automatic payments with my bank and forgot about it. Well they changed the due date so the first payment was 2 days late and raised my rate from 0% to 21%. As it seems that the email address I gave had issues AND oddly their Quicken interface seemed to fail about this time, AGAIN, it set there for a few months before I noticed Quicken was no longer getting data from them. By then I had racked up over $1000 in interest charges. At that point I transferred the balance to Chase. Note they did not bother sending a letter that the email account was not working till later.

Before that I let them sign me up for a trial credit monitoring / protection service to compare it against Discovers service. I never heard ONE word from them and so I completely forgot about it. A year later they charged my account. Since I had not used the card in 3 months I did not look at that statement. And of course it is not updating Quicken AGAIN, though since I have not charged anything that would seem right. Anyway the next month I happen to check the statement and I see a late fee on it and call them up. It takes awhile for them to even route me to the right place to cancel this useless service. AND it will take them a few weeks more to reverse the charge. In the mean time I need to pay the $99 charge PLUS $46.25 in fees and interest to avoid another late fee AND ANOTHER nonpayment mark on my credit history! Note for the same cost, Discover’s service sends me a quarterly summary AND a notice EVERYTIME someone queries my credit. This BOA partner could not even be bothered to let me know the service had started.

BOA was supposed to do my final mortgage on the house I just built but I think I would go with even Citi Bank over them at this point.

They did raise my purchase rate too but then all the cards are doing that these days. It is getting cheaper to get money from the mob than carry a balance on your cards.

Dave

Wow. you were totally out of line here. your hissy fit only goes to show that there are some people in this world who arent happy unless they’re miserable. I hope that in time you learn to change, otherwise its no wonder you get bad customer service, most people I know in customer service wouldn’t stand for this and would have let you have it right away.

they took my card away from me with out letting me know. i have only been with them about 20 years, i had a very high credit limit. never in my life ever late on any payments. they claimed they could not contact me. so they suspended my account and done away with it. they had my email adress and phone number. they are all full of shit if you ask me. i will nerver recommed bank of america or is it bank of crooks to any body.

I’m so sorry to hear that Jeff. I’ve had really poor experience with them as of late, again – with unreasonable holds and deposit issues on out of state checks. Unfortunately, a quick search and you will see we aren’t the only ones. Their rules seem to be more important than customer service. I have moved the majority of my money to Alaska USA Federal Credit Union because I get personalized service there. I can’t believe that after twenty years of customer loyalty you weren’t contacted. To me that says they are spending their earned money in the wrong places. I’ve recently seen they have the latest and greatest ATM machines that do not require deposit slips. The machines give you a copy of your check or scan your money deposits for immediate recording. While I love technology and am totally impressed by these machines I’d give it all up for genuine face to face time and consideration, when I need it . Point in discussion – my credit union account won’t sync with mint I’m not sure why other than because they aren’t as open to new tech or just haven’t invested in the IT time to update it and don’t trust the security of it. I don’t care, I allow it – because when I was in India and in China and my credit card was needed and being used I was personally called and my purchases discussed with me instead of just stopping payments. THAT is great customer service, IMHO. I sure hope someone is combing RSS feeds and sees your problem and helps. Twenty years… wow, I wonder how much money they have made off of your loyalty in all that time. I used to work at a bank all relationships are based upon basic criteria. When you opened the account, what your current and average balance is, how many overdrafts or NSF’s you’ve had and what you need. If you pass three out of four and know the names of the bank managers where you take in your checks there is absolutely no reason for this kind of oversight.