Flint's Blog

Making the Push to Paperless Statements

Bank of America finally wore me down on their push for paperless bank statements.  For some reason, I like to hang on to my paper statements.  They sit in my little in-basket at home.  After a week or so, I move them into my basement office. Once every few months I file them in a file cabinet.  I then never refer to them again. Sort of pointless, I know.

So today I logged into the B of A web site, and they had another plea to switch to paperless statements. They market paperless statements very aggressively, good for the environment, more convenient, etc.

I'm big into eBilling and green initiatives, so I finally relented.  Let's save the world, one statement at a time!  

Not so fast, fella.  How can a company the size of B of A not be able to handle this.  Aaaarggh!

 

Why Acura Sucks

Very off topic for this blog but I need to vent.

I own an Acura that recently had a problem with its emissions.  Check engine light came on so I took it to the dealer.  Two grand to fix it.  Yikes!  So I did some Googling and I found a Technical Service Bulletin (TSB) that was related to the problem.  The letter said a bunch of things but the point of interest here is that it said "the warrant is being extended to 14 years from date of purchase."  Sweet.  I've owned the car for 12 years, let me just call up the friendly folks at Acura and get my car fixed.  Well not so fast.

The first person I spoke to didn't want to give me the time of day.  He basically said that he didn't have a copy of the TSB letter that I was talking about, and asked me to fax it to him.  I asked him if I understood him correctly - "you're talking about a letter you mailed to your customers, you don't have a copy of it?" That would be a no.  So I faxed it.

Called back three hours later, of course they hadn't seen my fax, so I refaxed it.

Spoke with another pleasant person who kept putting me on hold as she read the letter.  She told me that when they say first purchase date, what they really mean is the first date is was purchased new by anybody.  I bought my car used from an Acura dealer with a certified warranty.  I explained that her interpretation of the letter was inaccurate, the letter doesn't say first date of purchase by anybody, it says date of purchase.  Back on hold for 10 minutes.  More of the same.  Back on hold for 10 minutes.  Talk to a supervisor, which I don't think I ever have done.  Sorry, don't care what the letter says, we've got some other manual that says something different, you're out of luck.

With all the challenges the auto industry is going through, you would think there would be some attempt to keep customers happy.  Based on this result, I will never buy an Acura again, and will likely tell a few people which might make them less likely as well.

I can't imagine our company treating our customers this way.  Customers don't want to be talked to down to.  They don't want to be placated.  When problems happen, they want them rectified.  They don't want a run around.  It was clear to me that somewhere in the Acura playbook is "figure out a way to avoid coverage through any nuance that we can."  Yay for them.