She's cutting service because they called an half hour early than usual? Well, if this happens alot AFTER they receive instructions, I'd probably would. At least the Bank tackles its problems as quickly as possible.

I wonder if they are going to "Take This Matter Seriously?"

Since taking a test drive at a Nissan dealership about a month ago, and telling them I was probably not going to buy for 2 or 3 months I have had probably 20+ calls from them, one of them was at 8:40 on a Saturday morning. Needless to say when I do buy a car I won't be going back to them.

On the other hand, if you don't want to be woken up earlier than 9 - mute your phone. I normally do, had just forgotten on that occasion...

Boo Hoo!! Cry me a river. B of A (who is the worst bank ever) was being dilligent about an account holders account and this is what they get? Identity thieves and scammers work all hours. Would she rather have B of A wait until a "reasonable" hour while some scammer drains her account? Sounds like she made a request that the rep could not guarantee. I'd rather a company be honest with me than make promises they know they can't keep. I'd hate to see how the OP deals with *real* problems in her life.

This is stupid.

How DARE they try to safeguard your account. Who do they think they are calling you before the Sun has reached its zenith in the sky?

This needs to filed away under the "Crazy" customer cabinet.

@oldscud: I sorta agree. The attitude of "How dare you disturb my precious beauty sleep with your petty desire to protect my identity" is a little over the top. What does she expect them to do about people who work 3rd shift? Make a note not to call during the day?

I still don't get that headline, either. It seems a little backwards.

Oh, and this is 2008. 8:30am is very much standard business hours now.

Oh my God. Did I just defend Bank of America??? I'm going to take a shower. I feel... dirty.

@masonreloaded: I would hazard a guess that the reason you are not buying from them is the 20+ calls and not the one at 8:40 on a Saturday.

In this case, 2 minor annoyances would not cause me to close an account. After the rudeness of the CSR I would have escalated the call and taken it from there.

I envy the OP, I really do.

How wonderful it must be to have such a problem free life that a 8:30AM phone call rises to the top of your to do list. If this happened to me I think it would be about right around priority #63.

Well, not everyone works a standard 9-5 type job. What if the OP was someone that worked graveyard and had just gone to sleep a couple of hours earlier. Being woken up after just two hours of sleep is pretty harsh. BofA should have some means to flag an account as to "best time of day" to call or some such. I don't really think it was necessarily the time of day, but the rudeness of the employee that turned the OP off.

F'ing Waah. Get over yourself, Alison.

And thanks for wasting an BoA EECB on this.

If you don't want calls before a certain hour ... don't be a victim. Use resources. Attitude of CSR probably reflected the self-centeredness and rudeness of the customer.

Besides, BoA gave her two ways to resolve the issue - online or over the phone. Why does she have to verify over the phone what she put in online? Is it one of those non-choices that are so popular these days?

I don't see why everyone is giving the OP such a hard time on this. He fully believed the problem resolved, got called early on a weekend, and on top of that got a service rep with a who cares attitude. Trying to one-up the customer is never the correct response to a complaint.

The majority of my credit card companies don't have my real phone number. The one or two that do it doesn't matter, as I only have a cell phone that's always hidden deep within my purse somewhere. Good luck contacting me if I'm asleep.

I think the bigger issure is the rude response from the CSR. The poster was only calling to request that she not be called so early, it was only when she got the "Well, I'm up, so why shouldn't you be, too?" response that she felt the need to close her account. I get her point and all, but if she's going to close every account that ever has a rude CSR she'll eventually live by bardering because she won't be able to do business with anyone. I would have at least asked for a supervisor (translation=next tier CSR).

Most of you are missing the point. She was mad about the early phone call that she thought was resolved the night before. If the customer service rep she called had simply apologized, she never would have cancelled her account and this wouldn't be a Consumerist worthy story.

If I told Amex to not call me before a certain time I am very confident they would say, "Yes sir! Is there anything else we can help you with?"

The best way to get a flaming cup of ire from me is to wake up up at some obnoxiously early hour on a weekend without a really good reason. I keep my phone turned on because we have older kids and elderly family members, sometimes there are valid reasons one of them might call at some odd hour.

She already resolved this online, so the call from BOA was redundant. The online option was a waste of time if they needed to do it over the phone anyway. BOA might not have a way to note her account not to call before a certain hour but the CSR didn't need to be rude about it either.

@homerjay: I bet if she HAD had fraud, she would of complained they didn't call her earlier. I mean, how can they expect her to sleep after her identity was stolen?

This reminds me of a time I worked a 3rd shift, then had to go to court to pay a ticket. I was standing in line to pay at 9am like the ticket said, and you could hear the hen clucking from behind a cube wall in the office behind the glass. No one emerged until about 9:10, and I was 2nd in line. The lady had a nasty attitude(I have witnesses that I was cordial b/c I was dead tired and just wanted this over), and I was being over apologetic just to try to make her be nicer. At one point I said "I'm sorry, I was working late last night and I'm tired."
She said, "Well we were working till 10pm last night! I'm tired to."
By that point I couldn't hold my lip and said, "I'm sorry about that. I myself was working till 6. This morning. Three hours ago, this morning."
She walked off in a huff to process my stuff and the people behind me went, "Were you making faces at her? B/c you said nothing at all and didn't have an attitude, and she was just nasty to you."

Wait, so this has WHAT to do with coffee?!

@bohemian: @Mr_D: Perhaps it's a standard follow up? Does the online option "allow" the charge, and the follow up call confirm that it wasn't fraud?

I got a mortgage from Bank of America several months bank. The mortgage processor called me at 7:15 am. When I asked her not to call me again that early she got very defensive. After that, I guess she decided to 'punish' me by never returning my phone calls or answering my emails. Even my title company was unable to get in contact with her. I may have gotten stuck with a mortgage from them, but I've moved all of my credit cards / checking account since then.

More of a rhetorical question: Why are so many commenters on Consumerist such douchebags?

For the most part, the Consumerist comments section has become a troll forum. I will never understand why anonymous commenting idiots seem so eager to jump all over a posted item, making fun of the subject of the post. Don't any of you turds have anything positive to add to the discussion or do you only chime in when you feel the need to make yourself feel superior or smarter than the OP?

People react and respond to situations in ways that are appropriate to them alone. Have none of you heard the saying, "To each his own"? Nobody gives a crap how any of you dissenting commenters would have handled any given, hypothetical situation. And the leaps of logic and assumptive "well, what ifs..." that get posted just blow my mind.

Sheesh.

Google Switchboard for the win. Family and friends get my real telephone number. ALL businesses, credit card companies, and entities I don't know well get the Google Switchboard number. I can restrict when those companies call or just allow no calls at all from 9 pm to 9 am. I can't recommend this route highly enough, especially since it seems like you have to opt out of things within the first hour of doing business with a company otherwise they market & share the hell out of your data.

@oldscud:

"Would she rather have B of A wait until a "reasonable" hour while some scammer drains her account?"

@homerjay:

"What does she expect them to do about people who work 3rd shift? Make a note not to call during the day?"

Also are these calls being made to people at 3 am? I doubt it, so BoA could also adjust the hours these calls are made.

@timmus: do you mean GrandCentral?

@Angryrider: Just wondering if you actually read the post. I believe that bad service precipitated her closing the account.

@Rajio: CSR was grumpy and sleepy...but certainly not bashful. Possibly dopey too

I'm the person this happened to. As others have noted, the reason I canceled the account was because the CSR was so rude, not because of the time of the call. I'm just sick of dealing with companies that permit their employees to treat people this way. I'm not at all concerned about ending up with no credit cards -- I have USAA, and they're amazing, which fortunately gives me the freedom to expect companies who get my business to meet bare minimum standards of politeness. I think some of the comments here are a commentary on how much the bar has been lowered in what we think we need to accept from companies. Why shouldn't we walk away when companies are rude? We have options.

Also, after this happened, I received a call from their executive customer service, who told me that they DO have a way to limit the times of phone calls and that it was a mistake that the call was so early, and that I shouldn't have received ANY call since I had already done the fraud verification online the night before. So the CSR's rudeness becomes even more inexplicable.

The OP has nothing on me. I closed my credit card at BofIndia when the rep refused to give me a coupon for a free latte at Starbucks when I called in and asked what my balance was. What an inconsiderate selfish jerk he was!

@PinUp:
Truer words were never spoken...especially in this day and age!

I have submitted at least 3 stories to Consumerist that were 10 times as interesting or important as this waste of space.

B of A called me a half hour early! Oh noes!

I wasn't the early call that caused her to leave. It was the shitty attitude she got when she said something about the early call.

The CSR had a lot of choice about what to say. This would probably have kept Alison's business even if it still woke her up:
"I apologize for the early call. Even if you had called us last night, we still would have followed up with a call back to the number we have on record for you, just to be doubly certain no one was using your card fraudulently. Now that we've confirmed the activity, I hope you can get back to sleep. Have a great weekend!"

It's called not being an asshole. Something Bank of America isn't very good at.

@RINO-Marty:
So you're pissing on this story because you have gotten your one minute of fame from Ben & Co?

@homerjay: What does she expect them to do about people who work 3rd shift? Make a note not to call during the day?

Uh, yes. Why would that be so hard? I think it's nice to see that the OP took action when she was unhappy with BofA. How many post so we see where the consumer says "Waaah! Bo of A is so mean! I hate them, but I'm not switching banks, that's a pain." Don't let a company get away with poor service.

@macinjosh:
I know that even many small companies with standard, off the shelf, not very customized contact databases allow for comments regarding "best time to call" so I would venture to guess that BOA's custom client database allows for posting "best time to call" notes.

@timmus: Are you talking about GrandCentral? I think Google switchboard is their goog-411 service.

Grand Central is indeed a nice way to go.

Not blaming the OP, but if she doesn't want to receive early morning phone calls, then simply turn off the phone ringer.

But the CSR should've just "yessed" her to death even if there's no way to prevent early phone calls.

One sided story, of course, but do you think it is possible the OP was abusive to the CSR right from the start? Set a bad tone? CSRs can't be expected to be punching bags.

@seeldee: So, what is your ideal comment like?

Abusive? I'm abusive if someone calls me at 8:40 on a Saturday morning. I may not be the most pleasant person in the world, but it's a sure-fire way to piss me off to wake me up AND be rude to me. I completely agree with the OP--not sure of the nuclear option of cancelling everything, but it is pretty ridiculous that they rude about it. I understand that the fraud alert stuff has a bit of urgency, HOWEVER, I don't think most people use their debit cards in their sleep and could probably wait to resolve it when they're awake.

Crappy customer service is inexcusable for an entity that's getting to use your money for virtually free.

@seeldee: I couldn't agree with you more...but I do find it ironic that you didn't contribute anything to the conversation concerning BoA. ;-)

For some, turning off the phone isn't practical. Maybe they have a sick family member in the hospital or maybe they are on call. I don't know. I know my family and friends gets pissed at me because I turn off my phone at 7pm and don't turn it on until about 11am or 12pm.

I tell them that the phone is there more for my convienence than anyone elses. If it's urgant, leave a message saying so and I'll get it eventually.

Yes, I pine for the days before telephones and being connected 24-hours a day.

@failurate: I was actually very nice to the CSR, until she told me that she wasn't sympathetic since she had to be at work at 7. At that point I asked to talk to a manager and she hung up on me.

@pileofmonkeycrap: I don't turn my ringer off at night because I want to be able to receive emergency calls from family. But again, the issue wasn't the time of the phone call; it was the CSR's attitude.

@failurate

In my opinion, comments should be constructive, not disruptive, nor should they read like a personal attack. The ideal comment responds to the stated points in an original post and does not create additional hypothetical information or assumptions about what "really happened". Also, fair-minded suggestions directed at helping comments readers handle a similar situation are also preferable to insulting either the original poster or the subject of the post.

Some comments on this thread that seem to be respectful to the OP and helpful to comments readers could include comments posted by Jevia, Sleze69, Timmus and VA_White. These commenters do not resort to personal attacks on the OP or fabricate aspects of the situation they could know nothing about; they offer suggestions about how to avoid receiving an 8:30am call.

There is nothing wrong with healthy debate or dissenting opinions but the tone of many Consumerist commenters take advantage of the anonymity of this forum to be unnecessarily childish or offensive. I'd like to suggest to other commenters that they call out the trolls whenever they see trollish behaviour. Take back these forums and set a more positive, collaborative tone. It can be done, I think.

@CarlR: Whoa, whoa whoa, I dare someone to rouse me at 8:30AM on a weekend. Hell, my dog knows better. Pain of death is about the only thing one can expect from me that early.

Back when I lived at home my mom tried to wake me up at 8AM one morning, I gave her a black eye. I was 18 mo old.

True story.

@curmudgeon5: Hear, hear, power to the OP, power to the consumer.

Great Post!

@linus,

Good point. Thanks for calling me out on that - I wondered if that might happen and I was aware that in my rant I did not actually address the original post. I really just kind-of snapped after reading the first few childish comments directed at the OP. It's too common on these forums and I had just had enough. I don't often comment on Consumerist forums because of the trolls...

Maybe I'll take my own advice and start commenting regularly and begin challenging the trolls. You with me, linus? Anyone else?

The big problem here is that she resolved the fraud issue online, supposedly, and the BOA system did not respond. So, was it resolved or not? Is the BOA website merely decorative? If it was properly taken care of, that should've been reflected in her records, and no call should have been made. If you can "resolve" something online and the bank can just ignore that, it has far more serious repercussions than getting woken up early.

So the CSR's rudeness becomes even more inexplicable.

It's just one of those things, where someone doesnt want to be at their desk at 8am on a Saturday, and especially doesnt want to deal with a hot customer. Was it wrong? Absolutely. Does it shock me? Not in the least.

@seeldee: Agreed.. I don't see this level of troll-ish-ness (?) on the other gawker sites I peruse. I'm a little disapointed.

In any event... She didn't leave because they called early, she left because they were dicks when she asked them not to call so early next time. I get that. The only way we can truly express our displeasure as consumers with a bank is to leave the bank for an equally crappy bank. (or credit union, they are often better) She was displeased. Seems reasonable to me.

Allison: You don't actually have to get up and answer the phone just because it's ringing. Hell, you can even turn off the ringer for your bedroom phone, so it won't disturb you.