As we all know, this is more PR than customer service.

@dohtem: ComcastCares on Twitter is pretty effective. Hopefully they're learning.

I definitely think Twitter can be effective for customer service, but it all depends on how they use it. Comcast seems to be doing a good job, at least.

this is going to last a week.

I guess I don't understand how the man's attractiveness relates to his ability to do his job.

Bank of America's tellers, on seven separate occasions, gave a total of $12,000 of my money to thieves with ONLY a fake driver's license in my name. No bankcard demanded, no PIN required, no signature checked. SEVEN TIMES. Others ran tests for me at B of A banks and found similar laxness -- they could get money with only a driver's license in their friend's name, and in one case, the teller didn't even look at the license, which the guy held in his hand. She just dispensed the cash. How is Mr. Twitter gonna help that?

P.S. They fired me as a customer after I complained a little too bitterly about how they'd failed in their fiduciary duty to me. I have a complaint in at the Comptroller of the Currency about them -- the right place to make complaints about national banks (banks with N.A. somewhere on their forms). They're super-slow in dealing with it. And I'm not complaining because I didn't get my money back -- I did. It's because I believe, from my investigation (I'm a journalist/columnist/author), that other customers are in danger of identity theft by virtue of banking at BofA -- more than they would be at many or most other banks.

He ain't that pretty.

@Amy Alkon: Asking for only an ID when withdrawing cash in person? That sounds pretty standard to me ! Most banks do not require a card or pin when you are dealing person to person.

I know we're not supposed to blame people on this site, because God forbid someone get their feelings hurt on this ever so polite site, but why the hell didn't you fire them first, after say, twice?

@MisterE87:

Agreed, businesses get 1, 2 strikes max before I take my money elsewhere.

I was under the impression that BofA had outsourced all of their customer service help- does that apply to Twitter-help too?

BoA actually helped me through Twitter - I think I was just lucky, because I bitched about something on Twitter and it was their first day on the job. They were really good about fixing it, too, and then two days later I got a call from the CEO's office (I had sent a separate letter, before I Twittered about the problem). I got the fee I was disputing canceled, and they promised to send me a gift certificate. We'll see. BoA has been just wretched in the past, so if they keep up this level of customer service I might not switch banks when I move this spring.

@fauxfatale:

You must have been lucky. I just don't see how this is a sustainable, efficient way of conducting customer service. I think they're just banking on people seeing an ENTIRE PAGE of "Hi, I'd love to help you!", "I'll give you a call!", "I'm so glad we could straighten it out for you!"

@Amy Alkon: I always have to present my card, enter my pin, have my ID for every transaction at Bank of America. How is it not protocol?

@TalKeaton: I've never dealt with an outsourced BofA customer service person--or if I have, everyone has been renamed Joe and Sally and have perfected Oklahoma accents.

I'm working with B of A customer service and their fraud division lately, and they are very much on their own team and not at all on mine. The people I have talked to uniformly say their computers "only can see back two months" but then I have caught some of them making comments about events much longer back than two months. So "I dont want to talk to comment about things more than two months old because thats what the law holds us to" magically becomes "My computer wont let me see back more than two months", which I've come to see is untrue. I wonder what else they are told to lie about.
I also have a platinum bank card with protection logos on it, and the logos mean nothing, they provided me with the absolute bare minimum of protection that the strict interpretation os the law specifies, and not one iota more. They also stop sharing much information on your account once you see some fraud on it. I can hardly wait till my business with them is done, and I can close out my accounts. They have shown themselves to be terrible dishonest self seeking people.