Going to a bank can be a thumbtack in the rectum but at least they let you leave when it’s over. Not so for Robyn who got locked in a Wachovia bank at closing time yesterday. The manager asked Robyn and an older feller to wait while they were stuck at the door. After five minutes the older guy spoke up and the manager told them to keep waiting and stop being disruptive. The gentlemen did not cease. The manager came over and told the old man, saying if he didn’t calm down, he was going to close the man’s bank account.

“Now I want to write a letter to Wachovia,” writes Robyn, “but I’m not sure of the best way to reach some sort of regional-level Philadelphia customer services folks…”

Here’s an address we found for you at ConsumerAction.gov

Wachovia Corporation
Customer Service
1525 West W.T. Harris Blvd.
Charlotte, NC 28212

Robyn’s full letter, inside.

---

“Greetings, Consumerist:

I went to my local Wachovia branch yesterday to deposit a check. I noticed the sign on the door listed their closing time for Monday as 3PM, so I hurried inside. There were a couple of people in line in front of me and it was 2:50. No big deal. I was able to get to the teller and get the check deposited and it was still a few minutes short of three. I noticed that the man I assumed was the manager had locked the front door, so I walked to the back door, along with an older gentleman.

When I got to the back exit door, it was locked. The older man called into the store, “The door’s locked,” and the manager-type replied, “I know, give me a minute.” So, we waited patiently and ended up chatting for what ended up over five minutes. Finally the older man asked again, “Can you please open the door?” I couldn’t see the manager, because there was another set of doors between him and us, but I heard him yell, “Sir, you’re going to need to calm down. You’re being disruptive.”

This seemed to piss the old dude off, understandably so, since he had actually been really respectful and calm in making what I felt was a reasonable request to please let us out of the building!

After a few more minutes, the manager came up to us, and asked for the old guy’s name, which the older man refused to give. The manager said, “You need to calm down, if you’re going to act like this I’m going to close your account.”

The old dude asked, “You’re really going to close my account over this, because I ask you to let us out and you won’t?”

The manager continued to yell at the old dude, and finally turned to me and said “I’m sorry about this, miss,” and unlocked the door, holding it open for me. It seemed more like a show of being overly polite to me in order to be rude to the older man, and the older man also took it that way, because once he got outside he started yelling back.
The point of all of this is that 1.) it doesn’t seem like a good idea to lock customers into the store, even if it is close to closing time, and 2.) the manager’s reaction was way out of line considering it was a reasonable request on the old dude’s part to ask to be let out of the building.

I felt bad seeing the older man being treated that way, and it certainly didn’t leave me feeling like Wachovia cares about its customers. Clearly this was nowhere near as awful as the Fran/Target nightmare incident, but it still sucked.

Now I want to write a letter to Wachovia, but I’m not sure of the best way to reach some sort of regional-level Philadelphia customer services folks, as their website is more focused on customer services for the web-based features and I don’t want to contact the branch directly since it was the manager who was rude.

I don’t know if this is Consumerist-worthy, but I felt like it might be worth sharing.

Thank you!
-Robyn”

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.