Here’s yet another reason to avoid Bank of America, from reader Alison. She received a call on a Saturday at 8:30 in the morning from Bank of America, to deal with an issue she resolved the previous night. She was not pleased with being roused so early on the weekend, so she called BOA to request they disturb her no earlier than 9:00 am, especially on the weekends. The cranky CSR answering her call not only told her such a request was impossible, but added “Well, I have to be at work at 7 in the morning, ma’am.” Alison didn’t feel that was adequate justification for waking her up, and is closing her account. She told her story in an EECB to Bank of America, and let us listen in. Read her email, inside.

Dear Bank of America:

I have been a credit card customer with you for six years but today closed my account as a result of the rudeness of your customer service people.

I received an email last night telling me that the fraud department wanted to confirm some recent charges on my account. The email said I could either use your Web site to confirm the charges or I could call you. I chose the online option, answered the fraud prevention questions, and figured that was that. However, this morning, I received a call asking me to verify the same questions at 8:30 a.m. — which woke me up.

I don’t appreciate being woken up before 9:00 in the morning on a weekend, especially when I had already handled the matter online last night after you offered me the choice of doing so.

I called your company to complain about this and spoke with a woman who I can only characterize as belligerent. When I told her that I don’t want to be called before 9 a.m., she told me that there’s no way to prevent that and they might call even earlier in the future. She said that you have offices all over the country and they can’t account for time zones. I pointed out that this makes no sense, since I’m on the east coast — if they’re not in my time zone, then they’re in an earlier one. Furthermore, that’s just ridiculous; are you waking up customers on the west coast at 6 a.m. then? I highly doubt it, so her answer makes no sense.

I then said to her, “Like many people, I work all week and I use the weekends to sleep in.” Her reply was: “Well, I have to be at work at 7 in the morning, ma’am.” I don’t know how that’s in the least bit relevant — should I expect Bank of America may call me at 7 a.m. then too? When I asked her this, she told me she would transfer me and then simply hung up on me.

I have just closed my account as a result of this — both the waking me up before 9 a.m. on a Saturday and the rudeness of your employee. There are plenty of other companies who value my business enough not to be gratuitously rude.

Sincerely,
Alison

8:30 in the morning isn’t standard business hours, so there’s no reason to call you that early. And Alison raises a good point, BOA isn’t calling their Cali customers at 6:00 AM, so clearly there’s a method for controlling what time calls are made. If the CSR assigned to her call took a few minutes to work with Alison, BOA would still be able to charge Alison senseless overdraft fees for another few months. Instead, her early morning cranky pants routine lost the company a customer. You’d think her own displeasure at being up so early on the weekend would make her empathize more with Alison.

(photo:metavariable)

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