Nathaniel got a money order to pay rent, and noticed Bank of America charged him twice for the transaction. He placed a call to customer service expecting a long, difficult battle, but was pleasantly surprised with the outcome:

I had just signed a lease for a new apartment when I had to provide my first month’s rent ($750). The managers had a policy that the first month’s rent had to be in form of money order only to prevent fraud. I went to the local Bank of America branch and got a single money order for the full amount without any event.

The problem arose the next day when I was checking my account online. I saw that BoA had charged me TWICE for the same exact amount of the money order. So now I was in the hole for $1,500 instead of $750. The charges were each just labeled as “transaction”. I suddenly started to get a headache.

I dialed the customer service number and was on hold maybe 5 minutes before I was connected to CSR Mark. I calmly explained to him the situation, and that I had in fact only ordered one money order. He was very polite and asked me to hold so he could talk to his supervisor. After 5 minutes he came back and told me that he saw the error and
would reverse all charges. My online balance reflected the changes 20 minutes later.

I was really impressed about how painless the whole situation was, especially after hearing all the various CSR horror stories. My ordeal lasted less than 20 minutes and I actually felt like a valued customer. Just wanted to let people know there is some hope for a somewhat pleasant banking experience. Cheers.

And right about then was when we’d imagine Nathaniel dug through his pant pockets checking to see if he indeed had actually received a second money order, which would have covered the next month’s rent for free.

(Photo: taberandrew)

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