checks lost in space
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
Some time back, Mari and I took our son into the branch of our local bank to open an account for him. We sat through all the paperwork, and when I hadn't heard anything in a couple of weeks I learned that the bank had misplaced the application. I was pretty surprised; it would seem that opening bank accounts should be what a bank does best.
As time went by, we started to get more and more calls from our bank to our home, at dinner time. Aggressive sales calls. We eventually got "call display" at our expense, and bought a phone that would show us who was calling. Thanks, bank!
Then I tried to have my account switched to a cheaper one. Instead, they changed it to a more expensive one. Gritting my teeth, I had them fix it the next month.
Then they lost two checks from Opa that I'd deposited into the kids' accounts. Now pretty pissed off, I set about the endless maze of phone "support" to find out where they'd gotten to.
In the mean time, the bank too was busy; they frozen our son's account.
In my attempts at getting this fixed, I came to the realization that this bank simply wasn't doing anything the way you'd expect a bank to function.
So I'm leaving, after thirteen years.