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happiness is ditching a bank

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

I closed a credit card account of 18 years standing because of one bad call to a bank; I don't know why banks can't be bothered to solve problems for long-term clients but this just forced me to move more business to my credit union. Three weeks ago, my card was rejected by paypal. I called the bank, and after speaking to three people they told me there was nothing that could be done.

Since credit cards are a commodity service in 2019, I found an identical card at my credit union and applied. With the new card in hand, I transferred my monthly payments* and phoned the bank to tell them the bad news. They re-routed me from customer service to anti-fraud, which involved fifteen minutes on hold, then informed me that customer service was closed. So I called back two hours later and finally spoke with a customer service rep who could only tell me she was sorry to see me go and that she understood my reasoning.

Since this was my last dealing with what had been my primary bank before they began chasing me away, I was able to close my online account and get them out of my life altogether.

*As I've noted before, I keep two credit cards. I use one - a Mastercard - for every-day use. I use Mastercard for this because they go the distance on fighting for their card-holders against crooked vendors. I use a Visa for all the regular payments and charitable donations. I separate them so that when my day-to-day card is inevitably compromised (which seems to happen every two years) my regular payments aren't impacted. When I travel I take both cards.