They started out doing so well. On Monday, Bank of America fraud services called me to ask about suspicious activity on my credit card account. It turns out someone had my card number and was using it to buy stuff online. I was impressed; the first fraudulent charge was Monday morning, and here was Bank of America calling me a mere 4 hours after that first charge. I closed that credit card account over the phone, and they said they would ship a new one overnight. It would be here by Wednesday.
Did I mention I just moved, and had changed my address with them that morning? Well, I did, so I doublechecked with the woman on the phone, who assured me it would go to my new address.
Here's what apparently happened next. Someone else at Bank of America saw that the address change was made on the same day the new card was being sent, and said "Whoa, that's suspicious, I better put a hold on that until we can verify it's actually the cardholder who requested it." So they slapped a hold on it. THEN NO ONE DID ANYTHING FOR THREE DAYS.
I called them just now. "So where's my new card?"
"Well sir, we placed a hold because of this address change."
"Yes, I confirmed the address at the time I requested the card."
"Yes sir, well, the address change on the same day looked suspicious, so we wanted to make sure you were actually the cardholder before we sent the card."
"That was three days ago."
"Yes sir, we wanted to make sure it was you who ordered it."
"How were you going to make sure?"
"We needed to talk to you."
"Then why haven't you called me in the last three days?"
"I'm sorry sir, I'm not sure."
"You would think that if the cardholder really did request an overnight shipment of a new card, that means he needs it sooner rather than later, right?"
"Yes sir."
"You can see why I'm upset. This is fairly incompetent."
"I'm sorry, sir. I can ship it to you now sir. It will be there on Saturday."
Grrrrrrrrrrrrr....Must....smash....something....
Showing posts with label customer service. Show all posts
Showing posts with label customer service. Show all posts
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Yay, AT&T!
It's been a fun week of talking to customer service people trying to get out of paying extra money because their crappy products broke. The problem with my cousin's ACER computer (described in the previous post) turned out to be due to a Vista update that killed lots of computers, not just my cousin's, and has so far involved a three-way conversation between Microsoft, my cousin, and myself that ended with the decision that my cousin should drive to Best Buy and get the Best Buy rep on the phone and call us all back. That hasn't happened yet, but it should be fun.
This post is titled "Yay, AT&T!" because happily, and unlike the combined to-date efforts of Best Buy, ACER, and Microsoft, AT&T recognized they were the ones who fucked up and acted in fairness to the customer! Here's the chronology of what happened, and how AT&T fixed it.
1) On Jan 2nd, 2008, I upgraded my cell phone for the first time in five years. It cost $70, with a $50 rebate (remember this for later...$20 net cost to me).
2) Three weeks later, the LCD screen on the front of the phone (it's a flip phone) broke. The screen cracked, showing a line down the middle. I did not drop it. I did not dump it in water. I did not chew on, jab, bang, or otherwise molest it. I just pulled it from my pocket and it was broken.
3) I explained this to AT&T warranty services, who told me they would send me a replacement, and to send in the broken one when I received the new one. Which I did.
4) Two weeks later, AT&T sends the broken phone back to me, saying "This phone is broken! The LCD is cracked! You owe us $115 for the new phone!"
5) A large vein began throbbing in my head, my eyes got squinty and murderous, steam poured from my ears, and I picked up the phone. I explained to the AT&T rep who answered that I had absolutely no intention of paying. I was then put on hold for 20 minutes, with the rep coming back every 2-3 minutes to tell me to wait another 2-3 minutes.
Now, this is where AT&T earned this post...because eventually the rep came back and said, "First of all, you shouldn't have been charged $115 because the phone only cost $70. Secondly, because you told Warranty Services exactly what the problem was and they replaced the phone anyway, we're going to credit the charge to your account. Sorry about that."
So...they owned up to their mistake and waived the charge, and thus avoided permanently losing a customer. That's not just fair business practice, it's SMART business practice, and what's shocking is how many companies completely fail to grasp that concept.
Yay, AT&T!
This post is titled "Yay, AT&T!" because happily, and unlike the combined to-date efforts of Best Buy, ACER, and Microsoft, AT&T recognized they were the ones who fucked up and acted in fairness to the customer! Here's the chronology of what happened, and how AT&T fixed it.
1) On Jan 2nd, 2008, I upgraded my cell phone for the first time in five years. It cost $70, with a $50 rebate (remember this for later...$20 net cost to me).
2) Three weeks later, the LCD screen on the front of the phone (it's a flip phone) broke. The screen cracked, showing a line down the middle. I did not drop it. I did not dump it in water. I did not chew on, jab, bang, or otherwise molest it. I just pulled it from my pocket and it was broken.
3) I explained this to AT&T warranty services, who told me they would send me a replacement, and to send in the broken one when I received the new one. Which I did.
4) Two weeks later, AT&T sends the broken phone back to me, saying "This phone is broken! The LCD is cracked! You owe us $115 for the new phone!"
5) A large vein began throbbing in my head, my eyes got squinty and murderous, steam poured from my ears, and I picked up the phone. I explained to the AT&T rep who answered that I had absolutely no intention of paying. I was then put on hold for 20 minutes, with the rep coming back every 2-3 minutes to tell me to wait another 2-3 minutes.
Now, this is where AT&T earned this post...because eventually the rep came back and said, "First of all, you shouldn't have been charged $115 because the phone only cost $70. Secondly, because you told Warranty Services exactly what the problem was and they replaced the phone anyway, we're going to credit the charge to your account. Sorry about that."
So...they owned up to their mistake and waived the charge, and thus avoided permanently losing a customer. That's not just fair business practice, it's SMART business practice, and what's shocking is how many companies completely fail to grasp that concept.
Yay, AT&T!
Monday, February 18, 2008
Don't Buy Anything ACER
To some, this might be obvious, since ACER is generally a lower-end computer manufacturer, whereas if you want something reliable from a company with good customer service, you'll probably buy from Dell or another, more reputable manufacturer. But if you don't have the extra money, ACERs are cheap and even they will have to honor the 1-year warranty.
That's sort of true. With two big caveats:
1) Expect it to break early.
2) Expect ACER to pretend it's your fault and refuse to pay anything they can get away with.
I base this on a sample size of one event, but talking to them on the phone for my non-tech-savvy cousin basically has me thoroughly pissed off and fervently hoping they go bankrupt tomorrow.
Why? Well, she bought a computer from them less than two months ago. Yesterday it started displaying arcane error messages on startup, and auto-shutting down a few minutes later. Calls to tech support only made things infinitely worse: now it won't start up at all. ACER says they'll fix it, but refuses to even attempt to pull the files off the hard drive without a $100 fee.
Now, clearly it is good practice to back up your computer periodically, but come on...no one backs up their personal computer on say, a weekly basis. My cousin had recently dumped the entire contents of her camera onto her computer to make room for more pictures, and had not yet backed it up to a CD. The computer is less than two months old -- it's covered by a 90-day software warranty and 1-year parts warranty -- no reason to expect imminent and total system failure.
ACER's warranty, like most warranties, specifically excludes loss of data from coverage, so legally they are in the clear. Their 90-day software warranty, I was told by phone "only applies to up and running software," to which I asked "What good is a software warranty that only applies when the software works?" The reply, and I'm not making this up, was "Basically, it has to work when you turn the computer on the first time, beyond that the software is not covered." I doubt this is actually the policy, but it is the policy as ACER's support staff understand it.
So in conclusion, ACER is at the top of my shit-list for terrible customer service and warranty policy. Avoid them like the plague. If you have the plague, drive to ACER headquarters and cough on someone, preferably someone in Quality Control or Warranty Services, or anyone in a really nice suit. And don't buy their stuff, ever.
That's sort of true. With two big caveats:
1) Expect it to break early.
2) Expect ACER to pretend it's your fault and refuse to pay anything they can get away with.
I base this on a sample size of one event, but talking to them on the phone for my non-tech-savvy cousin basically has me thoroughly pissed off and fervently hoping they go bankrupt tomorrow.
Why? Well, she bought a computer from them less than two months ago. Yesterday it started displaying arcane error messages on startup, and auto-shutting down a few minutes later. Calls to tech support only made things infinitely worse: now it won't start up at all. ACER says they'll fix it, but refuses to even attempt to pull the files off the hard drive without a $100 fee.
Now, clearly it is good practice to back up your computer periodically, but come on...no one backs up their personal computer on say, a weekly basis. My cousin had recently dumped the entire contents of her camera onto her computer to make room for more pictures, and had not yet backed it up to a CD. The computer is less than two months old -- it's covered by a 90-day software warranty and 1-year parts warranty -- no reason to expect imminent and total system failure.
ACER's warranty, like most warranties, specifically excludes loss of data from coverage, so legally they are in the clear. Their 90-day software warranty, I was told by phone "only applies to up and running software," to which I asked "What good is a software warranty that only applies when the software works?" The reply, and I'm not making this up, was "Basically, it has to work when you turn the computer on the first time, beyond that the software is not covered." I doubt this is actually the policy, but it is the policy as ACER's support staff understand it.
So in conclusion, ACER is at the top of my shit-list for terrible customer service and warranty policy. Avoid them like the plague. If you have the plague, drive to ACER headquarters and cough on someone, preferably someone in Quality Control or Warranty Services, or anyone in a really nice suit. And don't buy their stuff, ever.
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