Yesterday was a day from hell. A 14 hour ordeal moving my son into his apartment at Penn State Altoona. It included 8 hours of driving, rest stop food and the consequences thereof, battling the hoards of freaks at Wal-Mart, and the latest reason I despise banks.
I had Jimmy drive the entire trip so he could get used to the roads and the tedious boredom of driving on the PA Turnpike. Avalon followed with my youngest son in the car behind. It gave me plenty of time to impart my years of wisdom upon him. I’m sure he has already forgotten everything I said. And I had to listen to four hours of Phish.
All went smoothly and it was time to make a rest stop at the 2 hour mark just before Blue Mountain. The plan was to grab a quick bite to eat and complete the journey for a 1:00 pm arrival. The selection was limited. Either a personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut or something from Roy Rogers. I grabbed a box of pizza and they got Roy Rogers.
Within 30 minutes of departure there was a rumble in my tummy. The rumble became shooting pains. I guess you can screw up a pizza. For the last 90 minutes of the trip I was in various stages of discomfort. But, I gutted it out. When we arrived and got the key, I grabbed the case of toilet paper we brought and ran for the bathroom. And Jimmy’s new apartment was christened.
We spent about an hour putting his bed together, arranging the furniture, unpacking and cleaning the filth left from the four college students who lived there last year. Then it was time to head off to Wal-Mart to get a cheap TV, router, lamps, bedding, trash cans, coffee maker, food, and various other college apartment essentials. It was 3:00 on a Sunday – prime time for Wal-Mart freaks of the week. It was a motley crew of employees and patrons.
We spent the next hour piling things into two carts as we maneuvered around the aisles of the Super Center. There were plenty of checkout lanes so we moved directly to the register. Our cashier was an ancient woman who tended to comment on my purchases as she scanned them. I politely nodded agreeably.
The total was significantly above one of my normal transactions. I pulled out my Upromise Mastercard, which we use for 90% of our purchases. I’ve been using this card for about 14 years as 1% of my purchases goes into a 529 College fund for my youngest son. I haven’t incurred an interest or late fee charge in 25 years, as I use the credit card as a cash flow tool and as a way to track purchases which I enter into Quicken. Over the years the account has switched from Citicorp to Bank of America and now to Barclays. I have a $21,000 credit limit, but pay it off every month. I’ve been able to put away $8,000 for his college expenses without a dime coming out of my pocket. The banks are losing on this account.
But they got their revenge yesterday. Every bank has a fraud detection unit. They also claim to have sophisticated technological software that will detect fraud and stop it from happening. That is complete and utter bullshit. Here’s how their fraud prevention works. If the transaction on your card is too high or not where you live, the credit card is declined. That’s it. Their fraud prevention isn’t designed to help you. You are never responsible for fraud. They eat the loss.
So their excellent customer of over a decade is left standing there with two basket fulls of shit and an old bitty staring him down like he’s a criminal. OK. On to plan two. I have a backup credit card from my Credit Union. I have been banking with them for 30 years. I swipe that card and it’s also declined. They evidently use the same sophisticated anti-fraud methods. Now I’m getting pissed. And the ancient cashier is just shaking her head.
Avalon has an Amazon credit card that we use sparingly. She hands it to me for one last try. Thankfully, Chase doesn’t care about size of transaction or town. It goes through and we skulk out the door. Inside I’m fuming. After dinner and another hour unpacking and cleaning, we were headed home. Avalon kept the tears to a minimum. Another 3 and 1/2 hours driving (no stops for food at those germ infested shithole rest stops) and we collapsed into our house at 11:00 pm.
I checked our voice mails this morning and lo and behold there were two calls from the fraud prevention units of Barclays and my Credit Union. They leave a phone number and a case number. I called Barclays and they asked for various identification numbers to verify me. Then they sent me to a live person. If she wasn’t wide awake before she took my call, she was afterwards. They said the call may be monitored. I hope it was.
She asked if I was the person attempting the transaction at the Wal-Mart. I said I was and then went into a 3 minute tirade about embarrassing your customers at the POS is not fraud prevention. I told her that her bank didn’t give a crap about protecting me from fraud. They only cared about their own bottom line. When I had vented enough, I asked her if my card was reinstated. She said yes and tried to follow her script of telling me to have a nice day as I hung up. The credit union got off the hook because their process is entirely automated and I couldn’t yell at anyone.
And so ends another successful day in the life of Admin.
A similar experience happened to me, about 10 years ago. Now I always carry two credit cards – even though I always pay them off when the statement comes.
We got a third card through Costco – and we take that also when we go on trips.
The fraud department – did you talk to that fat, black lady in Newark?
After years of frustration with Cap One fraud ‘detection’, I bullied my way up to an administrator. I said: “Look, I use your card because it doesn’t charge ‘foreign transaction’ fees. This is because I LIVE IN THE F%$#%CKING Caribbean!!!!
THAT’s why there’s a charge in freakin St. Martin, you twits! ALL my charges on that card are foreign!!
(I actually didn’t drop the F bomb).
But anyhow, I insisted that they make a special notation on my profile that the owner (that’s ME) of the card lives in the Caribbean.
Not a peep since (after 8 years or so). (knock on wood)
At least you got to vent. That always makes one feel better. Hopefully, the person on the other end took it in stride!
I have a Credo card through Synchrony bank. Credo donates part of the transaction to organizations I support; they even let you vote on who gets the money. So I like Credo, and although I didn’t really need another card and would never roll over a balance at 29%, I got one. But the Synchrony people have their heads up their asses. I pull to a gas pump, card declined. I know no payment is due and I have plenty of credit line. So I use another card and when I get home, I call them. Reason for the decline? My statement was returned undeliverable. I verified the address; it was correct. Card reinstated and I dutifully pay the bill online before it’s due.
Next scenario, the card is again declined. I call again. Same story. Your statement was returned. Bank person says “You need to contact your local post office”. My response, no, you have my correct address, my wife has a gas card through your fucking bank and THAT bill gets here, so YOU have a problem with YOUR system, so FIX IT, and if this shit happens again, I’m canceling the card. Have a nice day.
Still waiting for that statement to show up.
I used to get all worked up about poor customer service issues with telecoms/cable/energy/banking type businesses back in the day when I had a desk, a staff and time to kill. I’d google around until I found the administrative assistant to the big kahuna, find his/her/its fax number and then write a really bold lettered missive with a return call number. I’d set it in the tray and hit auto redial and then put my feet up on the desk for the next fifteen or twenty minutes until my secretary told me I had an important call on line 1.
Works every time. No other faxes can get through, they can’t shut it off, it burns up all their paper and it pisses off the only person who has a direct line to the honcho in the corner office. You get what you want or you repeat the process at random whenever you get bored and send them whatever you want- Chinese restaurant menus, obnoxious Internet memes, kids drawings, that kind of thing.
Another is finding someone in the company hierarchy high up enough to have real value, bating them by sending a series of letters and replies to their letters increasingly more obnoxious and personal until they respond unprofessionally (they always do for some odd reason, but only to written letters, not emails) and then escalate the letter up the chain of command with veiled threats of fear for your personal safety from said employee/lawsuit based on your gender identification/the fax trick using their angry letter in place of the Chinese menu until they send you free stuff/services/apologize profusely in writing, then post the whole affair online and SEO the hell out of the post so it comes up in the top ten of any google search.
Fun times.
GLWT.
In our trip ‘cross country, I called ahead and they assured me I’d be good to go. All the way to western PA and it gets declined. They tell me that Sunoco has a system that will decline credit cards if you use it at different Sunoco’s on the same goddamn route too far apart. Assholes.
HF
Your “fax redial loop” is absolutely brilliant. Keeping that one in my “toolbox” for when I need it. Can’t believe I never thought of that.
I have a Fidelity Rewards AMEX card that gives me a 2% rebate on everything. So I usually score a couple hundred bucks in rebates every year. The card is issued through MBNA, which is owned by Bank of America. I have an $18K limit on the card, pay it in full every month, and have never run up more than $5K in charges in a single month.
Three years ago, they declined an airline ticket purchase I was making online. I was living in Vancouver, WA, just across the Columbia River from Portland, OR.
So I get a call from their fraud department just as I’m calling them and getting ready to scream obscenities at them.
I took charge immediately. “Why did you decline my airline ticket? I have to be at a funeral in Atlanta next week!!!”
That immediately got the clerk off her prepared script. She meekly asked: “Well sir, you live in Vancouver, Washington and we’re seeing all these transactions in Portland, Oregon. So we wanted to make sure this transaction is valid.”
So I immediately know I’m dealing with a dumb twit who doesn’t have a clue about US geography.
So I just say: “Every one of those transactions is valid. If you look at a map, you’ll see that Vancouver, WA is about 10 minutes away from downtown Portland, OR. It’s easier for me to shop in Portland than in Vancouver. Is there anything else you need to know, and is my card now unblocked?”
“I’ve unblocked your card. Everything is fine, sir. Have a nice day!”
The only way to deal with these fools is to have your mobile phone listed as your primary phone number in their records. That way, when their systems fuck with you, you get a call almost immediately, and you can get the problem resolved then and there.
Was out of the country once clothes shopping with my wife. Now there’s nothing I like so much as to leave a perfectly good beach to go clothes shopping for several hours with my wife, but damned if our card didn’t get shut down by the fraud department. So the hundreds of dollars she’d planned to spend had to be put on hold. Drat. Unfortunately, I later resolved the hold on the credit card and we had to venture back to the shop the next day. Fortunately my wife had thought better of some of her purchases, so at least our tally was lower.
Well I finally chopped up the last of my credit cards . I have a card thru FedEx to pay for fuel and anything else I need for minor repairs but no more credit cards in my name. At first it was strange to pay cash for everything but now I’m glad I pay cash. If I don’t have the money to buy what I want I go without . I usually keep at least a 500 dollars cash in my truck just in case.
We learned that even if you pay cash with a debit card, the bank will limit your daily transaction amount to $500. Since we are in the process of home construction, a lot of our purchases exceed this, so I stopped by the bank and upped our limit. Then, I learned that I upped our limit for the NEXT transaction day.
It is for our own protection, I was assured. Just call them if we are in a store and want to spend more than $500 and in 15 minutes they can approve it.
“Mother, may I?”
Here’s another reason I despise the fucking Wall Street banks.
I pay all of my bills electronically. Once you set up your monthly vendors in your billpayer account, you just enter the amount and due date when the bill arrives. An EFT is then sent to the vendor on the due date.
The utility companies always have a due date during the work week. The fucking bankers purposely set the due date on a weekend date at least 75% of the time. If you put a weekend date for your EFT, it won’t go until the next business day. The banks also will not process a check payment on a weekend date.
The fuckers then hit you with a late fee if they get the money on Monday when the due date was Sunday. They know exactly what they are doing. They probably collect hundreds of millions in late fees with this scam. I’m sure they have done a detailed analysis of what percentage of people will not realize the due date was a weekend.
I despise those pricks.
A guy running a Deli was forced out of business mostly cuz he was under-capitalized and the Bank took advantage and vendors took advantage of his situation. Vendors and the Banks can add a bill at night or on weekend, after the Bank business hours. As an individual or a business, you can’t deposit cash and have it immediately appear on your balance.
So the guy got continually slammed with fees and closed shop.
Westcoaster says: I have a Credo card through Synchrony bank. Credo donates part of the transaction to organizations I support;
——————
Would one of those organizations be Planned Parenthood? (sorry, WC, I couldn’t help myself).
I learned the hard way that you need to notify your bank ahead of time that you intend to charge a large amount when traveling. Worth the effort in my opinion vs. no fraud protection.
As for online bill payments, my bank indicates when you are making the online payment when the
check to the payee will arrive, so I’ve never incurred a late charge. There was one time when my bank had some computer issues and the checks went out late, but they offered to cover any late fees. Problem is, it’s YOUR credit rating that takes a hit due to a late payment, not the bank’s.
But what REALLY ticked me off was that I have overdraft protection that draws from my savings account should I become overdrawn, but still got hit with a $12.50 overdraft “fee” once. I let loose on them about it and got the money credited back.
Y’all are amateurs. What you gotta get is a personal banker. Then when the bank screws up, you harass the personal banker and threaten to pull your money, your business’s money, your aunt’s money, your partner’s money, etc. Now that is something that works. Personal bankers get measured on their deposits.
Don’t have a business, rich aunt, etc.? No soup for you.
Llpoh is right, and you get a discount on your safe deposit box. I get a different personal banker every four or five months because they all quit. Never go into personal banking as a profession.
I have been reading this site for a while, and here is my first post.
I hate banks, because they are criminal organizations based on a fraud called fractional reserve banking and fraudulent currency. If you ever want to see the real constitutional money of the United States, google the Coinage Act of 1792 by George Washington.
“It gave me plenty of time to impart my years of wisdom upon him.”
So, Admin. bored his kid for 2 minutes?
Boo fucking hoo, cheapshit. Carry cash in your wallet. Like $300-500.
How hard is that?
If my IP address is screwing you up, Admin, I’m on my wife’s laptop. Mine is fried.
You really think I would let him carry money????
SSS – he does not have a wallet. He has to carry my purse everywhere we go.
We have a lot of cash for the minute TEOTWAWKI starts. Piles of little silver round things are buried here and there too. We just think it is best that people at the Wally World around here not know us as the people who pay cash every where they go.
Not all of them are as nice as the ones featured each Friday here.
@LLPOH and Bea… a personal banker. I’m going to see if there is such a service in my neck of the woods.
Bea – I have, so I am told, been the reason for at least two junior personal bankers resigning form my bank (I have a senior banker that I ream when things really get ugly, but mostly I deal with his junior associate). Seems they did not like my attitude toward their fuck-ups. Fuck-up my money and I get excitable.
Early on, I had an issue that was not resolved to my satisfaction. I ended the conversation with him by saying something like “alrighty then, I guess that is your final position”. Click.
I immediately went down to my local branch, and said please draw me cashier’s checks made out to Competitor’s Bank in the sum of $x,000,000, please, from my business account, and another $X…. amount from my personal account. The cashier turned white, gulped a couple of times, said she needed authority for those amounts, excused herself, and disappeared out back.
In about 2 seconds flat I got a call from my senior personal banker – I was stunned, I tell you. It seems that in fact that his final position was NOT his final position after all. Imagine my surprise. Ever since, I have always got what I require from him.
Bankers are bullies, if they can get away with it. You just have to find a pressure point.
Hope I can figure out how to delete the porn history before I give it back to her. Anyone know how to do that on a laptop?
Werd up, Administrata….uh werd of advice –
Stay away from freeway franchise chickn n` corn bread ‘n waffles.
At home or on da road, make yo’ own meals.
Gank natural an’ eat natural if you wants ta own yo’ own gut.
When ah’m on da road, black coffee an’ booze is da only traveller’s treats ah take on.
An’ as fo’ banks an’ credit cards – R*O*D*N*E*Y’* ‘s experience iz dat uh little snooping an’ ova-da-shoulder peeking on they part keeps yo’ card clean an’ pimp-tight fo’ future swipes in the hood
hate the fucking create so called money out of thin air bankers . I use cash predominately , my check gets deposited I take out all except a the amount for bills , which I have only a very few now.working til I have 2 loans gone and that s it no more loans for me . not too hard to accumulate cash if you don’t owe the banks anything . its a completely fucked up system but going gault as much as im allowed to . property taxes wont go away and a few other taxes but I wont ever help the banks again thru my interest payments .so when the coming bank bail ins start I hope to have very limited exposure in the current banking system . I draw the line at the coming implementation of the mark of the beast technology .
No Penn State story is complete without a good shit in a dorm room.
Admin,
It ain’t just the banks that run the weekend due date scam. Cable companies do it and so do some utilities out here in the West.
What I did was set up my bill pay so that every bill that came in under a preset limit was automatically paid on the third business day after the bill arrived in my online bill pay. That removed the possibility that the biller could fuck me with a late charge.
If a bill is above the limit amount, I get a text and then look at it and approve it if it’s OK.
I hate bankers as much as you do. Maybe more, since I used to work for a bank in the 80s. They were as dishonest 30 years ago as they are today. I’ve never met an honest banking executive, ever.
Admin – Here’s hoping your son enjoys his upcoming year in college. I have to drive from NJ to CA and back in Oct. After your PA pike stories I’m so not looking to crossing that state. At least it has scenery and water, driving across TX was awful. At one rest stop I had to explain what a tree was to one of the locals. Oh yea, banks suck Caitlyn Jenner balls.