KingAdrock's Journal: Banks

I don't usually induldge in the act of writing a jounal entry, but I need to vent.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THE DEAL WITH THE BANKING SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES? Let me preface the rest of the rant with a few facts. I live in Manhattan. I use Commerce Bank for my personal accounts. If you live in an area where Commerce is, I highly reccommend it! My business accounts are with Fleet. I should move them to Commerce, but I had originally opened them with Fleet, and closing a business account and reopening it is more of a hassle than I thought it was worth. I was wrong.

I've had my problems with Fleet in the past. Them returning a five figure check because I had signed it instead of just writing the company name on the back of the check. The check was made out to the company that i deposited the check in. Who gives a fuck if Bozo the clown endorsed it? So I learned from my mistake.

Last monday I deposited another check. Again for a decent (>10k) amount of money. I'm not even going to mention the fact that in these days of electronic commerce a fucking check should clear in seconds not days. On Thursday the funds became available. Good times. Happy Holidays. I went to the branch on thursday and withdrew money. The bank had no problem with this because the money was in the account.

Fast foward to this morning. I was shipping some stuff UPS and tried to pay with the company Debit Card. Declined. Strange I thought. Maybe the large withdrawal on Friday had put me over my daily limit or something. So I called my friendly Fleet representative. She was actually very nice. She told me the check I had deposited on Monday and that had "cleared" on Thursday had been returned to me on Friday and my account was now overdrawn by upwords of three thousand dollars. WTF? Why did they clear the check on Thursday and then return it on Friday. She had to call "Check Verification" to get the reason. I was walking to the subway at the time and she told me she could call me back at 10am with the answer. Good enough for me I thought. 10am came.. No call. 10:30, no call.

So I called Fleet back and went through the whole process again. This time the lady on the other line hung up on me. Simple mistake? Probably. Angry KingAdrock? YES!

So I call back for the third time. New lady.

Lady: "I'm sorry sir our systems are down can you call back in thirty minutes?"
Me: "No, I'll hold"
Lady: "Sir this could take a while"
Me: "That's OK, I'll hold."
Lady: "Ummm.. How about I put you back into the system. We have three call centers and maybe the other centers aren't having this problem."
Me: (reluctantly) "OK"

So I have to go through the 45 menus and entering all of my PIN's and account numbers all over again.

New Lady: "Hello sir, I'd like to help, but our systems are down can you call back in 30 minutes."
Me: "No"
New Lady: "But sir..."
Me: "Let me talk to a supervisor"
New Lady: "Sure sir, but a supervisor is not going to be able to get the system up"
Me: "Do I stutter? Give me your supervisor"
New Lady: "Yes sir"

So I get the supervisor and we finally figure out that the check had insufficient funds. Well why the fuck with all of the technology in the world did it take four fucking days to figure out that the check didn't have enough money in the account? Why the fuck did you clear it?

This story gets worse. The company that sent the check is owned by a family member. This family member is going to be at my parents house for the holidays. I leave for the parents hosue in two days. They have better fixed this problem before then or it is not going to be a Merry Christmas.

Fleet sucks

[Uma Thurman]

I once got calls from Fleet asking for Wendy. Went something like this:

Fleet: Can I talk to Wendy?
me: Don't know Wendy. Perhaps you have the wrong number.
F: This is Wendy's number. Where is she?
me: Who is this?
F: This is Fleet bank.
me: I don't know Wendy, you have the wrong number.
F: Let me talk to Wendy.
me: I don't know Wendy. I just got this line installed last week. This is my phone line, and Wendy doesn't live here.
F: Let me talk to Wendy.
me: You know, people DO switch their phone lines. It happens all