(…and my advance apologies to Sara’s mother, who’s been known to read this from time to time, or anyone else for that matter who happens to stumble upon my blog for the first time and is greeted by this lovely rant of customer service inadequacy, but this time they’ve just gone too far…)
So Chase declined my credit card while we were grocery shopping at Wal-Mart this evening. We’d been out shopping all day and used the card several other times without incident, but with a shopping cart full of food and other necessities on the line, they decided to reject the purchase back without a reason code and then furthermore wouldn’t answer the phone when the cashier called to verify the charge manually! I tried calling in myself to find out what the problem was, and after first getting disconnected “on accident” by their brilliant IVR system, I finally got through to Marcus who informed me that their systems were down…period. Nothing he could do, and didn’t seem to give two damns about the fact that I was sitting there with a cart full of perishables wondering how they were going to get paid for now that the credit line that had been so graciously thrust upon me…at 23% interest, but that’s another rant altogether…was suddenly not available to me because they were having “system problems.” He claimed that the bank systems were fine and that wasn’t why my card was being rejected, but the customer service systems were updating and that’s why he couldn’t tell me what the problem was. “Just call back in two hours – we’ll be happy to help you then…” Thanks, asshole, but I’m not sitting around Wal-Mart for two hours waiting for your systems to play catch-up…
Sara and I had an interesting talk about disaster recovery and just corporate liability in general the other day and as far as I’m concerned, when you’re one of the largest freaking banks in the world, something’s not right when a simple software update can bring your system to its knees. Just like companies in the Bay area here have to have sufficient disaster recovery plans in place to support their businesses in the event of the unthinkable, the same applies elsewhere and for some reason, I’ve got my doubts that Chase’s $50,000+ credit line holders weren’t getting turned down for their purchases an hour ago.
I’m done with this bank. It sucks because they’re currently the oldest credit card in my wallet – almost 8 years – and I know that something like that can have a positive effect on your credit report, but regardless, I’m tired of being dicked around. The interest rate that they’ve got me paying now in no way indicates that they have any respect for me as a “valued long-term cardholder,” I’ve had nothing but bad experiences with their customer service reps when I have had to call in, and I’m just tired of it. In the past, I’ve always been stuck with the account because it had such a high balance and I didn’t have anywhere else to go, but times have changed and I do have options now. Tomorrow they’re getting a call and regardless if I have a place to transfer the balance to, the account’s getting closed. I don’t even care that they’ll look at it as just one drop in the bucket because I don’t hold a corporate account with them – the bullshit stops here.