Good Customer Service Is Hard To Find

Ok, so maybe on a scale of 1-10, this may be only 6. Maybe a 7. But it really annoyed the crap outta me - and it just happened - so it feels like a 9 right now. Last night, I attempted to make an after-hours cash deposit at my bank. Not only was the ATM unable to accept deposits (for unknown reasons) but it swallowed my freakin' card after a minute of me not removing it from the machine. Thinking it would only be a slight inconvenience to come back the next day to retrieve it, I called that branch today to make sure they had it and to let them know I'd be in today to pick it up. Easy right? Nope. What they told me was that I wouldn't be able to get my card for 5 days. C'mon...how hard is it to open up the machine and get me my card? Here's what they told me.

I use my debit card for just about everything as I don't like to carry cash around with me. Turns out, my bank uses a third party to retrieve cards swallowed up by their terminals and they wouldn't be able to get it until at least Tuesday. I spoke to a manager and while she was apologetic, basically her hands were tied. This explanation seemed plausible but it still sucked. This would have never even happened if the ATM worked properly and accepted my deposit. Good customer service would have been the bank apologizing for the inconvenience and then calling up the 3rd party and getting me back my card ASAP. Easy...done.

To make matters worse, I called a competing bank and asked them what their policy on swallowed cards was, and I was informed that they'd be able to retrieve it (as long as it was a card issued by their bank) THAT day! When he asked what bank gave me the run-around, he wasn't at all surprised.

I almost switched banks on the spot, but changing everything over seemed like an added inconvenience that I didn't feel like dealing with. So I'm pretty much just stuck complaining/blogging about it...till at least Tuesday.

What happened to good customer service?