“Conservative” politicians and billionaires keep touting corporate “efficiency”, but I keep finding case after case where they are efficient is inefficiently interacting with their customers. How many times have you received a satisfactory answer with your first call or email?
I dropped my Republic Bank accounts (including VISA) last year because they blamed Consumer Cellular for the errors I received trying to access my Republic account through my iPhone: both the app and the online account. Republic said the problem was with Consumer Cellular. Consumer Cellular said the problem was with the bank. Neither seemed really interested in pinpointing the problem.
My wife had no problem accessing Pioneer National Bank through her Consumer Cellular phone.
After I opened my Pioneer accounts, I transferred all my funds from Republic Bank to Pioneer. I wrote Republic to close all my accounts including my VISA account. I no longer receive monthly statements from Republic.
However, this week I received a notice of a statement from VISA for my Republic card. Oh, boy! Did I forget to notify somebody that automatic payments should no longer go to Republic VISA?
When I finally looked at the statement, it was to notify me of my renewal fee! $0.00!!
I did find a “Contact Us” button that allowed me to call this unneeded statement to somebody’s attention. I also stated that I had requested Republic Bank to close my VISA account.
Earlier in the week I received from AT&T “Exciting news - your wireless bill from AT&T is now on video.” Who is it exciting new? The producers of the video and the advertising department. It was just a bother to me. The email didn’t say whether the data for the video was to be charged to my account or was free. I didn’t bother to find out.
However, I did open up MyATT account, saw the current bill, and paid it, also asking that all future bills be automatically be billed to my credit card.
Imagine my surprise to receive an email today that my bill was ready! i double checked and the online balance was zero.
I tried to send a message to AT&T and found a page:
Contact Us
AT&T Support - quick & easy support is available 24/7.
I looked and looked for an email form, but I only found two choices: call an 800 number or Online Chat. I don’t want to wait for “the next available operator", and I don’t want to wait for the next chat person, type what I noticed, and “hang up”.
I wonder if AT&T uses one of the reputation services, and if so, will the service find this blog post and will AT&T act on it.
Don’t stay tuned! We may never know if AT&T even read this post.
I think it was the New York Times that had an article this past week that said most telecommunications companies really don’t want to solve your problems: just pass you from one person to another.
“Hello, Melvyn Magree. My name is ______ and I will be glad to assist you.” This is generally followed by some generalized gibberish that doesn’t even address the problem, like completely reset your device.
An exception that we’ve found is Apple if you have a device under an Apple Care warranty. My wife’s iPhone either wouldn’t come on at all or would only get up to 30% charge. A search of the Apple Support Community came up with over 23,000 topics on this problem. The only advice seems to be to hold the home and lock buttons together for quite a long time. For us and others, this did and did not work.
The 23,000 figure does not indicate an efficient corporation, especially when the number of users who have this problem could be ten or more times greater!!
Fortunately my wife’s IPhone was still under warranty. The Apple Care people walked us through a few steps, and it would work for a while. After a few calls, they sent us a new phone. Of course, we didn’t have a backup and had to manually enter phone addresses. I did manage to print a list from the old phone before we sent it back.
Oh! And we could never erase the old phone. It kept asking for a re-something passcode. It would never accept the phone passcode and we could find no workable answer in the Apple Support Community. We had to return the problem phone with only the assurance that Apple would erase the data.
How did we get into this mess? I remember when it was a big deal to have direct-dial long-distance.
Showing posts with label Republic Bank. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Republic Bank. Show all posts
Saturday, July 09, 2016
Thursday, April 07, 2016
The Blamer Games
Sometime last year I switched from Republic Bank to Pioneer National Bank. I could not access Republic Bank from my cell phone using cellular data. I could access my account if I went to a coffee shop and used wi-fi.
Republic Bank and Consumer Cellular (my cellular) provider each absolved themselves of any problem. Republic Bank said that Consumer Cellular was changing its IP address. Consumer Cellular said they were not.
I could access my wife’s accounts at Pioneer National Bank without a problem. So, I switched my account to Pioneer also.
Now this problem has raised its ugly head again. I tried making a estimated tax payment to the State of Minnesota. It would not open any page where I was to provide information, whether I wanted to pay online or just request a form to pay by mail. It said I had cookies turned off. This happened with both FireFox and Safari. With Safari it happened both with my MacBook Air and with my iPhone.
As far as I could see, in both FireFox and Safari I did not have cookies turned off. In fact, in one of these browsers I had a long list of cookies.
I went to Perk Place and bingo, everything worked. Same laptop. I have a receipt in my email.
Wanna bet that somebody will blame the problem on my Mac. As I gaze around the coffee shop, I see over a dozen Mac laptops and only on or two other laptops. I think these providers better get with the program.
I have heard this same thing from the Duluth News Tribune, a problem with Macs. I can’t even access the Olive edition of the DNT. Olive is the name of the software that provides a facsimile of the printed edition and allows expanding any article for easier reading. However, I access the Olive edition of the Star Tribune without problem. In fact, the Strib has even fixed the annoying problem of inconsistent expansion of the comics.
This whole mess would be comical if it weren’t so time-consuming and frustrating.
Republic Bank and Consumer Cellular (my cellular) provider each absolved themselves of any problem. Republic Bank said that Consumer Cellular was changing its IP address. Consumer Cellular said they were not.
I could access my wife’s accounts at Pioneer National Bank without a problem. So, I switched my account to Pioneer also.
Now this problem has raised its ugly head again. I tried making a estimated tax payment to the State of Minnesota. It would not open any page where I was to provide information, whether I wanted to pay online or just request a form to pay by mail. It said I had cookies turned off. This happened with both FireFox and Safari. With Safari it happened both with my MacBook Air and with my iPhone.
As far as I could see, in both FireFox and Safari I did not have cookies turned off. In fact, in one of these browsers I had a long list of cookies.
I went to Perk Place and bingo, everything worked. Same laptop. I have a receipt in my email.
Wanna bet that somebody will blame the problem on my Mac. As I gaze around the coffee shop, I see over a dozen Mac laptops and only on or two other laptops. I think these providers better get with the program.
I have heard this same thing from the Duluth News Tribune, a problem with Macs. I can’t even access the Olive edition of the DNT. Olive is the name of the software that provides a facsimile of the printed edition and allows expanding any article for easier reading. However, I access the Olive edition of the Star Tribune without problem. In fact, the Strib has even fixed the annoying problem of inconsistent expansion of the comics.
This whole mess would be comical if it weren’t so time-consuming and frustrating.
Monday, November 16, 2015
Banks, security, and ease of use
When we cut the cord and went wireless, we had a large number of problems including runaway data and bank access.
We solved the runaway data problem by cutting out automatic downloads and monitoring our usage.
Bank access is another problem. Some banks put up a huge security wall, others just require an ID and a password from a known computer. If you change computers, then they will send a text message to a known phone. The huge security wall can be a real problem if you don’t have the “right” phone and the “right” browser.
You would think as more and more people go wireless, the banks would make it as easy as possible for depositors to access their systems. Many people really don’t want to do the research to find out why they can’t access their bank. And it is in the bank’s interest to have people bank online so that they need fewer tellers.
i bank at Republic Bank of Duluth. I get all kinds of weird results including something like “If this error persists, contact the system administrator." The long, long error code seems never to be the same and no phone number, email address, or feedback page is provided to contact the system administrator.
I have talked to a branch manager about this and she in turn called somebody in tech support. The only thing they could tell me was that my provider, Consumer Cellular, was changing the IP address. Consumer Cellular support says that CC is not changing the IP address.
I did figure out that I had the wrong cellular phone number in my account. I changed that and things seemed to work for awhile. Then the phone number went blank on my account! I reset it again, and I have again sporadic success, more often not.
I have no such problems using Wi-Fi at coffee shops. Can the banks ensure the security of every coffee shop’s Wi-Fi?
My wife banks at Pioneer Bank of Duluth. She has no problem accessing her account through cellular data. That is via Firefox on her Mac and Safari on her iPad. When I accessed her account on my MacBook via Firefox, the web page asked me to select a phone number for a text message. When the text message came to my wife’s phone, I entered the number on my Mac and gained access to her account.
I might switch my funds to Pioneer if Republic doesn’t have a solution soon. But as I don’t care for the format of Pioneer’s statements, I am also considering Members Co-operative Credit Union of Duluth (MCCU). Also, I’m partial to co-operatives over corporations.
I had a long conversation with an MCCU representative and found out that their online banking doesn’t work with certain phones and browsers. She had no information about access via Consumer Cellular.
I have decades of computer experience and sometimes relish unraveling problems. Sometimes it seems I know less and less about more and more. Think about all the people who are afraid their devices might crash if they push the wrong button.
If organizations really want people to access them online, you would think they would bend over backward to make it as simple as possible. But no, they operate in their own little silo and expect all users to accept their way of doing things.
How many people do you know who would have problems figuring out half of what I have written above? If I am confused by all that I have learned, how confused would many others be?
We solved the runaway data problem by cutting out automatic downloads and monitoring our usage.
Bank access is another problem. Some banks put up a huge security wall, others just require an ID and a password from a known computer. If you change computers, then they will send a text message to a known phone. The huge security wall can be a real problem if you don’t have the “right” phone and the “right” browser.
You would think as more and more people go wireless, the banks would make it as easy as possible for depositors to access their systems. Many people really don’t want to do the research to find out why they can’t access their bank. And it is in the bank’s interest to have people bank online so that they need fewer tellers.
i bank at Republic Bank of Duluth. I get all kinds of weird results including something like “If this error persists, contact the system administrator." The long, long error code seems never to be the same and no phone number, email address, or feedback page is provided to contact the system administrator.
I have talked to a branch manager about this and she in turn called somebody in tech support. The only thing they could tell me was that my provider, Consumer Cellular, was changing the IP address. Consumer Cellular support says that CC is not changing the IP address.
I did figure out that I had the wrong cellular phone number in my account. I changed that and things seemed to work for awhile. Then the phone number went blank on my account! I reset it again, and I have again sporadic success, more often not.
I have no such problems using Wi-Fi at coffee shops. Can the banks ensure the security of every coffee shop’s Wi-Fi?
My wife banks at Pioneer Bank of Duluth. She has no problem accessing her account through cellular data. That is via Firefox on her Mac and Safari on her iPad. When I accessed her account on my MacBook via Firefox, the web page asked me to select a phone number for a text message. When the text message came to my wife’s phone, I entered the number on my Mac and gained access to her account.
I might switch my funds to Pioneer if Republic doesn’t have a solution soon. But as I don’t care for the format of Pioneer’s statements, I am also considering Members Co-operative Credit Union of Duluth (MCCU). Also, I’m partial to co-operatives over corporations.
I had a long conversation with an MCCU representative and found out that their online banking doesn’t work with certain phones and browsers. She had no information about access via Consumer Cellular.
I have decades of computer experience and sometimes relish unraveling problems. Sometimes it seems I know less and less about more and more. Think about all the people who are afraid their devices might crash if they push the wrong button.
If organizations really want people to access them online, you would think they would bend over backward to make it as simple as possible. But no, they operate in their own little silo and expect all users to accept their way of doing things.
How many people do you know who would have problems figuring out half of what I have written above? If I am confused by all that I have learned, how confused would many others be?
Monday, September 16, 2013
Corporate efficiency - unwanted, unreceived new card
I received a letter from Elan that my Visa card had been upgraded with all these new "super" features, none of which I really needed or wanted. The letter stated that I should have already received my card and all I needed to do was activate it.
The problem was that I never received the card. If I did, I might have thrown it out knowingly or unknowingly, but I doubt it.
Then I received an email touting all the benefits of the new card. That was ten days ago. I sent email to the local branch manager of the bank that issued the card; she replied she would check on it and asked me to call at the end of the week if I still had not received it. I did not receive the card by Friday
Today I talked with somebody in the main office of the bank and she said they would request a new card for me and I should have it Wednesday. Elan would charge a $15 lost card fee but the bank would give me credit for it.
Now I'm going to have to go through all the organizations that I have authorized to debit my credit card automatically and change my account number. What a nuisance!
So, why did Elan decide I should have something that I didn't ask for? Are they hoping that the "rewards" offered with the card would induce me to spend more? I suppose lots of people will be overjoyed to be upgraded.
I guess the upside is that I can use the points to pay on the balance. The mischievous part of me wants to use it every month. Let's see, a $100 balance would give me 100 points. Would that be a dollar, a dime, or a penny? It reminds me of the people who overpaid charge card bills by one cent because they were not getting any response from the store about a problem. A clerk processing the checks would notice, but a computer processing thousands of electronic payments would probably not notice.
Well, the computer might notice and send a message to somebody, but since so many companies won't allow spaces in a keyed-in card number, would any take the time to put in such a filter?
The problem was that I never received the card. If I did, I might have thrown it out knowingly or unknowingly, but I doubt it.
Then I received an email touting all the benefits of the new card. That was ten days ago. I sent email to the local branch manager of the bank that issued the card; she replied she would check on it and asked me to call at the end of the week if I still had not received it. I did not receive the card by Friday
Today I talked with somebody in the main office of the bank and she said they would request a new card for me and I should have it Wednesday. Elan would charge a $15 lost card fee but the bank would give me credit for it.
Now I'm going to have to go through all the organizations that I have authorized to debit my credit card automatically and change my account number. What a nuisance!
So, why did Elan decide I should have something that I didn't ask for? Are they hoping that the "rewards" offered with the card would induce me to spend more? I suppose lots of people will be overjoyed to be upgraded.
I guess the upside is that I can use the points to pay on the balance. The mischievous part of me wants to use it every month. Let's see, a $100 balance would give me 100 points. Would that be a dollar, a dime, or a penny? It reminds me of the people who overpaid charge card bills by one cent because they were not getting any response from the store about a problem. A clerk processing the checks would notice, but a computer processing thousands of electronic payments would probably not notice.
Well, the computer might notice and send a message to somebody, but since so many companies won't allow spaces in a keyed-in card number, would any take the time to put in such a filter?
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