US Bank Sucks

That's the title of this blog. The reason is there's some teeny tiny hope that, upon a Google search for US Bank, someone will notice this little blog entry and read it, and will know that it would be a wise decision amongst wise decisions to stay the fuck away. After today, I want you to synonymize the phrases "US Bank" and "Rabid Pit Bull With AIDS." Would you go near a Rabid Pit Bull With AIDS? If you would, remind me to never share a soda with you.

I could explain, but the emails do a far better job. You don't have to read 'em all if you don't want to, but apparently it's entertaining to witness me pissed off at the world.

Me to US Bank:

First of all, your website needs some major overhauling. I am a University of Washington student studying as an exchange student in Australia, so I have no way to access your services aside from this website. It took me 5 tries to find a "Contact Us" link that actually worked to message you. Also, the best I can give you for an account number is "ends in 2311" because that's all your website will tell me. I'm out of the country right now and don't have that information on me. Your website ought to be smart enough to know from what account a secure email came from.

That frustration aside, let me get to the real issue here. I am FLABBERGASTED that you have issued so many fines to my account. I realized that first overdraft, stopped using the account. I tried to access online banking to transfer the cash I'd earned from using the card as credit (which must be in the neighborhood of $15 by now), but you have removed that functionality from your website. I figured you'd just be smart enough to see that I actually did have the funds to cover the purchase and you'd apply them, and I'd simply wait for my next financial aid dispersement to use the account again. Apparently . . . I was wrong. Not only did you not give me the means to handle the situation myself, you also deliberately didn't do the thing that was best for me, your customer, but did what would make you the most money. Is this what you call Five Star service?

Please see that this issue is resolved ASAP, and I am sad to say that this is a seriously enough incident that as soon as I re-enter the United States, I shall be concluding my business with you.

US Bank to Me:

On behalf of US Bank, please accept my sincere apology regarding your recent experience with US Bank. It is always our intention to perform at the highest standards possible to meet our customers' expectations. Here at U.S. Bank, we take great pride in meeting the most stringent internal and external standards for business conduct in every contact. We appreciate your candid feedback on your experience, as we want to ensure in the future that the expectations for quality service are met for all of our customers.

To ensure that your email is sent through our secure email service, simply:

- Point your browser to http://www.usbank.com
- Select "Contact Us" at the top of the page, and select your account type.
- Submit your information using the "Email Us" forms provided at the bottom of the page.

You can find your account number online by following these steps once you have logged in:

* Select the link for the account you would like the account number for (to get to the recent transactions screen)
* At the top, select the "Account and Reward Info" link
* Your account number will be displayed here

Customers are now able to redeem Cash Bonus rewards at anytime. Redemption will be in multiples of $5.00 with a $5.00 minimum. This payment is made to the checking account.

Currently, you have accumulated $26.57 in cash bonus rewards. We will be more than happy to transfer $25.00 into your checking account via email or through customer service. Should you wish to redeem your reward online using your Personal ID and Password, you would:

* Select the checking account
* Click on Account and Reward Info
* Click on card name "Cash Bonus"
* Then on the red tab "Redeem Reward"

Please note that items on your account are paid based on the available balance. The running balance that reflects online shows in blue. The blue balance is a link that will open up a box when you click on it. In the box, you will be provided with your available balance and the amount of funds that were not available at that point in time. This means that there are deposited funds being held, check card authorizations and/or PIN based transactions outstanding against this balance. We apologize for any misunderstanding.

Upon review of your account, I see that there was an outstanding authorization of $15.33 being held against your available balance on 9/06. There were items presented for payment that same business day which exceeded your available balance. Therefore, there were overdraft charges assessed the following business day.

The following transaction(s) exceeded your available balance on 9/06 resulting in the overdraft fee(s) on 9/07.
....
When an account remains overdrawn for four consecutive business days, there will be a $7.00 daily continuous overdraft fee charged each day until your account has been brought to a zero or positive balance.

Upon review of your account, our records show that your account became overdrawn on 9/06. The continuous overdraft fee was charged on 9/11, which was the fourth business day.

We appreciate your business, but we will not be refunding any fees to your account at this time.

The best way to avoid situations such as this is to keep a register of all items processing through your account. We provide you with several tools to assist you in maintaining your account register, including Internet Banking, and 24 Hour Telephone Banking. What we are unable to provide you with are the amounts of checks or other withdrawals that remain outstanding on your account. It is your responsibility to record each transaction you make in order to know your exact available balance at all times.

Please make sure that your deposited funds are available prior to authorizing payments from the
account and that your available balance is sufficient to cover your outstanding check card authorizations
as well as other payments you authorize from the account.

We value you as a customer and hope that you will reconsider you banking relationship with us, we are
aware that it is your choice as to who you would like to bank with. Please let us know if there is anything additional that we can assist you with.

This lady seems to think that explaining the fundamentals of banking and basic web browsing to me like I'm a 5-year-old is a suitable replacement for the nearly-$200 they just decided to pilfer from my account. My reply:

To Whom It May Concern:

A few things about your response that I would like to talk about:

1. I would appreciate it if you would not patronize me. While I realize it's part of what your job is to hand out such advice in a situation like this, I'm a big boy; I know how to manage my money. I managed to secure funds for a year-long exchange program to Australia, and up until this point I've had less than a handful overdrafts with you.
2. I would further appreciate you not to talk down to me. Again, while I realize it it is also part of your job, I am studying website and network design at the University of Washington; I have designed, built, tested, run, and maintained my own websites. I am aware of how to navigate one, and I am also aware when one is working incorrectly. It seems that the problem with your site has conveniently been resolved. While that is a good thing on the whole, it makes my position somewhat less defensible. However, I have included screenshots I took before that describe what your system was doing.
3. Please, listen to what I'm actually telling you.
I still hold that it is your company that is at fault. I will recount my story here again to make sure that you understand it. First, let me walk you through the problems I was having with your website. I would go to the main page - www.usbank.com - in order to log in to my online banking account.

At this point, please understand that the website is the only real way I have to communicate with you conveniently. I am in Melbourne Australia as an exchange student, will be until December, have been since March. You may contact my university for confirmation of this if you so wish. I cannot visit a branch to take care of my banking. The mobile phone I have purchased here can not dial out of the country, and using public telephones/phone cards is a hassle and potentially expensive. Not to mention the fact I don't have access to the proper documents with the proper account numbers to confirm my identity with someone on the phone unless I were to get them on the website. And if I could use the website that way, the issue of calling someone becomes moot.

After entering logon information and clicking "Log In" . . . I would get redirected to another login page. Slightly annoying, and a little bewildering, but I would just log in again and get things moving. It would then send me to the main online banking area. Clicking on my account info to see the transaction statements normally worked just fine. However, clicking on the "Contact Us", "Account and Reward Info", and a number of other links would redirect me to an alert page that would tell me that I should update my bookmarks, because the resource I was trying to locate was no longer at that location. This was somewhat more frustrating, but normally I didn't really *need* to access these. It should be noted I was having these issues before I even arrived in Australia, and was still having them up until the day I supposedly overdrafted. (Please see the attachment for screenshots.)

On that particular day, I needed to withdraw from an ATM. I knew that if I did, I would be overdrafting (I did keep meticulous track of my expenses, you see). And if you'll examine the account closely, you'll see that one ATM withdrawal is the only thing that would cause offense. Before withdrawing from the ATM, I went to online banking in an attempt to move some of the reward money I'd earned from using my credit card to my account so as NOT to overdraft. I was given the above error. I attempted to contact you to make you aware of the situation and that I would not be able to avoid making the ATM withdrawal that day, but if you could please transfer reward funds to compensate, I would appreciate it. Again, I was given the same error.

I then remembered that when I was signing up for my checking account, your signature Five Star Service was explained to me, and the man behind the desk mentioned something about proactively taking steps to protect your members. At that point I said to myself, quite logically I'd like to think: "Well, I've clearly got the money to make this transaction. They'll see that, and they'll compensate for it." Really, when you claim to have such exemplary service, it really oughtn't be such a stretch to think that you'd give your members a helping hand like that. Especially when I told the people at the University of Washington branch that I would be out of the country for awhile. I know that American Express does those kinds of things for their customers, and I've heard that Bank of America does similar things. Why should you be any different?

But you were. I realize the process was probably automated, but from my point of view you did not extend that helping hand. You decided not to care about me, as a person, as a member, or even as a customer. Despite the fact that I had the proper credit to cover the transaction, your bank took the action that would injure me the most, without any review, second thought, or notification. Me having trust in your company should not have resulted in nearly $200 of my money missing and hours of my time wasted writing emails. That kind of trust should be rewarded and not punished. On top of this, when notified of the situation, your bank responded with absolute indignance. Instead of reversing the charges and helping out your customer (honestly, what's $200 to you one way or another?), you spun it to make me look like the bad guy, and did what would make you the most profit.

I find your actions appalling and I am very frankly disheartened by this whole experience. If I was prepared to terminate business with you on my first email, I'm utterly bewildered how you would think a condescending message filled with inflexibility and greed would make me change my mind. Had you done the right thing, I might have.

All of that aside, your company is clearly in the wrong on this issue; had I been the irresponsible party . . . I would own up to it. I wouldn't punish you for my mistakes. All I'm asking is for you to do the right thing.

Their reply:

Thank you for your response. I apologize for the tone of the previous response that you received. Please note that U.S. Bank is unable to open email attachments, due to our heightened security. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. The bookmark message that you are receiving occurs if you are accessing our website through a bookmark or favorite, or if you are accessing our website through a search engine or through software (such as Quicken or Microsoft Money.) If you have a bookmark or favorite, please remove your favorite and login to the account from www.usbank.com. Instructions for doing so are as follows: Delete favorite for Internet Explorer 6.0 for PC: - Click Favorites, then Organize Favorites. - Your list of favorite web pages will appear. - Select the Internet Banking favorite or bookmark to highlight it. - Click the Delete button, then Close. Delete bookmark for Netscape 7.x for PC: - Click Bookmarks, then Manage Bookmarks. - A new window will open. Select the Internet Banking bookmark by clicking on it. - Click Edit then select Delete from the pull down menu. - Click the X in the upper right corner of the window. If the problem continues after you have deleted your bookmark, this error may indicate your browser's cache needs to be cleared. Occasionally, when viewing the web site, your browser will display information from memory, rather than display what is actually viewable online at that point in time. Instructions for clearing your browser's cache are as follows: Clear the cache for Internet Explorer 6.0 for PC: - Click Tools, then Internet Options, General Tab. - In the Temporary Internet Files section, click Delete Files and Delete Cookies. - In the History section, click on Clear History. - Click OK. - Return to the web page and hold down the Control key while you click Refresh to display the page properly. Clear the cache in Netscape 7.x for Macintosh and PC: - Click on the Netscape menu from the toolbar. - From the drop down menu select Preferences. - Click on the arrow point next to Advanced (this will open additional options). - Click on Cache. - Click Clear Memory Cache and Clear Disk Cache - Click OK to close Preferences. Please also ensure that you are always accessing our website by typing www.usbank.com into your browser's address bar. Accessing the site in another way will prompt the bookmark message. The double login that you are experiencing when accessing the account is normally caused due to browser settings. Please ensure that you have the default browser settings for the browser that you are using as this will ensure that you will only receive the first login screen. Per your request, I have redeemed the $25.00 that was available for your Cash Bonus rewards. This amount has been credited to your account. Unfortunately, we are not able to reverse the overdraft fees assessed as they were not assessed due to bank error. Please let us know if you have any other questions or need further assistance.

Clearly . . . they are just not listening. I have no intention of shutting up. But I haven't quite thought of what to say next. I might just all out shit-fit on them. But who knows.

Although, I'm really really happy today. Because I did a good thing. I found out a bit ago that my good friend Jodi has been diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma, and she's been going for Chemo and all that nasty stuff . . . and she's never felt more scared or alone in her life. And we all know how I am, by this point. I can't not help. Especially when it's a good friend in need. I need to do something or it just doesn't feel right. I feel like I've failed them in some way.

Well, despite being 10,000 miles away, unable to offer hugs or rides to the hospital, I found a way. I contributed. And it'll sound really silly to you, but it's not. I bought her a wig. We call it her hair. It seems like such a small thing . . . but people define themselves by how they look . . . she's been especially self-concious about the thought of going around bald. She just got it today . . . and I don't think I've ever seen her so happy. She took pictures to show me how it looks and she's just grinning from ear to ear, and saying thank you every other word or so.

And I did that. I brought joy into someone's life by doing a simple little thing. I like that. I want more of that. Grace should let me do things like that for her. :)

Aussie Doozy of the Day:
Listen up, people. If you're gonna work at McDonald's or in some dead-end retail . . . work in Australia. This guy I know makes $20/hr asking people if they'd like fries with that. Granted that's less in American dollars, but sure as hell beats $7.50/hr. That's the advantage of having under 20 million people in the whole country, I suppose . . .