Customer Service does not exist. It died when we stopped raising humans to care — when we allowed them to fill a position, clock in right at the start of the hour, clock out not a second past their shift because that’s all they got paid for. Nine to five and not a second more.

Customer Service is a title only. The onus is on the client to come up with as much information as possible and basically hand them more than they need wrap it up in a big red bow and then we are put on hold — where we wait, becuase no one can answer a question right away. Not even a simple one. The customer asks the question, the question is repeated, the customer says yes and then is put on hold to listen to music that is pretty much shared by multiple cooperations.

I am not one to get irrate or swear when I am trying to get service assistance. In fact, I am quite the opposite. Shit happens and it’s no one’s fault most of the time, so I think it is ponly right to politely call, state the problem and work with someone to have the problem solved. However, lately, I find staying calm and polite (yet I somehow do) really tough to do.

I was recently charged twice, six times by a money transfer company. I used the company to send money from Canada to my son who is studying in the US and for the most part it was easy. But one day I received an email asking if I had sent the transfer to my son and I confirmed that I had. And then I received another email the next time I sent him money and so I decided to give the transfer company a call.

Of course I had to find the correct number first and when I finally got a hold of someone, I was told, everything was fine, my son had received the money and I was to ignore the emails that were apparently sent in error. So, whenever I got these emails, I ignored them — that is until I noticed that on six occasions my account was debited twice for every transaction.

I called the company again and I spoke to service rep after service rep and this went on for a month. I called my home bank — a Canadian bank to see if they could perhaps reach out and have the extra debits reversed and they sent the transfer company an email requesting that each of the six transactions be reversed. A week later my bank forwarded me the email they got back from the transfer company that said they only got money once from me and that I should call their customer service and provide proof that I was indeed debited twice (which I had already done) and they would help me.

After a month of acknowledging that they did see that I was debited twice, I was told that I had to “let the issue go” because they can’t find where the money went and as far as they knew they received the money only once for each transaction. And so, after sending them statements from my son’s account to show that he only received money once and sending statements from my account showing duplicate debits that had the company’s name in the description, I called my bank again.

That’s where I learned that my bank’s customer service was no better. I was treated quite nicely in the beginning and was told because I was a prestige client (which I didn’t know I was) I was going to be transferred to another representative. After getting disconnected three times I finally spoke to a rude person who told me that they were about to close and after reviewing the details, there was nothing they could do to help me and I have to just realize that and move on.

WOW!

Insulted the same way by two different companies over the same issue. Isn’t that just the pinnacle of top notch client care.

Having worked in banking for years I know that when money is received and it is not certain where it is to be placed, the client is to be contacted and in the meantime the money goes into a suspense account until further information is received and then the last solution is to return the money to the originating bank.

Unless money is stolen, it doesn’t just disappear especially today where technology makes financial transactions easier than they have ever been.

I was angry and frustrated but I was not about to give up. I was missing over two thousand dollars and I wanted it back.

I knew I was right.

I had the proof.

And, I was frigging done being patient and polite. I had been patient and polite for a month and I got nowhere because one department just wouldn’t talk to another. No one did anything beyond their capabilities to help me.

No one at the transfer company. No one at my bank.

After calling in repeatedly and following up and speaking to different representative after different representative and re-iterating myself and speaking slowly and as simply as possible because I never got a person who was fluent in any of the three languages I speak…I decided I was going to call the Better Business Bureau.

I sent in all the documentation with my complaint and wouldn’t you know in just two business days I saw the refund of each of the duplicate six transactionsdeposited into my account to the total of two thousand plus dollars.

There was no apology from the transfer company but I didn’t care at that point. I was just amazed that in just two days I got my money back because I went to the Better Business Bureau.

Maybe some people give up and go away but I am here to tell you don’t do it. Don’t go away and make it easy for them. If you are right and you hve proof, fight back. Big companies think people will grow weary and drop the issue. But I don’t tire easily. I just get bloody angry and I will keep going until I get the justice I deserve. I wasn’t in the wrong here, they were and they needed to know that I wasn’t letting them get away with keeping my money.

Of course the transfer company and my bank had the audacity to ask me to complete a survey on how my service was and I was honest. I took the time to fill out the surveys and tell them they were a big bag of crap. And of course they could not stop there, they wanted to schedule a phone call to talk about what they could do better and I declined because I had already spent what was already a very trying month, trying to get them to help me only to be told to basically “EFF-OFF”.

But here is what I will do —

I am going to tell everyone I know not to use the transfer company in question even though they have a five-star rating.

I will tell everyone I know about the rudeness I faced at my bank where I have been banking longer than my adult children have been alive and I will urge people working on the front line of service to give a shit about what they do and put themselves in the shoes of the customer. If you work in a predominantly English speaking country and you choose to work in Customer Service, learn to speak and comprehend English. If you are serving a Spanish-speaking or French-speaking community, be able to speak and comprehend Spanish or French or Dutch or German or the language of whomever you are providing service to and lastly… just care for crying out loud. Care about the job you do. Maybe you’ll like it a little more and if not, quit and get another job that you’re more suited to.

Just two days after my situation was resolved, my friend had a discrepancy over a vacation booking where one department kept refunding his internet package charge and another kept telling him he could lose his booking because he hadn’t settled the account on his vacation. It took two weeks before he was able to speak to someome who was able to rectify the situation and secure his booking and provide him with a letter he could show before boarding as a “just in case” he needed to proove that hehad indeed paid his fare in full.

As I write this, my husband is trying to speak to someone at his auto insurance company for the seventh time in two weeks to make arrangements to have his winshield replaced because it has a rock chip on his winshield that has become a huge crack. The poor mand has not been able to get anyone at the insurance company to understand that his policy clearly states that he pays the deductible and the cost of the winshield and labour is covered. He has been on the phone for two hours and forty eight minutes after speaking to six different representatives.

Ah, he has just given me the thumbs up. It sems that he has succeeded in getting a person who understands the problem because they speak and iunderstand English. And no, I am not being biased or racist here. I am simply sayoing that if you are in service providing client care to people who speak English, speak English well. If you are providing client care for people speaking German, speak and understand German.

Yes!

I am happy to report that the agent helping my husband has completely understood that while my husband would pay the total cost upon repair, the insurance company would refund him everything except the five hundred dollar deductible.

The appointment has been made to get the winshield replaced.

The phone call has ended

Two hours and forty minutes later.

Do you agree there is a problem?

Do you agree that something needs to be done?

Meanwhile, since we are clearly on a roll, our new coffee machine (three months old) has stopped working. and my husband has to call their customer service hotline that deals with appliances that are under warranty because their department closes early on Fridays.

I wish him luck, I really do because he needs it as Customer Service is dead.