The O.C. Englishman's blog » bad customer service

Still waiting for California DMV to send my driver’s license

The Englishman — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 20:00:09 +0000

I have been settling in nicely to my new life and have just about got all the things I need to feel at home – SSN, bank accounts, credit card, store card and driver’s license.

That last one though isn’t quite complete. This is because while I have passed my driving test, I don’t yet have my driver’s license photocard. Yep, although I passed on November 9, 2009, to date I’m still making do with a paper temporary license. This is of no use whatsoever as valid ID, so whenever I need to show some, I have to whip out my green card. I don’t like having to carry it around because to be honest it’s a precious document.

Why the hold up anyway? Apparently California DMV need to verify my eligibility to reside in the United States before they can issue the card. The fact that I showed them my green card when I applied for my license is apparently neither here nor there. Nope, they need further proof. Where this proof is coming from is anyone’s guess but it’s certainly taking some time.

In this day and age you’d think that one government agency could run a check on someone’s status with another agency at the touch of a button, right? Yeah, well this is the modern United States so no, no you can’t.

I was given a number to call at the DMV HQ in Sacramento for the ‘verification department’. However, this number would just ring… and ring… and ring until I got sick of it. I have now taken to writing letters to the inquiries department. The first was sent at the end of January (no reply) and the second sent this last week. From now on I am going to write to them every week. Hopefully somebody somewhere in the bowels of the DMV will get sick of my constant whining and do something about it.

Then again, this is the DMV we’re talking about…

Banks are banks: WaMu/Chase will take your money

The Englishman — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:09:33 +0000

So, still waiting for the ol’ social security number. Bored with the wait, we went to see if I could get a bank account.

As it turns out I could, as long I provided other ID. We therefore thought we’d try WaMu – or Chase as it is becoming. We arrived on a Saturday morning and I was helped by a nice young man who could open an account for me.

He asked me what I was after and I told him I just wanted to get going with a checking (UK: current) account. He advised me about the great free checking account they had that would give me internet banking and all the usual stuff you’d expect. He went to great lengths telling me how free it was. Great, I thought, as I don’t like paying for banking (it’s my money, after all).

He also told me about the savings accounts. I said I’d take one of those too (so I can save tax etc). The savings account only took $5 to open, so we duly did all the paperwork for both accounts and I was sent on my way. When I got home I read the information pack I’d been given and was amazed to find that the savings account had a monthly fee of $5 if there was less than $300 in it! WTF!? He didn’t tell me about THAT.

“Aha!” I hear you cry, “you should have asked about charges, fool. It’s up to you to ask the right questions”. In response to that, I say:

He went to great lengths telling me how FREE the checking account was. Why didn’t he go to equal effort telling me how UN-FREE the savings account was? Hmm?
I would have asked if there was a fee for the savings account IF I HAD EVER HEARD OF A SAVINGS ACCOUNT WITH A MONTHLY FEE.
With my initial $5 deposit, after the first month my balance would have been $0 and after another, -$5. This is clearly bonkers and not very savings-ey. It penalises people with a small amount of savings and is surely unfair.
IF I KNEW IT CHARGED I WOULDN’T HAVE OPENED IT. IT’S ANTI-SAVINGS ACCOUNT!

So, I have put some money in it to take it over $300 but will expect to get charged for one month of fees. Bastards. I shall be closing the account… but not until after 90 days because the bastards sting you for $25 for closing an account fewer than 90 days old. Double bastards.

At least I read the small print about that.

GE Money suck. Oh yes.

The Englishman — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 13:40:27 +0000

Ok folks, time for a good ol’ fashioned rant about a financial institution. Such blog entries may be cliché, but I make no apology for my contribution to bank-bashing. Hey, they have it coming so don’t you go feeling sorry for ‘em.

Let’s go to work.

Our story begins when Jennifer arrived in the Summer of 2007. She wasn’t happy with the state of my until then “bachelor pad” and set about on a major refurb. A decent lounge suite was the order of the day so we explored a number of possibilities. We settled on a nice little number from DFS. I won’t pretend they make hand-crafted works of art (they don’t), but we have modest tastes and what we found was comfy and met our needs.

For those who don’t know, DFS is famous for two things: 1. A perpetual sale (that they deny) and 2. four years’ interest free credit with nothing to pay for the first year. Yes folks, welcome to DFS-land where you are loved, cherished and given free sofas (for a year). The reality is probably that they over price their sofas to cover the cost of the interest they won’t make on repayments, so if you paid up front with cash you’re no better off. Hence we opted for some of that fine 0% finance. Mmm mm.

I’ll skip all the detail other than to say we completed all the paperwork and in due course received our sofa and chair. Our repayments were scheduled to commence 12 months later via direct debit from my bank account. Financing was provided by GE Money on DFS’s behalf so it was from them I received a letter 11 months after we’d received our sofa. They advised me my first payment was due, but not to worry because the direct debit would soon kick in; I need do nothing.

This is where it all started to go wrong.

Cock-up #1

Despite their letter of reassurance, GE Money’s direct debit didn’t work. No, the half-wits had set it up a year previously, so my bank had cancelled it. After all, as far as the bank was concerned it was not needed, having sat unused for so long.

The first I heard of this was in an angry letter from GE Money screaming for their money and telling me what a naughty boy I’d been. I sent them a copy of their reassuring letter (now not so reassuring as they clearly had no idea what they were doing) to explain they’d told me to chill.

The situation was resolved and they apologised. Quite right too. However, not trusting them I decided that I would be making the payments to them straight from my bank rather then let them to screw up another direct debit. I set this up as a standing order (something over which I had control) and the payments started making their way to GE Money on a monthly schedule.

Cock up #2

Ok, now CU#2 started due to an error made by me, but their response and customer service was left wanting.

As far as I was aware, my standing order was hitting the spot. Unfortunately I hadn’t been allowing enough days for the payments to reach GE Money so on certain months if my payment send date was at the weekend, it wasn’t reaching them until after the due date.

That was my error and I accept the responsibility. However, GE Money were obliged to send me a warning letter to advise of my errant ways and of the £15 penalty for late payment. They never sent this letter so I was blissfully unaware of my initial indiscretion. In fact they didn’t send it the second time either; I received a letter after the THIRD late payment. Useless wasters.

So, I called their expensive 0870 number and spoke to an operative in a land far, far, away (“Lobotomia” I think it’s called). We had a colourful conversation in which he informed me I was a bad payer. As is often the case with these poorly trained individuals you can ask the same question half a dozen time – phrased slightly differently – and get six different answers. That call was no exception.

Enraged and none the wiser, I wrote a letter to which I eventually got a reply. They did a good job of smoke-and-mirrors making out that I was a bad boy and that I needed to make sure my payments reached them on time (yes, I knew that). However, as a gesture of ‘goodwill’ they were going to refund the late payment charges. Well thanks, but they were going to have to because they’d broken the law by not letting me know the first time I made a late payment. Useless wasters.

Cock up #3

After #2 we settled in to an uneasy truce of me making payments and them not moaning. I brought forward my payment date to make sure the money was reaching them in plenty of time and verything was peachy – until I received a late payment warning letter in the middle of February. Wtf? Why? How? I checked my bank and the money had gone as usual – in exactly the same way it had the month before. So where was it?

There then followed a number of Lobotomia-calls and letters asking where my payment was. Didn’t I know I was being a very naughty boy? Here we go again.

I explained to them I had made my payment and they’d probably lost it. They logged it as a missing payment; I checked with my bank and they confirmed the money had been sent – EXACTLY as it had the previous month. GE Money have graciously agreed to refund any fees, interest and so on if the money turns up. However, it all smacks of their attitude that the customer is always guilty until proven otherwise.

As far as I’m concerned they’ve had my money. What they’ve done with it is neither my concern nor of interest to me. We’re now going to pay the entire outstanding balance (minus the money they’ve lost and their penalty fees) and advise them the matter is now closed.

GE Money provide financial services for many store cards, car sales and supply the credit cards for other firms. Reading around today I have learnt that they do the credit card for Ryanair! Ha! Surely that must be the perfect storm of shite customer service. Pity the poor sods who try and get through to them when they have an issue.