Question
My advice? DO NOT get the BofA cards. They have NO service
OK, so there was this old episode of the orginal Star trek shows where this woman was an empath, and she would take all the pain and suffering of these human captives and use her powers to absorb this, and then filter it out of her body. Oh, she'd collapse and all--after touching one of then to extract their pain, and you could see her suffer their fate for a fleeting moment, but she was fine in the end, and so then were the others. I think she was learning how to deal with compassion or something, and she was used for this purpose until the bubble head alien dudes that ran the scene did it to her again just to test the "specimin." It was one of those ones where Cpt Kirk was yelling with his hands on his ears and mcCoy almost dies... You know...
The pain of this situation is much like what many of us must deal with when we have a huge CS issue and then report about it here so that the rest of us happily circumvent the situation with ease.
I don't wanna toot my own horn, nor do I want such a cross to bear, but I think I am totally related to that lady and here is why...
I have sooo many weird/bad/strange/ "well sir I have never heard THAT ONE before" things happen to me when it comes to all things 'customer service,' that I think I am put on this planet merely to BE the guy who sufers through it so all of you can read this, have a laugh and hopefully avoid the same pain solely at my own expense!
No matter WHAT I do, sign up for or deal witih, this stuff JUST HAPPENS TO ME WAY TOO MUCH! Oh sure I get a lot of GOOD things too, but I get wayyy too many bad ones and yet, like any consumer, I keep on going. Should I stop? Well, why? What gives everyone else the right to keep going if I have to suffer when trying the exact same thing? It's just not fair, I tell ya...
Here is my latest... You tell ME what you would have done in the exact same situation:
Today I innocently decided to set up the online access of my new BofA credit card that earns a reward I elected for with their new MC/Visa.
I have had the account for just under 2 months and had done a big bal transfer and so I just wanted to do things online like I do with all my other cards and accounts. I had already mailed them one payment and a new one would be due in a couple of weeks but I like to use the internet for this instead of stamps.
I started the sign up process but then a screen came up asking me to provide the account number of my checking account with BofA and yet, I have not had one with them for 4 years! I closed it and looking for the letter proving that fact would have taken all day. I do have knowledge of what I have and do not have and I know I don't have that account anymore. I could not enter what the screen was asking for and was now stuck.
Well, the screen would not let me continue unless I entered one of the reasons for NOT doing this, and so I chose the one that said: "I only want to access my credit card now." Strange that they even had this choice, but when I did this, it closed me out indicting I would need to sign up all over again anyway if and when I had this information.
Sadly, there really was no choice. I never got to any online access with them and never got to set up the password or put in my mother's maiden name and shoe size of my first born twice removed security question what's the first car you purchased and will you remember how you spelled the first school you went to so when we change all our options in a month, you can still get on here...
I dedided to call the bank thinking their techy web guys could help me fix it with one phone call.
15+ mins on hold. Just to get to the regular CS, and that was after the first call went busy on me after doing all the account number prompts and I still had to lie in my choices and chose the one where you want to report a lost card so you can get to CS faster.
CS came on, never appologized for any of this and told me he could not help me so he would transfer me to tech. (I had chosen that deptartment in the prompts!)
I hardly got to speak but was nice/professional when I did, and yet he put me on hold for web support and I waited 34 more minutes!
I was thinking, ok WHEN should I like hang up and maybe try again? Am I one of those calls that fell into the black hole? Now I was getting mad. I tried to call from my cell too but there is really no service at my house. It varies
anyway. I then hung up and tried a bunch of other BofA numbers but all led to this same thing.
SOOOO mad. Fuming in fact at this point... Phone stuck to the ear--not sure when to back out and try again another day.
Ok so maybe that's what many of you would have thought to have done, but at this point, I wanted answers. I finally hung up the phone and gave up on calling them...
In a controlled, but obvious fury, I grabbed $60 in cash, drove one mile down the street to a local BofA branch, walked in and caught my breath. I waited at the service desk area in a seat for a few moments until a person was free and the lady called me over. I politely asked her if she was a manager and she smiled and said yes. I paused, looked sadly at her and said, "I don't know how to start, but here goes: I have been on hold for nearly one hour and I am so mad I am about to explode. Please pay my card bal (I owe only $50 min on the entire bal next week, btw) and set me up with an online access, because it wont let me and I cannot take it anymore." Your CS is horrible and since the problem is with your bank, you can help solve it on my behalf.
I shoved the ffing card and the cash in her hand and I told her, "mail me my card and credit my account for me, thank you." (I live in a small town and I know that lady will be there, so it is not going to be hard to track her down in case I ever need to recollect, but frankly, I would PAY $60 into some world-wide main frame system to STOP THE PHONE CS HOLD CRAP!!!!!)
Anyway, I got up, spun around and walked out quickly, slightly pushing past this man leaving and I did not look back. I don't even care. I am soooo mad its not even funny. I stopped in a coffeeshop and grabbed a coffee, caught my breath and drove home with a smile, calm and somehow really relieved. All ffing day on the phone with CS and it's a total waste for me. I wrote a version of this story, printed it out and mailed in a second payment to the card's payment address and that way I can be certain some money gets to them regardless. My theory here is that unless she steels my money, the bank will have to eventually contact ME instead of me fighting to contact THEM.
Maybe I just lost the money and this uselsss card, but who cares. Seriously. Call me what you will but there ya go. If you were in my shoes, there'd also be a 'boiling point.' So what is yours?
My advice? DO NOT get the BofA cards. They have NO service. (now at least my rant on this relates more to this particular part of the forum)
I am certain people here have gotten right through, but not me and not today. I even tried local area numbers and of course, I even tried the website, www.gethuman.com, which lists on it the quickest ways to get through to customer service, etc. Nothing got me to someone live--at least not unless I was willing to risk CS phone black hole hell once again.
In fact, while waiting, I have to say I really hated the BofA on-hold voices because one of them is the smug sounding guy that United Airlines sometimes uses for it's phone calling hold time and he always needs "...just one more piece of information before I connect you to an agent" even when you already just said "AGENT!" I had already tried things like calling back and doing nothing but pressing 00 or using other known tricks and suggestions that all of us have tried elsewhere, but my number of calls to BofA and the amount of time spent on this was getting rather agrevating, as you can clearly see. Then the other voices on their on-hold phone system had really bad accents and the trashy women agents they must have used when recording them were telling me that I could get any question answered simply by logging onto BofA.com (yeah RIGHT!)
OOOOOOOOOooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooOOOOOO OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
When I calm down, maybe the suffering will go away now, captain?... and is this a reason to NOT sign up for that card for you people? hmmmm...ya think? Let me ask you all at Starfleet command...
;)MM
Answer
funny you post this.
I sent an email complaint from their website.
This was last Tuesday.
(six days)
I recieved a form e mail that they got my click and would get in Answer in 6-12 hours!
O.K. wednesday and Thurday and maybe even Friday, I can make allowances for Thanksgiving.
But c'mon they have a regular week end shift!
HOLD TIMES ARE IMPOSSIBLE
And this is for a $90 a year signature visa
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They're also liars, in my experience.
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I like them. I have six open BofA HAMiles Visa accts. They haven't lied to me.
1 800 932 2775 - BofA Credit Manager
1 800 933 6262 - BofA Web-Tech
Are these the phone #s you use?
My condolences on your recent frustration.
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I like them. I have six open BofA HAMiles Visa accts. They haven't lied to me.
1 800 932 2775 - BofA Credit Manager
1 800 933 6262 - BofA Web-Tech
Are these the phone #s you use?
My condolences on your recent frustration.
web tech is leads to the same anoying voice guy--it routs to the same service or dept I called.
credit manager line basically does same thing. no way to get to a person. I tried several ways to get past the prompts but no luck. Looking back, I had even tried using a number for a line of credit app I had once received but that did nothing for me either. I had tried that with a different company once and the guy there couldnt even transfer me anyway. I figured waiting on hold just to find that is the case here would be more aggrevating so I gave up again.
i am curious what my manager woman at the local bank has done... It is highly likely based on this i will cancel the account and let them know why I did so.
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My advice? DO NOT get the BofA cards. They have NO service
The pain of this situation is much like what many of us must deal with when we have a huge CS issue and then report about it here so that the rest of us happily circumvent the situation with ease.
I applied for a BOA US Airways Signature Visa and was approved 2 weeks ago. The card has not arrived, but I noticed that the annual fee has posted online. When I called CS (only a 5 minute wait--guess I'm lucky), I was informed that BOA had "run out of US Airways card stock," and the CS promised to expedite sending me a card.
Hope it comes soon--needless to say, I won't pay the annual fee until I actually have a card!:rolleyes:
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i did more recently find out that some CS dealings with BofA banking is easily done via their online chat service. I did sign up for the Alaska checking acct and that's cuz it's one of the few DEBIT cards that earns you miles. I have a use for this, as stores like Costco only take debit or cash. Since BofA recently fixed my issue, I decided to do it and also, the chat thing helped me quickly and with more ease than I figured it would. I guess I too will run into the card waiting game and probably see my fee first, but I am giving them another chance here. I will probably cancel that CC though. I have others that provide better rewards.
MM
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I have multiple cards with them... they are a piece of sh**t... now I am canceling one by one and that is what brought me to researching cards on this site....
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I have a use for this, as stores like Costco only take debit or cash.
MM
Costco accepts Amex charge and credit cards. Sam's club now accepts MasterCard.
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yes they do take Amex. BUT...
My wife is the AMEX holder in our family. Sadly I have no AMEX now. Long story. All is well with credit though, so well, long story. Dif day.
that's why I like the debit for miles gig...
:)MM