Ruth and I have accounts with a few different financial institutions. There are two in Florida and two in Michigan. We have a personal account, and I have a business account with a Michigan credit union. I do most of my banking on-line. I pay my bills, deposit checks remotely, transfer money between accounts and institutions, and all in all enjoy the convenience of the process.
There was a learning curve, more of a learning mountain really, but after I dipped my toe in financial freedom, I found the process to be very convenient. Moving between two states adds some financial challenges. Once I accepted the idea of receiving my bills on-line, scheduling some for “auto-pay”, and dealing more with credit cards than cash, I’m able to process payments in a more timely fashion. As a bonus, we’re earning airline miles and getting “cash back” just like they do on TV.
About three weeks ago, the credit union where we have both personal and business accounts, sent me an email about a pending “upgrade” to its website. It asked that we change our login information as it would be obsolete when the upgrade went “live”. I did so immediately. I made the change and continued to access both accounts flawlessly.
A couple of days prior to the change we received another email informing us the site would be down completely for four hours when the change went live, so “plan accordingly”. Once again, I complied.
Last Wednesday was change over day. That afternoon I logged into our personal account on the new site. At first glance, I didn’t like the look. I was familiar with the old site, the location of the thingamajigs and whatchamacallits, and the idiosyncrasies of the thingamabobs. The new site had them all, I just had to make a deep dive to find them.
I attempted to login to our personal account with my new “User ID” and old password. My login failed. My second attempt spewed out the same message. I consulted my secret decoder notebook with my seventy-eight passwords, entered each capital and lower case letter, number and special character, in their precise order, with one finger to insure accuracy, and was shut out for the third and final time. #$%&! That’s when I saw the special banner message floating across the top of the website.
The banner directed all users to make sure all passwords were entered as “capital letters”. Once this occurs, “You will be directed to enter a new password to accompany your new User ID”. With this new information, I logged into my business account. It went off without a hitch. The thing is, I couldn’t get into our personal account. I dialed the credit union to seek assistance and got a busy signal. I dialed the same number for the next six hours and got the same signal. I called all day Thursday, and then again Friday, with the same busy results.
Around 11:00 a.m. on Friday, I sent an email to the email hotline. The site indicated that all such messages are responded to within 24 – 48 hours. I knew the direct line phone number of one of the branch managers, so I gave her number a call. I got a voicemail message, and left one in return. I still hadn’t spoken to anyone on Saturday, so I started my busy signal calls again. Around two o’clock I called the after hours number and spoke to a nice lady who took my, “I’m locked out of my account and I need help”, message. She listened attentively to my story, offered a bit of sympathy, and told me, “I can’t help you, but I can write a trouble ticket. Someone will call you Monday. I’ll mark it URGENT!”
Monday morning arrived and I attempted to call the credit union at precisely 9:00 a.m. I intended to be the first caller of the day. I wasn’t. The busy signal chorus sang as loudly as ever. I called the branch manager number, got another voicemail message, and left a second for her. Around eleven, I remembered another staff member from my days in Britton. I called Linda in the HR department. I told her of my troubles and within two minutes she had me speaking with the tech department person who opened my portal. I set up my account and had access. She even stayed on the phone with me to insure my success.
At 1:30 the customer service person who responds to all the URGENT tickets called. She wanted to know if I still needed help. I didn’t. And then I said, “As long as I have you on the phone, I’d like to offer a suggestion. When you know you are launching a new website, you need to have more than one number for customers to call.”
She responded, ” We have one number with sixty incoming lines.”
“Well, that’s obviously not enough in times like these. I’ve gotten a busy signal since Wednesday at noon. That’s just not acceptable.”
And then she said, “We’ve sent several emails with all of the pertinent information. We’ve given everyone advanced notice.” She went on and on explaining how the system was designed to work.
Then I said, “The system isn’t working. When people are seeking help, and they can’t get through, that’s a problem that needs to be addressed.” In the end, we agreed to disagree.
When I got home from golf today, Tuesday, I listened to a voicemail message from the branch manager. She apologized for taking so long to get back to me. She also said I should give her a call if I still needed help. I’m still waiting for a response to the email I sent Friday. And just for fun, I dialed the number for the credit union at 4:28 as I was typing the end to this story.
I got a busy signal.