|
ONE BANK + ONE INSURANCE COMPANY
= TWO BASTIONS OF ARROGANCE
When we moved to the NC coast in 1994, we decided to do our banking with Centura Bank, which had a nice little office only five minutes from our home.
We opened a personal checking account with a line of credit for overdraft protection, and we also opened a Mastercard account.
For our low-key business, Triangle Software, we opened a checking account with a $3000 line of credit .
After nine years of operation without any problems whatsoever, the bank suddenly required a personal financial statement to protect its $3000 line of credit. If we had had vast assets of various kind (which we didn’t), we would have to disclose those to ’support a nine year old credit line with a perfect record, for which we had not requested a change’. Absurd.
I thought that was an outrageous abuse of power from the bank, and I refused to give the personal statement. The long argument that followed, resulted in the bank freezing the credit line. I have since paid off the balance and closed the account. The whole situation revealed how Centura - and probably most of their fellow bankers - pay lip service to their lofty statements about ‘customer service’ and instead use their power to intimidate the customers.
It so happened that Centura shortly after that incident performed one of their surveys to find out how customers rate the local branches. I gave the locals good marks, but added the following comments:
Comments on ‘RBC Centura Customer Satisfaction Survey
(from kjell@ec.rr.com )
The irony of this survey is that the RBC Centura headquarters initiates a survey to find out how the branches perform... when, in my opinion, service problems exist at the headquarters!
The surveyed branch is a nice, friendly office which performs its function effectively.
I have long had a nagging dissatisfaction with the policies and actions of the RBC Centura corporation as such, but I have told myself that arrogance and disregard of small customers is probably part of the culture of most banks.
Then, last fall something happened, which triggered a protest on my part and which revealed much of how the headquarters operate. In short - I have documented all the details - out of the blue, I was asked to provide a financial statement. Well, if I had had a large loan, or if there had been problems, I would have understood. In this case, it was a credit line/ check protection of $3000 which had been running for nine years without any problems whatsoever.
Sometimes, you hear that banks pay attention to credit history, and I thought it was outrageous of the bank to demand a lot of personal information in this situation. I contacted the bank via e-mail, and got a boilerplate response from some customer service person. Not satisfied with that response, assuming that the demand for financial statement probably came from some middle management person ‘empowered’ beyond his or her level of competence, I sent another e-mail, asking to bring the matter in front of someone who had authority to rule in policy matters.
I once again hit the protective shield of customer service, returning a barrage of platitudes . I tried to find the e-mail address of one of the officials presented on the bank’s web site, but the system is very effective: the public does not have access to those people. In the end, I wrote a letter to the president of the bank, explaining what had happened, enclosing copies of all the correspondence.
Seven weeks later, I heard from the bank. They still insisted on the financial statement, or the credit line would be frozen. I decided that it is still convenient to use the local branch, and the web banking is very effective, so I did not leave RBC Centura.
The experience has taught me that the motto of "Care about the customer" is very hypocritical. It mostly happens that routine e-mails and calls to Centura Highway are met with statements, like "due to unusually high traffic the response time may be longer than normal". My interpretation of those messages is "We have a minimal staff to save money, and we don’t care if you have to wait. We say that you are important to us, ha, ha"
Well, this may be a little more of a survey response than you expected, but I feel that if you are really serious about the image of the bank, you should be aware of the problem areas.
March 8, 2004
Kjell Petterson
Well, the final verdict on Centura may be ‘a corporate culture, probably typical of its industry, a nice local place of business, and a well functioning web banking system’. The web banking is a very strong function. It enables the customer to monitor his accounts on a daily basis. I have no worries about using credit cards for a large number of transactions, because I can spot - and have done so - fraudulent transactions immediately as they occur.
So, “every cloud has a silvery lining!”
HERE IS THE NEXT
BASTION OF ARROGANCE:
Kjell Petterson
610 Ocean Spray Drive
Swansboro, NC 28584
E-mail: kjell@ec.rr.com
May 25, 2005
To;
Wells Fargo Bank
Countrywide Home Loans
North Carolina Department of Insurance
North Carolina Farm Bureau Insurance Group
Dear Sirs,
Today, I received a letter from Wells Fargo, expressing concern that our homeowners insurance was cancelled by The NC Farm Bureau, and I am sure that Countrywide will have the same concern, so let me give you the following facts.
My wife and I moved down to the North Carolina coast from Raleigh in September 1994. Our home here is a bricked-in Palm Harbor doublewide with a stick-built office addition for a total of 1800+ sq.ft on a .8 acre lot. We made our homeowners insurance and our auto insurance with the Farm Bureau because we were told they were virtually ‘the only game in town’.
We have stayed in this house through all the hurricanes from Bertha on, and the only damage we suffered were two trees in our back yard at two different storms. From time to time, we were encouraged to compare auto insurance rates, but the ‘word on the street’ was that if you don’t keep your auto insurance with them, they would cancel the homeowners insurance.. About three years ago, I made such a comparison and found that I could save some $150 by signing up with a competitor. I passed that information on to our agent who told me that he didn’t know what ’they’ would do if I pulled my auto insurance, indicating that it was a headquarters decision, so I decided not to make a change.
This takes us up to todays situation. We have now had our homeowners and auto insurances with the Farm Bureau for 10 ½ years, we have always paid our premiums on time and we have had not as much as a penny of claims over these years. Yet, on May 13, exactly three months before the renewal date of our homeowners insurance, we got the termination letter. I immediately called the Farm Bureau office in Morehead City to find out the background. They had no information (which indicates that this was a headquarters action), but told me that the agent would call me. Well, 12 days later, he (who is a nice guy) still hasn’t called. I went on the website of the NC Insurance Department and found that the insurance companies had asked for - and been denied - huge rate increases, especially at the coast. That is probably the reason for declining renewal of our insurance.
It so happened that the renewal date for my auto insurance was June 1, so I went to work on that first. I have now signed up for auto insurance with a different company and will be saving $159.20 per year compared to the Farm Bureau rate.
I can assure the mortgage companies that I will have a homeowners insurance to replace the Farm Bureau policy in good time before the expiration date 8/13 -05.
To have insurance with the NC Farm Bureau you also have to pay an annual membership fee, and each year they also ask for a voluntary contribution to their PAC. I can proudly report that I have always declined to contribute to what I call ‘Politics And Corruption’.
The NC Farm Bureau has not earned my continued business. It is really amazing that instead of giving some sort of bonus to customers who have a perfect record and prove to be a low risk, they cancel the insurance. I have learned not to expect fairness from those kind of institutions, but they could show a little more sound business sense.
Sincerely,
Kjell Petterson
There is a ‘rest of the story’. In a letter, dated 6/14 -05, to the NC Insurance Commissioner’s office a Mr. Bob Tart of NC Farm Bureau informed that an internal ’consent-to-rate’ report had been delayed which caused the cancellation of the insurance.
The report had now been received and the insurance was renewed on August 13. Mr. Tart continues, “ In regard to the insured’s automobile coverage, we would like to state we are insuring a mobile home in a coastal area. If the automobile coverage is placed with another carrier, it may jeopardize future coverage under the insured’s homeowner policy in 2006.”
Let me try to interpret Mr. Tart’s letter. I believe he says: “ We lost a paper, but don’t worry, your insurance is still in effect in spite of what we told your mortgage company in writing. We have an inferior automobile insurance product, but if you don’t buy it next year, we may take advantage of our virtual monopoly on coastal homeowner’s insurance and give you an offer you can’t refuse.”
Is this fair? That’s not the issue. They will do whatever they can get away with. As consumers, our only hope that someone else comes along with a better plan. Competition is the answer.
What those two examples of corporate arrogance have in common, is that they demonstrate how little old-time values, like honesty and long-term records of good performance mean today.
Just like the many stories we read about corporations reneging on pension commitments, the unholy alliance of Big Money and Corrupt Politicians, supported by easily manipulated flocks of religious extremists has produced a society where the powerful can do whatever they want. ‘We the people’ have virtually no influence.
And our ‘leaders’ even go to war to impose that brand of ‘democracy’ on other people......
|
