I have a dilemma which I need to resolve fairly quickly. My gut feeling is to go in boots and all and complain but there may be ramifications which, because of ‘controlling interests’ may linger for some time!!
I have an account with Bankwest, a local bank in Western Australia and in error I went $1.85 into credit – in other words because of a direct debit to pay my telephone account, my savings account was over-drawn by $1.85. For this very minor misdemeanour Bankwest charged me an “Honour fee” of $45.00! Honour fee in this instance means that they had ‘honoured’ the payment and not rejected it.
I felt this ‘honour fee’ was grossly excessive and phoned to complain. The girl who answered my call (unfortunately I did not write down her name) was not rude but very abrasive in that she did not really listen, had all the answers and told me that there had been a similar episode in November 2007 when I, to use her phrase, ‘had been educated’ about the bank’s policies. She made ‘been educated’ sound as if, as a felon, I had been subjected to some North Korean type re-education programme and should therefore know better than to complain! When I asked her if she would like to pay this amount for such a small error, she came right back with the smart comment, "Of course not. But I would never let this happen. I would keep better control of my money."
After some discussion she asked if I wished her to speak to her supervisor – I said yes. After sometime she came back and said that she was prepared to reduce the ‘honour fee’ by half – to give me back $20.00. When I said that half was $22.50 and not $20.00 she corrected herself and said it was $20.00. I thought about it and said Ok and thank you.
My dilemma is this: I still think even the revised figure of $25.00 ‘honour fee’ is grossly excessive, especially as from my previous history with the bank, going back about 4 years, they would have known that my pay would be deposited the following day. So do I write and complain, pointing out the abrasiveness of the girl; her inference about the ‘education’ programme which was rather unnecessary and somewhat threatening; the fact that even $25.00 is grossly excessive for a $1.85 ‘misdemeanour’; the obvious fact that I have never deliberately set out to spend more than I earn – this was a real error on my part? When the girl came back from speaking to her supervisor and said a reduction of half and then corrected herself, I had a mental picture of the supervisor saying “Ok it is a small amount, but try to give him back no more than half.” She came back to me said half and then corrected herself, thinking “I am going to teach this bloke a lesson and help my employer at the same time – I am going to save them $2.50 – and make him pay more.” The feeling I had was that if I had really pushed it I could have got more, by negotiation.
All this is recorded against my account. Do I write to the bank, risking a black mark of ‘trouble maker’ against this account (and God knows whether the banks pass around this sort of comment, one to the other, when people swap banks, particularly as Bankwest is now owned by the Commonwealth Bank). Do I write exercising my right to freedom of speech – to complain when I feel something is wrong – risking any possible black marks and lack of co-operation from the bank in the future? Or do I just roll over and say, “Big Brother you control everything and have won – I am grateful for any crumbs that come my way?”
As I said before, my gut feeling is to write and complain and damn the consequences. Has anyone else has a similar experience and if so what advice would you give me?
No comments:
Post a Comment