BB&T: Battling overdraft charges and Customer Service
A a letter I wrote to BB&T about recent issues I’ve had, since it explains it and I don’t feel like trying to repeat the explanation:
“Dear BB&T Representative,
I am writing to voice my concerns I have had with BB&T over the last month, and to inform BB&T that I will be canceling my account.On August 7th at 7am I had initiated a transaction to pay a balance on my Capital One Credit card. It was not a balance that needed to be paid, but I had extra money, so I went ahead and paid it off. As soon as the transaction was initiated and I received the confirmation email from Capital One, I realized that I had not updated the billing information to my ING Direct checking account which I opened in June.
I immediately called Capital One to cancel the transaction, but they said they could not. They suggested I call my financial institution to stop the transaction. At 7:20am I called the 800 BB&T number and spoke with Susan Gazelle (Ezelle?). I explained my situation to her, and she at first thought I had made a payment through BB&T web billpay system and began to instruct me on how to cancel it. When I explained to her that I had made the transaction through the Capital One website, she then told me that they were unable to cancel the transaction. She went on to explain that transactions usually take 48 hours to process and not to worry about it once I told her I had already initiated a transfer of funds from ING to cover the costs, and did not want to receive an NSF fee. She stated that the transfer should go through in time.
Satisfied, I thanked her and waited to see the transactions go through in the manner she specified.
The next day I looked at my BB&T account online and noticed the transaction had already been posted. I waited to see if my deposit would be posted later that day, and it was not. Instead it was posted on August 9th. An NSF fee of $35 was issued.
I sent an email on August 9th through the BB&T website, to voice my concerns. I work 8am to 6pm Monday through Friday therefore am not able to make phone calls at work. I did not hear back so I sent another email on August 14th, and again on August 20th. By this time a second transaction of $7.50 came through, causing another NSF fee of $35.
Finally, I received a reply that stated to call my local office on Englar Road, since they were the only ones that had appropriate access to address this issue.
I called my local branch on August 27th and spoke with Jessica Bagwell. She was extremely polite and courteous, and said she would have someone call me back ASAP to address my concerns.
Mr. Paul Eskabar contacted me on August 28th and stated that he could issue a credit of $13. He went on to say that since BB&T had no way of knowing when the transaction from ING would take place, and because I had a courtesy refund in April for NSF fees, that it was the max he was allowed to refund.
At the conclusion of our conversation he then asked me to rate the satisfaction of how this phone call was handled using a number between 1-10. I rated it a 5 but made sure that Mr. Eskabar understood that it did not reflect on how he handled the situation, but towards Ms. Gazelle. I was actually very satisfied with the way Ms. Bagwell and Mr. Eskabar handled their calls with me.
I made an attempt to avoid all NSF fees and even asked to have the transaction blocked or cancelled, but was informed on August 7th by Ms Gazelle that it was not possible and not to worry about it because transactions usually take 48 hours to process. I understand the process in which BB&T must enforce their overdraft charges, and I further understand that I have had some overdraft charges on my account in the past. However, when a customer makes every attempt to avoid further overdraft charges and the financial institution impedes those attempts, I feel it reflects poorly on the institution.
I had wanted to continue a relationship with BB&T as I like having a financial institution locally instead of just the electronic account with ING. The problem is I do not feel BB&T deserves my business. BB&T’s inability to look past typical corporate procedures to see the extenuating circumstances of my specific case speaks volumes on its business practices.
With that, I will be closing my account with BB&T effective immediately.
I appreciate your attention to this matter and expect my request will be fulfilled in a timely manner.
Sincerely,
Crystal [name removed]P.S. I have forwarded this letter to both the President and Vice-President of BB&T’s Financial Institution.”
I honestly didn’t expect this letter to receive any response, but I did receive a call today at work from a woman at BB&T named Beth Bogat who was very helpful, and will be refunding the remaining amount of overdraft charges.
Her job was part of what my job was at Terminix. Call dissatisfied customers up who want to cancel their account, and in the most apologetic tone possible, convince them to keep their account and give us another chance to make things right. Though after being on the other end for 2 years as a customer service rep at Terminix, I can pinpoint and dissect the dialogs and insincerity when on the phone as a customer now. It’s actually kind of amusing because I’ve said the exact same things. They must train all CSR’s the same way. “I’m so sorry that you’ve had a bad experience with [insert company here]. I’ve been in similar situations before and can sympathize. I’m appalled at this situation, what can we do to make things better?
I think my problem as a CSR was, I could completely sympathize with the customer if the error was on our end. But if it was user error, I’m less sympathetic and often times completely apathetic or, on very rare occasions, upset that the customer is such a douchebag about it. I guess that’s why I had to get out of that field.
If I hadn’t tried to prevent these NSF fees, the error would be completely on my part, and I’d pay them and smack the back of my hand for being an idiot. But I sat there on the phone at 7am in the morning trying to backtrack a rather simple error, so I expect my company to work with me a little, you know?
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One Response to “BB&T: Battling overdraft charges and Customer Service”
September 12th, 2007 at 4:00 am
That is a fantastic letter, it is SO frustrating after working in customer service because I don’t believe any rep’s lol. It’s great that you mentioned names though, they tend to take you more seriously.