Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Customer Service

I like working with people. Really I do. It makes my day interesting and connected. But sometimes the naivety, the inexperience, the sheer airheadedness of some of my customers just amazes me. Everyone knows what Darwin Awards are, right? The "award" given to those people stupid enough to accidentally kill themselves, thereby taking themselves out of the genepool? I'm proposing a new honor for financial idiocy. Instead of losing your life, you lose your money! I'm thinking I'll call it the Franklin Award.

ATMs take customer deposits. Pretty simple, really; insert card (as for every other transaction, yes?) enter PIN (again, just like taking money out or checking the balance) and from there choose the "Deposit" option and follow instructions. Eventually you insert an envelope containing said deposit of checks or cash into an envelope-slot on the machine. The slot is only "open" or activated during the deposit process to keep random things from being shoved into it and to make sure that each deposited envelope receives a printed validation from the machine.

I've seen some pretty weird stuff when sorting the ATM deposits: someone who decided against an envelope and inserted individual bills into the machine, one at a time; someone who attempted to deposit coins. But the other day we had a girl come in and complain that her ATM deposit never got posted to her account.

Turns out she was skipping that whole "use your ATM card at the ATM" thing and merely shoving the envelope between the ATM and the wall. Like, into this narrow little crack (not really even big enough to fit the envelope into!) where the wall-mounted ATM sits against the drywall. How did she think that this qualified as "making a deposit"? HOW? My supervisor was on the phone with the ATM people all that morning, trying to find out if they could send a technician to dismantle the ATM and get this winner her check back.

Seriously, Franklin Awards! They'll catch on! The really funny thing is that she insists that she's been "making deposits" this way for two years, and that they've all gotten into her account fine. Yeah, and I send mail by owl post and it always arrives!

2 comments:

Bex said...

when the ATM comes off the wall you'll find all her other deposits that she's made previously, be nice to her, she's rich (and stupid)

Mara said...

A fool and their money are soon parted... by the evil ATM machine