Tue 20 Apr 2010
When Hyperbole is Not a Good Idea
Posted by anaglyph under Daft Advertising, Idiots, Stupidity
[6] Comments
Recently I had cause to send some money to a friend of mine in the UK. It was not a lot – $150 reimbursement for a few pairs of trousers he’d had made for me in Vietnam. I wanted to make it easy for him, since he’d done me a big favour, so I thought I’d transfer it directly into his bank account and make sure I covered all his costs.
Off I went to my bank – one of Australia’s biggest and oldest establishments – gave them the details and asked them to do the deed.
Teller: It will cost you $28
Me: Oh well, I guess I expected it to be overly expensive, go ahead then.
Teller: What do you mean?
Me: Well, $28 for you to punch in a few numbers and do a transfer directly from my account into another account seems pretty excessive, but I expect that’s how you make your money. Go ahead.
Teller: That’s what it costs – the bank doesn’t make anything out of it.
Me: Oh, right. You’re telling me that this $28 doesn’t go to the bank, but is the cost of digital bits flitting across the internet to the UK?
Teller: Do you want to see the manager?
Me [sigh]: No, I’ll pay it, just go ahead.
She punches away at the terminal keyboard.
Teller: There’s a $250 minimum.
Me [incredulous]: What?
Teller: I can’t send $150. It’s $250 minimum.
Me: What? You’re telling me that right now, at the end of the first decade of the 21st Century, you, a major bank, can’t send $150 from my account to my friend’s bank account in the UK?
Teller: I can, but there’s a $250 minimum.
Me: And it will cost me $28 on top of that?
Teller: Yes
Me: So, let me get this straight: to send my friend $150 using my own banking service – the bank where I have had an account for over 30 years – I actually have to fork out $278 or you can’t do it?
Teller: Do you want to see the manager?
Me: Yes, I want to see the manager.
The teller goes and talks to a bald headed guy in another office (I can see them through a big glass window). He looks at me and goes back to some paperwork. He sees me see him look at me. The teller returns.
Teller: He’ll be with you in five minutes.
Me: What? I’m supposed to wait five minutes so I can make a complaint? In five minutes, I’m pretty sure I’ll have worked out another way to do this and you’ll have lost a customer. Does that concern you at all?
Teller: [Shrugs]
I leave. I drive home. I find that my friend has a PayPal account. I facepalm myself for not having thought of that in the first place. I transfer the money. It costs me nothing.
Later that day, when I’m doing some net banking, I log out of my account and am farewelled with this message:
Astonished? I think I can say that they completely fulfilled their service promise!
That’s my bank. Ever since some cleverclever graphics person decided to elide the two Ms in the bank name, forming what to my eyes is an N and an M, I amuse myself by reading it as “con mon wealth”. I have banked with them for 30 odd years, and have never changed because I reckoned all banks are the same (my business banker is Westpac who are equally pathetic). But in the past couple of years I’ve had some dealings with St George & have been impressed by the service, especially the helpful chaps on the phone. One reason I don’t change is that there are 3 CBA ATMs close by. Lazy, moi?
I hate to reveal that I bank with the least ethical bank in Australia, Macquarie, but there are good reasons why I turn a blind eye to their rapacious business dealings.
I have never had a fine for anything. Bounced cheque received by me, bounced cheque written by me (oops), overdrawing my account – any of the myriad things that other banks charge you $30 for. What I do get is a friendly phone call, pointing out the problem, and asking if I could please sort it out in the next couple of days.
And when I ring them with a problem, a real person answers the phone within 5 rings and they deal with my problem themselves. I have never been put on hold, or listened to a recorded message – in over 10 years.
There’s a reason their headquarters is known as “the Millionaire’s Factory.”
I hate banks . . .
Cissy Strutt:
What gives me the pips is this ‘DETERMINED to please, and possibly ASTONISH!’ bullshit. If they were really determined to please they’d take off all the rip-off charges and dispense with the crap about how long it takes to do things. (Bank people: we now all do transactions from our computers all the time. Weknow that when you hit the Enter key on your keyboard that the deed is done. If you are really determined to please us, stop with the 3 to 5 business days malarky for a start).
The Commonwealth Bank also now has this fucking annoying thing going where as soon as you walk in the door some unctuous greeter materializes in front of you and asks you how they can be of service. Mostly they can be of service by moving out of the way and allowing you to walk directly to the teller where you were headed. This is the kind of glitzy thing that businesses do in lieu of doing something that’s actually useful. It is all about ‘show’ and nothing about function.
(Oh – and I HATE the way they run the letters together in the logo too. Whenever I see it my brain can’t stop from ‘hearing’ it as if it’s being articulated by a moron. Commommommonwealth….)
Queen Willy: I have some of my business banking with Macquarie. I don’t know whether you can consider them ‘least ethical’. They just don’t care to hide it as much as the others. Read ‘Naked Among Cannibals and you’ll see what I mean.
Malach: Yeah. I guess I could have just posted that instead. If it wasn’t so fucking boring.
Atlas: Thanks for that. I wonder if it takes them 3 to 5 working days to make a transfer.
oh good, now I feel better. You should all swap to Macquarie.
That Astonishing Promise is now on a 5m high billboard at Sydney international Airport. Sorry I didn’t have time to take a photo, but I was too astonished.