BMO Harris Bank, You Stink

Working in the fields of hospitality and customer service has made me understand how stupid people can be. But on the opposite side of that, what happens when companies fail in their processes and in return fail on providing quality service to their customers. Recently I merged my bank accounts from a great local operation to a big giant in the market, BMO Harris Bank. I took the bait on a referral from a close friend and found myself in a financial representatives office a few Fridays ago. Since, I've trudge through a load of shit, and I still am having problems.

So let’s talk about what happened first. I was told that I would get checks and a debit card sent to my new residence. How happy I was that this highly professional business was quick and efficient with my application. After relaying information to the kind lady, I departed ways expecting items to be sent to me within the week. Well, a week and half went by. Finally, after my patience hit an end I called account support. Greeted by another friendly representative I kept a cool head, promising myself to stay optimistic. The phone representative let me know that my application was filed wrongly, leaving out a crucial piece of information: my unit number.

Here I am, dumbfounded that the words spoke from my mouth and confirmed by the financial rep who set up my application were missing without a trace. And no one called! No word that my application was flawed, or what was wrong with it.

My blood was boiling but I accepted the terms that the information would be fixed and I would receive a card soon. Well, come another week and boom, I have a card. Ready for card setup and pick my pin! I couldn’t; the initial application screwed up my phone number, so a temporary pin had to be sent to me. Tack on an additional 2–4 days. (At this point I’m just starting to feel like the BMO team is fucking with me.)

Days counted since application opened: 18, and I still cannot even get money from the ATM.

Now I know my sad, petty rant can be combated in a few ways. 1) Just go to the bank (oh wait its closed by 5 and not even open saturdays ). 2) Go online (oh wait, its been down all weekend). 3) Switch new banks (very much considering this). What disappoints me the most in this grand situation is that a highly sophisticated, world-wide company failed in its proceedings due to 2 simple application errors. Errors of which, had the end user (me) not called in to inquire about, probably would've been left unnoticed and uncared about. If I were a patient at the BMO Harris Hospital waiting room, I probably would've died without ever getting by temperature taken all because of simple input errors.

BMO Harris Bank, you get a D grade in customer service and account set up. Understand something as well, great customer service doesn't start when the problem comes to you, it begins with fixing it before it happens.