tales from the financial front

[denise]

While mark has been in PayPal hell these past two days, I've been in bank hell.

See, when we opened up our bank account, I specifically asked if there'd be any problems using the Visa check card for large-ticket purchases. Like, for instance, our hosting services. The account rep said sure, no problem, it's all good.

Fast-forward to us having moved the hosting payment over to the check card. Cue payment failing. Cue us talking to the bank and discovering there's a previously-undisclosed limit of $2500 a day in charges. Cue mark spending Tuesday on the phone with them to get them to raise the limit, and them agreeing.

Cue the payment failing again on Wednesday morning.

So I spent much of yesterday yelling at the bank (* note: i do not actually yell at banks, I just get very quiet and very stubborn), on the phone (* note: phones are evil), only to discover (* note: and by 'discover' i mean 'finally drag out of them after several hours of bouncing around their call center') that when they'd agreed to raise the limit on Tuesday, what they actually meant was that they wouldn't raise the limit at all (* note: and by 'wouldn't raise the limit at all' i mean 'either permanently or just for this one charge, despite having been assured all along that they could raise the limit for one charge').

Guess we're putting the hosting bill on my personal credit card again this month while we wait for the decision on the actual business credit card we've applied for :P

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Comments

[abyssinia]

oh god.

I'm amazed you haven't developed the power to make people's heads explode from the power of your mind out of sheer frustration.

[denise]

If I had that power, there would be headlines daily.

EXPLODING HEAD PLAGUE BAFFLES POLICE, DOCTORS

[niqaeli]

D: That's a kind of epic amount of fail, there, jesus.

[rydra_wong]

Aaaargh.

[brewsternorth]

Oy, that's messed-up indeed. And, not to get overly political here, but it seems to me that the enemies of small business aren't necessarily always overly-large governments, but can also be overly-large and in particular overly-incompetent financial companies. Hope this can get sorted out in time!

[denise]

Most financial institutions I've found are geared to either individual accounts or large-business accounts. The small business owner gets dicked around constantly.

[sara]

*sympathizes* Are they also putting two-week holds on large deposits? Because those are awesome. (Especially when the large deposit is drawn on, say, the state government. *sigh*) And it totally takes that long to check the balance on an account, in this day and age....

[reginagiraffe]

*points to icon*

Yours to command.

[florahart]

*uses related icon because can*

[reginagiraffe]

Hee!

^5's

[elizaria]

*headdesk*

Sometimes I'm conviced that banks' rulebooks are written with a lot of () that say things like "we agree to this" (but only if ...and perhaps not even then) and "we'll fix that" (ooops, we forgot to tell customer..maybe they won't notice) and it ends with "lie lie lie to the customer, just get more customers"

You must have a lot of patience stacked up, necessity based if nothing else.

[hkellick]

Well that's mildly annoying, and by mildly I mean head-banging-against-the-keyboard annoying.

[kaki]

Unfortunatley, not everyone is as awesome and customer-friendly as you guys. What a shame.

Perhaps threatening them to move your credit card and account elsewhere might help ...?

[ratcreature]

Wow, that sucks. No wonder so many new businesses are failing early on, the owners are driven into insanity and/or homicidal rage...

[phoenixsong]

ARGH. Which is why I like the idea of small, locally-owned stuff in theory, but am also kind of wary of it. Hello, you're a business, what did they think you'd be doing with the account?

I feel I ought to send you something nice

[baggyeyes]

Are you a coffee drinker, or a tea drinker?

[ouri]

That bank needs some serious smackdown.

As someone who also hates conducting business over the phone, you have my sympathies.

[dunvi]

Ow. And I thought my passport application sucked. I dunno if it'll make a difference to you, but my mom always used AmEx for her business card.

GOOD LUCK

[serenity]

Second this! And it's a great way to rake in those reward points! >:3

[ilyat]

I'm not sure if it's helpful or not, but the state dept I work for uses a Bank of America issued Visa card. I've a $5k transaction limit/day (max for my position), and I know that there are exemptions that can be made for certain cardholders that raises it to something like $50-100k transaction limit/day, intended for large contracted projects.

[lassarina]

Oh good grief. What idiocy :(

*lends Ashelia Dalmasca and her bad-ass beating stick to the cause?*

[msilverstar]

I've heard enough horror stories, I don't believe a word unless I get it in writing :-/

That said, is it specifically a business account? They are different from personal ones.

[purpletigron]

Indeed. Always take names, too - "I spoke to X-Y on day Z" .

[zarhooie]

Burn with fire.

[adalger]

1) I second the notion of threatening to take your business elsewhere.

2) Will Hosting Company accept some other kind of bank-to-bank fund transfer -- e.g., wire transfer?

3) Will Hosting Company accept some payment schedule other than monthly to allow the transactions to be smaller, working around the per-diem limit?

I recognize none of these is anything you should have to do, but I tend to think in terms of finding solutions that work within current limitations as interim measures until The Right Answer can be implemented.

[cloverdew]

I'm so sorry. That really sucks.

I really think that threatening to take your business elsewhere is good, but if you want to get their attention, you should talk to the manager of the branch and ask for his/her boss (the regional manager or even go higher... go as high as you have to) to talk things out. If you don't get a definitive answer IN WRITING that says they will be able to handle your needs, threaten to take the entire account to another bank asap.

I hope you get things resolved soon.

[brewsternorth]

*nods* It took kicking the issue upstairs, pretty much to the corner office so to speak, to sort out some bank-related shenanigans that happened to some people I know...

[afuna]

ARGH. I would send you a non-sucky bank if I could.

*sends thoughts of chocolate, instead*

[uisdanna]

your forbearance is awesome! though i will be watching for those headlines.

[john]

Hey, maybe you could pay them with Paypal. *ducks*

[rainbow]

Good lord.

Your bank needs whacking.

Many vibes headed your way.

[twistedchick]

I am so sorry.

::looks over stack of walking stick and hiking staff for suitable shelelagh for you to use for bank-whacking::

[mutantenemy]

Wow, your frustration is reminiscent of mine when I had to deal with Bank of America a few months ago. They screwed me over so royally, I closed my account after being with them for nine years.

B of A = ASSHATS

I hope you guys will be able to work things out. In the meantime, THANK YOU for the awesome job you're doing here.

[luludi]

Oh, man.... I fucking HATE Bank of America.

And, Denise, you need this today *points to icon*

[jenrose]

I took my business elsewhere from BofA. They dicked me around on "free" checking and I went to US bank and have never regretted it.

[florahart]

...wow. Not. Okay. Fail, bank. A lot. I suppose there's something to be said for having good personal credit, anyway, so that you can put all this on your own card? Not that it's not still extremely irritating, just, you know, at least it's not making anything screw up in irretrievable ways.

*sends cookies*

Also, it occurs to me that it's probably just as well you've instituted a practice of sticking that note down at the bottom of all your posts, or some clever soul would probably put 16 support requests here and then you would develop the ability to make heads explode.

[honeyelle]

Money people suck. I'm so sorry you guys are having so much trouble. :(

[elmyra]

You have my sympathy. I currently yell at banks for a living, but I have the advantage of being backed up by a large multinational corporation.

[serenity]

I somehow think I would have fun at your job. But probably also not last long.

[zvi]

What I hate the most about a failure like this, where the account representative/uninformed call center people tell you that you can do something you cannot do, is that it means you have not spent time working on a solution they actually are willing to implement.

Also, why do they not give their call center people a giganto book of Limits We Actually Impose On Our Accounts? So the call center people can Not Lie to you.

[luludi]

Or my personal favorite, which is the complete and total lack of responsibility that banks claim when one of their representatives tells you something completely wrong (often, more than once)... and in the process royally screws any and all plans which depended on said wrong information.

Asshats..

[wednesday]

Sometimes I think the financial industry doesn't really want to have money to be capitalist with. They want those little rubber floggers with the steel handles and the stabbing.

[amokk]

I hate institutions. I get the same bullshit with financial aid at my university. One person says one thing, call back later someone else says something completely contradictory, talk a third time (to a third person) and get a completely different story yet again.

And I just thought, "well, my bank X isn't that bad, I don't think" then realized that was who they were like, 2-3 bank buyouts ago.

I think they're actually told "if you don't know the answer, just say yes to the customer, they'll figure it out if it doesn't actually happen."

[alitalf]

I wonder if there is an organisation on your bit of planet equivalent to the Federation of Small Businesses that we have in the UK. It is helpful for freelance workers (like me) on upwards.

An equivalent organisation might, for example, have access to a range of pre-negotiated business accounts that are actually suitable for a business that is not a multinational giant.

Failing that, ask the person on the phone if they could refer you to a bank that actually *wants* the business.

[jenrose]

That's the point at which I start calling around, find a bank that can put in writing that I can get what I need, and go to the bank in question and close the account.

My husband was treated shabbily once at a bank when starting an account.

He walked in a few months later with a 100k check, and said, "This is the deposit you're not getting because you treated me badly when I had a 1k account.

Seriously, that is so unacceptable. You've done six figures worth of business! You are not small potatoes! They need to start doing a little less manual reading and a little more ass-kissing.

[ardhra]

Argh, what a bunch of useless jerks!

Hope your credit rating is okay after all this charging. Noticed that the seed account sale is going okay, so hopefully you'll be able to be reimbursed.

You guys rock!

[kayloulee]

Holy shit, what complete and utter sons of bitches. WOW.

I just bought a year's worth of paid time - thank you for getting the credit card payment system up!

[ryan]

I'd ask which bank it is, so I could avoid them, but I try to avoid banks in general anyway. =P