Everyone knows I have very little patience for complete idiots. Why do you think I am a hermit? I hate people! Regardless, I still have to deal with people on a daily basis even if I wish most of them would rush home, swallow 50 small foil balls, and then chug a 48 fluid ounce bottle of The Works toilet bowl cleaner. It makes my day go faster if I envision that at least several dozen times when I am out in public.

Anyway, this past week I was trying to purchase a motorcycle, but didn't have enough funds on hand to cover the costs, so I decided to turn to my bank. Even though my credit rating is about a pristine as Nick Nolte on a binder, I decided to give it a go and see what happened. Needless to say it ended in complete and total failure, but I did get an article out of it and you can now see the letter I wrote to my financial institution after the botched attempt. The only thing changed in the letter is the name of the bank, the name of the city it resides in, and the name of the city I reside in. Other than that it was emailed as is. Check it out:

Financial Institution,

I am writing to complain about the service I have received at my local branch in this city. I applied for a loan last week online and was directed by the website that I would be “contacted shortly” about my loan, but if I had any questions about the loan I could call my local branch to find out the status or keep checking the website. I checked the website all weekend and didn’t see the status change, but I didn’t expect it to since I figured the loan department was probably not conducting it’s business on weekends. On Monday I patiently waited for a call or status change on the website and did not receive a thing. I then decided the “contacted shortly” statement on the website was rather ridiculous when I had to call Tuesday and see what the status of the loan was.

I spoke to Ryan at the Local branch on Tuesday. I gave him my name and told him that I wanted to know the status of my loan. He said he couldn’t find my loan application on file at all and said Julie, who was handling my loan, was with a customer and she would call me “right back”. Evidently there is a time paradox between my house in my city and the Local branch of the Financial Institution because I never received a call back on Tuesday, nor did I get a voicemail letting me know they had tried to call.

On Wednesday I called the Local branch and spoke with Jeff. He said they had found my loan application and David was handling my loan, but he was not in the office on Wednesday. Jeff said he would have David call me as soon as he got in at 9am on Thursday morning. I said okay and scheduled off from work so I could be home to receive the call.

Thursday morning at 9am comes and goes. I still have not had 1 phone call concerning this loan from the Local branch of the Financial Institution, nor has the status of my loan been updated on the website. Not only have I not heard anything at the time scheduled, but I am now also missing work to receive this phantom call that has never been made. I called the Local branch at 10am and spoke with Jeff. Jeff said David was with another customer but I could leave a message. I told Jeff I didn’t have all day to wait by a phone for this call to be made so he transferred me to David’s phone.

David answered, which shocked me, and said that initially my loan had been declined and he didn’t want to call me and tell me because sometimes when they are evaluating the application someone might have reported something silly to the credit bureau and I may have still been able to get the loan. I asked him what I needed to do and he said he needed to call and ask them why the application was declined because I have good credit and I have a good standing with the bank. I told him that was fine and he said he would call me back. I told him I didn’t want to wait by the phone all day, I already knew how these call backs worked, so he said he would call me back within 30 minutes.

I waited by the phone for an hour and still David had not contacted me about this loan. It was then that I theorized that somehow the Financial Institution had tapped into a wormhole in the fabric of space and time and was actually not able to make the call because they were in a different reality. Finally, after an hour, I called back in and still had not once received a call from the Financial Institution regarding my loan. I spoke with Jeff again and he tells me the elusive David is with someone else yet again. Jeff said he would have David call me “right back” but I now understood that “right back” means “when hell freezes over”, so I gave him my number, yet again, and waited to be lost in the sands of time as Financial Institution’s dimension slowly slipped further away from the fabric of Earth reality.

David called me back in 3 minutes, the first time anyone at Financial Institution had even attempted to call me, and I thought the world might possibly be ending since I heard his melodious voice on the other end of the phone. He started asking me all of these moronic questions about the loan, which I had answered on the loan application, and asked me what the loan was for, when it was stated clearly on my application. Once he found out I was trying to take out a loan for a secondary vehicle he stated that they didn’t give out secondary vehicle loans, like I should have already known that, but I am obviously not as intelligent as David because I don’t do “Mad-Libs” at work instead of my actual job. I was shocked because that is exactly what my loan application had stated this loan was for and yet I was forced to sit for an entire week because David didn’t want to call me and tell me I was declined. Actually, I was pretty amazed that David called me at all because I thought he might have been illiterate or possibly drunk since he had obviously not even looked over my application.

I am not upset or mad that I was declined for the loan. I am upset that after numerous calls and promises I couldn’t get a call back or a straight answer from anyone at the Local branch. This matter could have easily been dealt with in 1-2 business days instead of not calling me because I might be able to get the loan. This is by far the worst customer service I have received anywhere. No call backs, broken promises, broken teleconference times, and all because David couldn’t read his watch or comprehend the written language of “English”. So instead of hiring slack-jawed warlocks to handle loans you might want to try someone with a high school education that can at least understand the concept of time and know how to push 11 digits into a telephone keypad, but maybe that is 12 digits if you have to dial “9” to get an outside line and then I could easily see you hiring a college drop out.

LaVarious

So there you have it. The above letter was sent to the financial institution's corporate office and I am now awaiting an amazing call back, or so they say. I think the bank has somehow convinced Doctor Emmitt Brown to construct a mega-flux capacitor in their vault so they can contort time and space to their greedy ends. Before you know it I will be stealthily diving through their front lawn trying to get back the Sports Almanac. I will keep you updated or send a letter if I find myself back in Old West Hill Valley.

 

-LaVarious
10-23-04