Background… My wife has and uses an eBay account. You may recall that eBay got hacked a few weeks ago and encouraged their users to change their passwords. When she tried to reset her password the site said, "We’re too busy, try later." In order to protect the checking account attached to her eBay account she attempted to remove the checking account from the eBay account. The notice from eBay indicated that a form of payment could not be removed while a transaction was pending. You can guess she made no such transaction so it follows that one of the eBay hackers was using her account. What to do…?

I called our bank and requested that they put a “deny access” to any PayPal and/or eBay request for payment. It was our attempt to prevent the bank from funding a fraudulent purchase. Now the point…

The “customer service” guy at the other end of the phone wants to know upon which transaction I wished to place a stop payment?

Me: No, I explained again, not a stop payment but a deny access order.

Bank: We have to have a specific transaction.

Me: We don’t have the transaction details. EBay claims a transaction is in progress and we did not initiate the transaction.

Bank: If you don’t want a stop payment the only thing you can do is to dispute the transaction when it posts.

Me: I don’t care what you want to call it, I don’t want a fraudulent transaction to post to my account.

Bank: OK we’ll call it a stop payment and hope that works. There will be a stop payment charge to your account…

Me: Not acceptable. May I speak to a supervisor?

Bank: Yes but I should tell you the supervisor will tell you the same thing. That’s all we have.

Me: Thanks but I don’t want to carry this discussion forward with you. May I speak to a supervisor please?

Bank: OK but you’re gonna hear the same thing.

Of course the supervisor apologized and 4 minutes later places the “deny access” order at no charge. Problem’s ROOT CAUSE…

Bank management does not empower the staff to “think” and look for a solution. It would have been simple for the customer service clown to say, “I can’t do that let me get a supervisor who can help”. Instead he felt empowered to argue with the consumer. Management has an obligation to set a solutions oriented culture that provides a superior experience for the consumer. Don’t foster this culture and you get customer service reps (sales people) who feel empowered to argue with consumers as opposed to providing thoughtful solutions. Sales? Faghettabowtit.