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Fleet - Customer Service

Orianna of Battle Creek, MI, writes: (2/13/01):
Fleet left me feeling unworthy, unvalued, and without belief as a consumer and as (now former) card member. January 2001 I paid my bill by telephone with a customer service rep. All this entailed was giving them my checking account information and having them pull the amount I requested from my account just like a personal check. They posted the payment to my account, charged me the $10 fee and sent my February billing.

On Monday February 12, 2001 I received a letter from Fleet stating my check had been returned by my financial institution and they were assessing me a returned check fee. Also that evening my husband received a call from a rather rude man from Fleet about the situation. As I was not home, he told them I would call back. That evening I called my financial institution to find out why I had not heard anything about a returned check from them. The computer stated that check never had been cashed nor had it been returned NSF. The following day, I received a phone call from Fleet again, this time it was a computer recording stating this matter needed attention.

I called at 5:40pm that evening. After being transferred and disconnected, I called back and after explaining my situation several times I was transferred five different times between, very rude people and departments. Finally I received an answer from an account specialist that the account number was invalid. However, she was willing and anxious to get my OK to run the check through again. I have heard from various consumers and financial institutions that this "transposing" of numbers is a common thing for credit card companies. They change the number, then tell you it won't go through. In the meantime they tack on past due fees, transaction fees, processing fees, etc. Well, this is what was happening.

She then told me she would have to check with a supervisor in order to waive the extra fees. I told her, I shouldn't have any fees. She came back to the phone told me her supervisor OK'ed the waiving of the fees all except for the $5.00 fee they needed to charge me to run the check through again. However, she said, "you may mail in the payment". I told her, "then are you going to consider it late and charge me a late fee again?" She stated, "no". I asked her "why are you only charging me $5.00 now and when I made the payment on time before, it was $10.00. She stated, it's $10 for on time customers and $5 for past due customers. She agreed with me that didn't make sense, just stating that's just the way Fleet does it.

After I decided to mail in the payment, I asked her to relay my feelings about how the situation was handled to her supervisor. She insisted I could speak to her myself. I agreed and she transferred me to who I thought was a supervisor. I ended up back down at customer service who then transferred me to another rep who then transferred me back to an account specialist who then transferred me finally to a "supposed" supervisor. And this was the end. A man named Dave answered with such disgust in his voice; "this is Dave, can I help you?÷ I asked, "is this a supervisor?" He responded with a "yes, can I help you?" I stated, "do you realize I have been on hold waiting for you for 12 minutes?" He completely ignored my question, so I restated myself. He came back with this response. "Listen, if you want to start off on the right foot let's get rid of the sarcasm." I said "are you serious? Oh my god! And you are a supervisor?" His response was, "OK, you know what, why don't you hang up and call back when you are in a better mood". Then he hung up the phone on me. I was so astounded by the treatment I had just received I couldn't speak.

As a professional who works for one of the largest insurance companies in America, I wouldn't even dream of speaking to one of my customers that way, even if someone were belligerent to me. There are appropriate ways to handle certain types of situations. My mood at the beginning of the conversation was pure innocence to let someone know how things are being handled. I had no intentions of ending my account with Fleet. I assumed it a simple mistake and wanted it corrected without hassle. These people need not be getting money from us consumers in any way, shape or form. They should not even be working with the public. I encourage everyone who is considering a possible account with Fleet, study consumers past experiences with this company.

Rene of Brooklyn writes (2/27/01):
I received a promotional balance transfer rate for a new credit card from Fleet Bank. I sent it in with my Chase balance and was approved. Fleet Bank supposedly sent a check to Chase to pay my $4000.00 balance and I would pay off Fleet and no longer have a Chase balance. This started in Aug 2000. To this day Chase has not received payment from Fleet and Fleet is sending me a $4000.00 credit card bill as well as Chase.

According to Chase, the payment sent from Fleet had the wrong account number on it. When I requested a copy of the check from Fleet they assured me I would receive it in 7-10 Business days. Two weeks later when I called back because I never received a copy of that check I was told that the payment was electronic so there was no hard copy. I have been completely jerked around by these people for over 6 months and I believe this is unfair. This has been on going since Aug of 2000 and everytime I call Fleet to check status they have the nerve to tell me "It's under investigation."

I explained to them that this is ludicrious and in the event that the payment was applied to another account they should have issued my Chase Mastercard with another payment and then investigated the other payment for customer satisfaction. There should be no reason why this has taken so long and they just keep telling me their sorry for my inconvience. So as it stands I am receiveing two bills in the amount of $4000.00 and more due to accumulating finance charges. I now am outstanding with Fleet due to the fact that I have never sent them a payment and will not until this matter is resolved.

My credit has now been demolished and I am in debt over $8000.00.

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