Jam Jam, Bitches

Mr. Palagiano,

My name is Christopher Brian Devinney and I will soon no longer be a customer of Dime Savings Bank.  Rather than having you hear my reasons through a third party source, I think you should hear directly from your soon to be former customer.  If you don’t care what I have to say then my decision to leave Dime will be the right one. If you want to salvage this relationship then I do expect to hear from you and within the next 24 hours. That doesn’t mean that I will stay with Dime but it will show me that you, the CEO of the institution to which I have trusted my meager funds will actually, pardon the obscenity, give a shit.

I will start off my saying that I have worked as both a phone customer service rep and in the banking world for many years.  Yes, it may have been 6 years since I worked at a financial institution, but I also know the glacial speed at which banking laws and rules change.  I left Citibank because of the insane fees they wanted to impose on my checking account but given what I have gone through since I made that shift makes me question that I made the right choice in banks.

1) I deposited a check into my account a few days after opening my account.  After seeing the check stay in a pending status and never hit my available funds, I went to the branch on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint only to learn for the first time that you were going to hold that check for up to two weeks. No one told me this when I opened my account. If I had known, I wouldn’t have deposited the check at all. 

2) I deposited ANOTHER check that was returned to me via mail. The rep who called me indicated that the check was being returned as the name on the check did not match my account. While this is true as my middle name, Brian, which I go by was on the check and not Christopher, the reason I was given did not match the paperwork I received with the check which said it was being returned to me as it was DOUBLE ENDORSED.  Not true at all.

3) I was to receive a wire from my employer for my wages. To confirm that wiring rules hadn’t changed, I called into your phone line and spoke to Employee X.  I apologize as I don’t remember exactly which name he went by when I called.  I was advised by this rep that the funds from that wire would be available within 1-2 business days - totally contrary to what I had experienced not only with Citibank but my own personal banking knowledge.  I then called my local Greenpoint branch who told me the money would be available the next day.  I finally had to call your branch in Astoria.  The first person I spoke with wanted to refer me back to the customer service line and when pressed on the issue, finally confessed she had no idea what the right answer was. I finally had to get to her branch manager on the line where she said it should be available when it hits my account.  THREE SEPARATE ANSWERS FROM THREE PEOPLE. I don’t even include the rep who didn’t know the answer BUT SHE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN!  Finally, I called your main branch at Havemeyer and got confirmation that the branch manager in Astoria and myself were right.  Why did I have to go through all of that misinformation? Are your employees not trained properly?

4) Yesterday, after another round with your Greenpoint branch where even I admit I lost my cool and I called them some names I probably shouldn’t have, I finally had to call around to learn I needed to speak with Employee Z in Branch Management.  Whatever faith I had in your bank was DESTROYED in this call.  Mr. Keyes seemed to know nothing about the process for depositing checks that did not have 9 digit ABA routing numbers, the fees involved, or the time it would take for such checks to clear (a whopping 4-6 weeks!). Whenever I had to call a client back I made sure I knew EVERYTHING i needed to know before I picked up the phone. When I asked him another question that after approximately three calls to the back office to get an answer, I didn’t even given him a chance to answer. I told him to go ahead and call the back office because it was clear he didn’t know anything.  I would have been better off speaking to the back office than to him.

So…when that check takes it damn sweet time to clear and get into my account and as I sit here wondering what the hell I am going to tell my landlord if and when my rent check bounces because this check is going to take almost two months to clear I will have already decided what I am going to do with my money and what bank I will be moving to because after those four instances I dare you to give me a reason to stay with Dime.  

I *do* expect a response.  I expect that response by phone AND in writing.  I want to know what went wrong, why it went wrong, what you are going to do about it, and why I should even bother staying with a bank whose workers gave me THREE separate answers to one question and one employee who couldn’t even answer questions about his own bank’s practices yet he is in charge of branch management..  I know I can’t be the only customer of Dime who has had these problems but I bet I am the only customer who has taken the time to find your email and pen you this letter detailing what they have had to endure - misinformation, wrong answers, and employees who don’t seem to know their jobs.  As of right now I have NO faith in your bank.  NONE.  If anything, I am a case study in how to LOSE a customer. I’ll even volunteer to sit down with your employees and tell them how they fucked this one up and hard.  I apologize for the profanity again but to mitigate or diminish how badly the messed up in this case would be a disservice to you.

I can be reached via phone at 212.36x.xxxx or at 347.94x.xxxx. ll leave my address at the close of this email. I will be posting this email (with some parts redacted to protect the guilty) to my Tumblr account so I can track how long it takes you to respond.  I will be emailing you DAILY until I get a response because of all people, I hold you as accountable for their mistakes as I do them.  

The next action is yours, Mr. Palagiano.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Christopher Brian Devinney