Thanks, Chase

Thank you Chase, for making my blood boil with rage enough to finally achieve enough inertia to log in to my long lost blog and post some bile. I should also give a shout-out to the asshole driving the cab to my hotel last week in Boston because that idiot is to blame for starting this little mess in the first place.

Hi everyone!

Yeah, so, I get in a cab at Logan and this guy takes me to my stately suite at the Holiday Inn; $23.30, the total. I swipe my card, feeling a pang of guilt over being so lazy (I probably had the cash, but didn’t feel like digging through my wallet). Should have known.

I navigate the prompts on the screen, approving the sale and gather my things as the screen thanks me for my business and the receipt machine up front whirs and ticks satisfyingly. The cabbie tears off the receipt and studies it. I hand him a five spot. He looks at me like I have a penis coming out of my left ear and asks me “what is this”? I say it’s his tip, impressed with my restraint. He claims I didn’t pay for the ride, that the receipt is missing a confirmation code or whatever. My overwhelming thought at this time is that a receipt came out of the damned machine, and so I’m all done here. The cabbie claims different.

I explain I’m not paying twice; I swiped a card, a touchscreen thanked me for my business, the machine printed a receipt and I forked over five bucks cash that can go unclaimed on a tax return for chrissakes, dammit, I’m done.

The cabbie’s not having it; a debate ensues, in the parking lot of a crappy Holiday Inn, in Cambridge. I make some good points, while the cabbie calls the cops. As I stand there watching this kid pretend to call the police, I decide it’s not worth the embarrassment arguing over twenty bucks in front of a crappy Holiday Inn in Cambridge and swipe again. I take both receipts. The cabbie complains that I didn’t believe him. I said I did not. And tonight, tonight, a week after that incident, I check my bank statement, and there they are, two charges for $23.30, for a business I will not cite out of privacy concerns. Let’s call them “Assface Cab Company”.

Phase Two: we call Chase’s “customer support” number. I summarize the workflow to date, which has no resolution and is comical if you are not me.

Call 1:
“Thank you for calling Chase…”
(I enter account number)
(I wait)
“how can I help you…”
(I explain)
(typing is heard)
“Thank you mister googleametty, I’m sorry for da inconvenience, but as we transition your account to Chase from WAMU we are experiencing some system maintenance and the system is unavailable…”
(I explain that I have been on the phone with this idiot for several minutes and that she could have told me to simply call back when the “system” was “available”, she retorts with nonsense and says to call back in 30 minutes to an hour.)

Call 2, thirty minutes to an hour later:
“Thank you for calling Chase…”
(I enter account number)
(I wait)
“please enter your tax ID number”
(yes, that’s right, they asked me for my tax ID number)
“I’m sorry, I didn’t understand your entry…”
(I was cursing and yelling)
(I try hitting zero)
“Thank you for calling the service center. Our offices are now closed…”
(I verify that I called the same number as I called an hour ago, entering the same info, and then hang up)

Call 3:
“Thank you for calling Chase…”
(I enter account number)
“Please enter your four digit PIN…”
(OK, now I’m encouraged, because this is the prompt I got when I first called and spoke to the idiot; I enter my pin.)
“Thank you. For your checking account ending in 2938, your balance is $3,298; for your savings account ending in 9823, your balance is $728…”
(These are not my accounts, nor are the other ones I was given balances for. I hang up.)

So, that’s where we are at this point. God damn, I hate these people.

The upshot, as previously mentioned, is that I am posting again. Good lord, it feels good. My disdain for the general population simply can’t be explained in the construct of a Facebook status update.