Tyranny at Home
Vadim Meller’s costume design for Najinski, 1919
AS I WALK down the lane of life it seems that more and more people and things are crowding me. I don’t like crowds.
Recently I did a favor for a friend and picked up a few grocery items for another friend. It cost me $13, for which the recipient immediately wrote a check. Into my wallet it went, where it lay uncashed and unthought of for several days. But eventually the time came for a look inside the wallet and I remembered. Instead of going to my bank’s ATM or drive-through, I would cash the check, which was drawn on First Citizens Bank.
Knowing the drill, I pulled up to the teller’s window. In her presence I endorsed the check and sent it, along with my driver’s license, through the pneumatic tube. “I’d like to cash that check, please.” After a pause, the box sqwauked back with a question: “Sir, do you have an account with us?”. No I didn’t, so the box instructed me that they would only cash the check from inside the bank.
Inside I went. Imagine my surprise when the teller “manning” the drive-through turned around to help me. The very same person! Struggling to understand why she required my presence inside the building instead of in my car, I asked the obvious question. The cursory reply was that the drive-through is a service for customers, and that the cashing of checks by non-customers is always done inside. The insinuation seems to be that either the person is trying to defraud the bank or that the bank wants to make the process so odious that the casher will not come back.
Well, they got it wrong on count one, but got it exactly right on count two.
If I may quote from the bank’s website:
The foundation of these values is integrity. To First Citizens Bank, integrity means focusing on the needs of each individual customer, not on mergers and acquisitions. And it means providing sound financial advice based on the customers’ needs, not ours. Our common sense approach to doing business comes from our century of experience. We know that listening to our customers is the first step in helping them achieve their financial goals and that no two customers’ needs are the same. We also value consistency, because consistency builds trust. Doing business the same way for more than a century means that customers trust that the bank we are today is the bank we’ll be tomorrow – and that’s important in building long-term relationships. (emphasis mine)
What a load of supercilious BS!
An empty drive-through at 10:30 on a Wednesday morning, a legitimate driver’s license with an address less than 1 mile away, a $13 check, and they want to hassle me!
I hope that teller got a good look at my backside walking out of the branch, because that is the last sight she will ever have of this potential customer….
Repirnted from ThusAgricola July 16, 2009
I worked at a bank. The main reason for doing this is the hope that they may snag a new customer—getting you in the door is the first step. All the banks seem to do this. (I experienced the same thing even when I had a handicap placard hanging from my rear view!) A management consultant must have thought this up. You’d think they would have figured out by now that we like banks that make things easier for us.
I love all your writings, keep them coming.