Through the eyes of an Intern:

Recently I posted a blog, “Bank of Montreal Makes Banking Easy”, about a customer service problem I had with my bank and how they solved the problem. Unfortunately, that was only one side of the story.

Recap...  My bank charged me money they weren't supposed to resulting in a $42.50 Not Sufficient Funds charge and an unpaid phone bill. Due to the nature of my account, it was going to take 5-10 business days for the money to be returned to my account.

My cellphone bill is an automatic withdrawal so I went online and spoke with a customer service representative explaining the situation and confirming when they would attempt to remove the money out of my account for a second time. The Representative told me that it would be coming out seven days from the first attempt. I explained to her that the money would not be in my account at that time and asked if they could delay the payment a few days so I could avoid that ridiculously high fee from my bank again. She explained that automatic withdrawal dates cannot be changed. I understand that a policy is a policy and sometimes there is no way to change it, but I got the impression that she was giving me a quick answer to get rid of me. Later events made me realize my impression was most likely correct.

A week later, the cell phone company attempted to remove the money again. Needless to say, there was no money in my account. The bank was understanding when I told them of the situation and I was not charged their large fee. However, my cellphone still hadn't been paid! A week later I get a phone call from the company, asking if I could make a credit card payment. I told the agent I would prefer not to do that and asked if they could just add the amount on to my next bill. He said that would be fine but my automatic payment had been canceled so I wouldn't be charged a $25 fee for NSF. He explained I would have to set up a new automatic withdrawal. It was at this point that I began to think, if they can disable the automatic payment then why couldn't the Representative I chatted with in the beginning do that when I told her I would not have money in my account? It would have saved a lot of time.

Fast forward to my next bill, which ended up being $98. This meant that this month's bill is $66.45, since last month's was $31.55. I have never had a bill that high, so I went on-line to look at my invoice. Turns out they did charge me a $25 fee, despite the fact that I was told the reason my automatic payment was disabled was to avoid that fee.

I called the company and explained to the Representative on the phone what had happened letting her know that the bank acknowledges that it was their mistake. I asked if I could dispute the $25 charge. As it turned out, I finally had found someone helpful! She put me on hold for a minute, came back and said that yes, she could do that. She told me that my bill is now $73, which is still $10 higher then I believe it should be, but that is yet another story.

In the end, the phone company did step up and do what they had to do to make the situation right. They just made me work a lot harder for it.