Two bank stories crossed my reader this week. On the surface, both are posts from unhappy customers who happen to have blogs, although an important difference affects how the banks can respond. Dig just a little, and you'll also see that these bloggers have more than the usual visibility. Should that influence the banks' responses?
Bank of America
Seana Mulcahy tells how a bank merger started a chain of events that drained her account. It's a typical complaint post, except that Seana writes on a MediaPost blog, so she has an audience.
Months later I finally found a bank manager at the actual branch to help me. After pulling records, I was able to put it all together. Somehow I was being billed monthly for an account that was closed. It was a mortgage for a house I sold in May 2004. When BofA merged with Fleet, somehow my old mortgage payment got activated.
This is a fairly straightforward customer service complaint, which someone at Bank of America noticed and responded to in the comments in a little over seven hours. Now all they have to do is resolve the problem.
But what do you do when an expert criticizes your policies publicly?
AmSouth
Winn Schwartau doesn't like his bank's security policies, and he says so. After complaining to the bank for some time, he's written about it on his blog. Schwartau is a security consultant with a column in Network World, so it's safe to assume that he knows something about poor security:
Suffice it to say, for example, AmSouth uses SSNs as proof positive ID. I have bitched about this to them for 15 years... after all, it's just a nine digit number... but noooooo... AmSouth, in its infinite wisdom... (or should I say Regions) wants my nine digits to make it easier for ID thieves.Talking to the bank's security people, who apparently don't read Risks Digest, hasn't led to a change. Rather, the bank's response—before the blog post—was to ask him to take his business elsewhere. Schwartau's answer:
So, as I battle them, I will be posting bits and pieces of the conversations etc. from AmSouth, to keep you and others from being victimized as I have been.This post ranks just below the bank's own security page when you search AmSouth security. It ranks well for Regions bank security, too (Regions bought AmSouth). What will the search results look like as the series continues?
Will the bank even notice before the promised part 2?
Once they notice, how can the bank respond? This isn't a simple customer service complaint. It involves policies and systems that can't be changed overnight.
Should they engage?
I would argue for a fairly high-level contact with Schwartau and consideration of the issues he brings up. After all, the issue is in his field, and there's a good chance that he has a point. Ignoring him is unlikely to make him go away quickly, but a constructive dialog could redirect his energy to a positive resolution. AmSouth could view his post as a form of unsolicited consulting, however unwelcome.
Anyone want to argue that the bank should not try to engage him? What's the case against moving this topic from his blog to personal contact?
