the newest nemesis...

The latest in indignant pixie-penned letters to Corporate America!

pixiemartin
delirrealm
fourth floor
chicago, illin' 606xx-xxxx
TJX Visa account: xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx


Capital One
Attn: Customer Relations
PO Box 30285
Salt Lake City, UT 84130-0285

February 12, 2006

Dear Sir or Madam,

I apologize for the length of this letter in advance, but I am writing to express my disappointment and displeasure with treatment that I received from your Customer Service department this afternoon. I was ignored, hung up on, spoken to rudely, and generally very unprofessionally treated by several members of your Customer Service team.

This afternoon, I called your customer service department with the intention of closing my TJX Visa account. This isn’t because of anything that your company had specifically done, but mostly because I am trying to be more fiscally responsible, and closing the account figured into that financial plan.

After I was finally able to speak to an account representative, at approximately 2:30 pm this afternoon, I explained politely that I wanted to close my account, and when asked why I was closing the account, I told the young man that it was a financial matter, and planned to leave it at that. I suppose, understandably, that he wanted a more specific answer than that, so I told him I was paring down my credit cards, and that it was more beneficial to earn money on a low-interest card than to earn gift certificates on a high-interest card.

He then offered to give me a low interest rate and sign me up for a cash reward program. I politely declined, telling him that at this time, that I was only interested in closing my account.

I know that in the world of telemarketing and telephone-based customer service that there are certain requirements as an employee that one must meet, so as not to lose business for one’s employer. However, after the third or fourth time I had assured him that I still wanted to close my account, and that no further inducements could change my mind, he still continued to sing the praise of the card and detail the valuable features and whatnot that I still neither wanted or needed.

I also know that in the world of telemarketing and telephone-based customer service, there are scripts that one is suppose to read, and possibly memorize by rote after a while, offering a solution to whatever problem the customer has with a company. And as the young man continued to hard sell me on keeping the card, I politely told him that I realized that he probably had a certain number of attempts to be made before giving up, and that he had a script of some sort that he was sharing with me, but that I didn’t need to hear it, and that he could consider that specific refusal as the final “no” that his employers probably required.

Sounding deeply offended, he told me that he was most certainly not reading a script, and then proceeded with the praise singing and the valued feature detailing.

I politely cut him off, and told him once again that I did not want the card, and was only interested in closing the account, whereupon he continued to ignore me, and picked up in the exact spot that he had left off before I had interrupted him.

This eventually devolved in me saying, “No, thank you. I would like to close my account,” over and over and over again, while he ignored my request and continued to tell me everything wonderful there is to know about the credit card, your company, and the benefits of everything and anything that were attached to the card and your business.

After politely repeating that phrase at least 15 to 20 times, I stopped him, told him that I was getting irritated, and wanted him to either close the account, or let me speak to his immediate supervisor, so that I could have that person close the account.

He ignored me again, still trying to sell me the card, when I again asked for him to either close the account, or let me speak to his immediate supervisor.

His response was that he was the Account Representative in this situation, and that he had no immediate supervisor to whom I might speak. Essentially, it was talk to him or deal.

I asked him for his full name, and when he didn’t say anything, I repeated the request.

He then hung up on me.

This experience had gone on for at least 5-7 minutes, with me having actually said, “I want to close my account,” more often in that span of time than I have probably used the phrase in the entire rest of my life.

I do not know if his tactic was to wear me down until I decided to keep the card, or if he was just being obstinate. To whatever end, he only succeeded in irritating me.

I called the customer service number again, and after 5 minutes of button pushing and listening to the music on hold, I finally was able to speak to another representative, who told me that her name was Marilyn.

After answering all of her security questions, she asked me how I was doing, and I told her that I was irritated by an experience that I had just had with another representative.
She apologized profusely and said that she would do what she could to amend the situation, which I appreciated greatly.

She then asked me how she could help me, and I gave her an abbreviated rundown of the previous call’s events.

I told her that I had called to close my account, and that the representative ignored my repeated requests, instead only trying to interest me in keeping the account. That no matter how many times I requested that he close my account, he kept ignoring me.

She said something like, “Okay,” and I continued.

I told her that I realized that they were not only there to help with account issues, but to also keep the consumers using the cards, and that I understood, but was only interested in closing the account at this time. I went on to say that when I realized that the previous representative was not going to assist me, that I asked for a supervisor or his name, and that he had hung up on me.

She started to apologize, and I freely admit that I was a little abrasive at this point, but I told her that I just wanted to close the account.

She then said in a voice that clearly conveyed irritation and contempt, that if I could let her get the rest of my information, she would be happy to assist.

I said that was fine.

I was then told, in the same tone of voice, that they would normally try to establish a specific reason for closing the account, “…but at this point, I do not even care. So, I am just going to close the account.”

I was taken aback, but decided to just let it go, when she told me the account would be closed immediately, and hurriedly read me a disclaimer statement.

Then, in a very insincere, very sugary sweet voice, thanked me, and told me to have a very nice day, before hanging up.

Now, normally I guess I could chalk this up to it being a Sunday or something, and that the reps were tired and wanted to be at home instead of dealing with grumpy, irritating people, but I have experienced this level of discourtesy in the past from a representative of your company, which also ended up in me writing a letter.

In that letter, which I wrote October 21, 2002, I detailed how I had spoken to a representative that was rude, and had decided to write a letter instead.

I wrote in the letter that after the girl had been abrasive and rude, I asked her if she felt she was a good representative of your company, and this was how your company was going to treat its customers, I was going to be closing my account.

She snottily replied, “You can’t close your account until it’s paid off,” and then hung up on me.

In fact, I did close the account as soon as the balance was paid off, and swore to never give your company my business again. (Amazingly, I believe the person that actually closed the account was polite.)

And when I signed up for the TJX card, and then discovered it was a Capitol One card, I very seriously considered closing the account based solely on that. But, I gave your company another chance, and am now certain that not only am I going to never do business with your company again, but that I am going to very strongly discourage everyone that I know, or will know in the future, to seriously consider not giving Capitol One their business.

And trust me, a lot of people will hear about it.

I find it extremely ironic that in your advertisements, you have actors portray obnoxious customer service representatives at some other credit card company, abusing customers, while it is intimated that you don’t receive this sort of abuse from Capitol One.

Because every single time I have dealt with one of your customer service reps, I have been treated rudely and with extreme disrespect, I now find myself only inclined to deal with customer service representatives from any credit card company that isn’t Capitol One.

I hope that in the future, your company will consider hiring employees that exhibit the ability to politely interact with society, because the people you have now distinctly lack that skill.

pixiemartin

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(Actually, in retrospect, that might actually be the shortest indignant letter I've ever sent out.)