by: John Hyche
Is that service?
My sister recently sold her house. Like most folks in that situation, she had big plans for the sales proceedsthat required rather quick action to make all the transactions flow smoothly.Thinking ahead (she’s always been one to worry about what’s beyondthe horizon), she called her credit union to ask about their funds availability policy.
She thought this was a question best posed to the member services department and called them. What happened next falls into that “truth is stranger than fiction” category.
Sis called during normal hours and got a friendly member service representative on the line. She asked, “When will my funds be available from a very large deposit if I make the deposit tomorrow afternoon?” Sounds pretty straight forward, right? Then came the bewildering answer, “I don’t know. That’s really a question for the tellers.” The advice continued, “Just bring the check in and they’ll tell you how much you can have.” Is that service? It’s certainly not the answer my sister expected; it’s a non-answer at best. Not only was the member service representative unable to clearly address the question, there was no referral to someone who could provide an answer during the phone call.
Realizing that she’d stepped in a quagmire of ineptitude. My sister called back and was able to get instructions for wiring the funds rather than risk a funds availability problem because the credit union couldn’t articulate their policy.