Comment by gib444
4 days ago
> "I don’t have a smartphone," is what I tell people and professionals nowadays
I did this today too. I happened to walk past a branch of my bank, and remembered my debit card is playing up due to wear-and-tear, so I popped in to order a replacement. I made the request and the first response was "do you have our banking app, you can do it on there?". "No".
It wasn't even busy.
(I also happen to have my mortgage with my bank, so paying quite a lot of interest to them each month...)
> I happened to walk past a branch of my bank, and remembered my debit card is playing up due to wear-and-tear, so I popped in to order a replacement. I made the request and the first response was "do you have our banking app, you can do it on there?". "No".
I switched banks over something similar.
I'd had an account with Wells Fargo (and before that with First Interstate before Wells Fargo bought them), dating all the way back to when I was a kid. I'd used that account for everything, for 20+ years, and kept all my assets in there.
I regularly went into the branch to do certain transactions, like making deposits or withdrawals, for any number of reasons. (This was long before you could do any kind of remote check deposit.)
And the teller decided to provide an overt reminder suggesting to do this via the ATM rather than talking to a teller.
That day, I requested a cashier's check for my entire balance, and went to another bank to put it in my account there.
What happens when you run out of banks, will you put your cashier’s check under a mattress? I’m old & get told what to do at banks all the time, but that’s no reason to change banks as it will just happen again at the new bank. My wife & I don’t have electronic banking & I wonder how long we’ll have tellers to help us. We’ve also had 2 branches close out from under us & force us to use less convenient ones nearby. We can’t change what’s happening in banking by running away, it will always catch up to us.
> What happens when you run out of banks
There are many, many banks and credit unions out there. Not all of them treat customer service as less important than whatever optimization they were trying to do.
Did you consider if they were trying maybe just to save you the trip/inconvenience in the future by informing you of something most people would be able to use?
Yes, of course. That would be more believable if it were a comment at the end of the transaction along the lines of "just in case you want to save time next time, our app has the feature"
But immediately responding before I've barely finished explaining why I'm here today is a real "fuck you, use the app and stop wasting my time" kind of message
That's the least charitable interpretation, most people aren't avoiding the app intentionally you have to adjust to the fact you're anomalous for not having a smartphone at this point.
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