Experiencing ETrade
Taking your customer service to the web doesn t excuse you from providing it
francine hardaway [Stealthmode Partners]
I have been an online trader of securities since I first found out that I could be – on AOL in the early to mid ‘90s. Back in the day, AOL had a service of its own; or at least a service it branded as its own. Perhaps it was called PCDirect; I’ve forgotten. All too soon, that service got sold to a securities firm, and that firm in turn got sold. Over the course of the ten years I had the account, started with my AOL screen name, about five different companies have owned this account.
Now it is owned by ETrade. And that’s where the nightmare starts. Some time back, Harris Direct (my account’s most recent domicile) was bought by ETrade, along with the usual assurances that nothing would change. Same great service, only improved. Indeed, nothing did change, except that I could withdraw money by having it transferred directly to my bank account. That constituted an improvement.
One day last week, because the end of the year had past, I logged into my account to see what my tax implications would be. That’s not interesting enough to report.
The very next day, I was reading something about energy EFTs and decided I wanted to buy one. I clicked on my Harrisdirect bookmark and was redirected automatically to the ETrade site; the Harrisdirect site had simply vanished overnight. It took me a moment to find the place to login. Then it took me a couple of seconds to find out that my login no longer worked.
I scrolled down to read the instructions for Harris customers, and clicked on the “help.” This word is in quotation marks for the sake of irony. The “help” site told me a “small number” of Harris customers had been given new login information. These customers would find the information on the first page of their welcome packets.
I never recall receiving a welcome packet, probably because I moved in November and either the post office didn’t forward it, or I didn’t read it when it arrived, thinking it was just another statement. I no longer keep those when they arrive in the mail, because I know I can download them from the web site. So I just shred them unopened. The more fool me.
I clicked on “contact us.” As usual in these cases, the contact page has an email link, but when I clicked on the link I was informed that I would have to log in first before I could email ETrade. Once again, I was reminded that my log in information was in the welcome packet.
Although I hate doing this –it’s a recipe for depleted cell phone batteries, extra minutes, and frustration –I called the toll-free customer service number. I have grown to know the lady who answers these toll-free numbers quite well; she answers at a surprising array of numbers I dial. She’s the IVR lady. She usually tells me to say or press something, and often tells me she couldn’t understand what I just said and asks me to repeat it.
This time she asked for my account number, and then told me I couldn’t use the automated systems because I had to log in to the web site at least once before I was eligible to do so. The IVR lady promised to connect me to a representative.
Promises, promises. Now I know how men feel about women. The IVR woman was lying. I held for over thirty minutes, listening again and again to how important my call was to ETrade, before I had to hang up and go into a meeting. Afterwards, analyzing what my mistake had been, I realized that I had called on the day after the changeover, and that they were probably deluged by the “small number” of Harrisdirect customers whose log-ins had changed.
I determined to change my strategy and bide my time.
Four days later, I woke up in the middle of the night. It was about 3 AM the morning of Martin Luther King Day. The markets would be closed. Even on the East coast it was only 6 AM. I thought I knew my moment.
Once again, I dialed the “customer service” number for “help.” The friendly IVR lady asked me for my account number, assured me that my call was important, reminded me that I needed to log in on the site at least once before I was eligible to use the automated phone services, and cheerfully placed me on hold.
I reached for the remote and turned on the TV, a rerun of Larry King interviewing James Frey.
When I awoke, with the Bluetooth headset still in my ear on the pillow, it was daylight, and the phone battery was dead. The mendacious IVR lady had deceived me again. I’ve decided to resort to that time-honored strategy, snail mail, to close my account. If I can find a two cent stamp.`
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