Today I experienced one of the tangible benefits of having moved my 86 year-old Mom's money. While making arrangements to move her to assisted living, we decided to move Mom's cash from Chase to the Meijers Credit Union. Mom worked for Meijers for years and we thought we'd get better service there. Two months later we've absolutely validated the decision.
When we opened the account we got her a debit card. She has dementia and we were doing everything possible to simplify money management for her. But, I was concerned that she'd have a problem remembering her PIN. So we picked a number I was positive she wouldn't forget.
Yesterday, I heard via my step-sister that they had gone shopping and the store's system wouldn't accept her PIN. I'm assuming the CU changed the PIN and probably notified her but that she had forgotten the new number. So, I went online looking for a way to reset the PIN but (no surprise) they don't let you do it online. I thought it was unlikely they'd respond, but I sent them a quick email explaining the problem.
Unbelievably, I got an email response this morning offering to reset the PIN and asking for the number. I responded immediately and, within ten minutes got a response saying that it was done!! Now, THAT is customer service!
Contrast that with the hours we spent with Chase on the phone just trying to get Mom's address changed. One of the reasons it took so long was that Chase generates their own (synthetic) "security" questions. They obviously crawl the web, collect data about their customers and fabricate questions like: "What make and model car did you drive three years ago?" My 86 year old Mom failed the security screen THREE times and we finally had to demand that a call center supervisor abandon their ridiculous process and change her address.
Move Your Money! It's worth the hassle.
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