Originally Posted by
urbansuite
I finally received my card! Short of a lengthy diatribe about the who and why, I will focus on the process as feedback. In essence, the nearly 2 month delay was due to a "computer glitch." Potato, potatoe. PM for details.
If you have any issue with BMO that has taken an extended period, you're better off NOT going "internal." By "elevating the issue" to the inept "supervisor(s)" (expletives eliminated), I endured an entire month of pure frustration.
Things were expedited upon filing a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. According to the folks at CFPB, consumerfinance.gov, the bank has a timeline which to respond to your complaint; your complaint is noted and tracked. Upon filing, I was contacted by none other than Wendy Velasquez, the contact posted by MIA. She was efficient and professional despite not having an immediate answer. She kept me apprised the entire time she researched it which eliminated the confusion and condescending demeanor of her previous contact at BMO. Who cares if she elevated the issue, she gets the credit for fixing it.
Thank you MIA for your advice. If anything this shows Wendy is doing her job, and in this case, with the help of the CFPB.
The card received is a chip and pin type but now we are still working on getting the PIN part of it (don't know why this is an issue) and restored online access.
Who knows if I'll keep the card going forward but this exercise shows how the BMO views this product. BMO is not an American bank, it is 1 of 5 major banks in Canada which control 90% of the market; do they really need to invest in stellar service? Without identifying other issues, the BMO Q4 report should also indicate strategy with the brand.
I would say that the profile of the average Diners Club user is a safe credit risk based on my research but are we really worth the resources and effort? One thing resonates for certain: Carry another card as a backup!
Wendy Velasquez has been my contact as well, and while she has been unfailingly polite, her responses have been mostly useless. Online access to my account was probably available weeks ago, if I had been able to speak to an actual IT person instead of clueless CSR's or a polished Executive Communications person like Wendy. Instead it took my sending screenshots of what I was seeing to get them to solve the problem, and tell me to re-register which is what I had been suggesting for weeks. The ultimate insult was today when I was offered 2,000 points in compensation ($13 or $20 depending on how you use it) and I hung up on Wendy. I then found surprising forfeitures in my Club Rewards so sent yet another screenshot and she finally told me she had "escalated" the issue. When I sent that I also copied the CEO and head of Corporate Cards mentioned in another post.
I'm embarrassed for the part of my family that lives in Montreal, including one who works in IT at BMO, but is not involved in the conversion.