Dear Big-Ass Bank,
Many years ago, we switched our accounts to you from one of your competitors because they had crappy customer service and you did not. In fact, your customer service rocked our socks off. Sadly, it has become clear that you're more interested in trying to grab customers from other banks than you are in retaining your existing customers. In fact, you are consistently engaging in extremely short-sighted "cost-cutting" practices while other banks are rejecting those same practices because they lose customers.
As an example, your phone menus. I should not have to be the Amazing Kreskin to figure out how to get to live human with my question that does not fit into any of your carefully thought-out categories. I can accept having to type in my account number before I get to that live human, but what the fuck is this "Telephone Access Code" you're now requesting? How come I didn't get a nifty brochure in the mail telling me all about it and how it would help keep my personal information safe from big bad identity thieves? Please don't expect me to believe that you care about the environment, because you don't hesitate to send me all sorts of paper and brochures about other items.
And since I've brought up identity theft, I have to say that while I appreciate the thoughtful tips you printed on the back of the paper that my new debit card came with, I feel compelled to point out that it does no fucking good when you insist on using Social Security numbers as default settings for access codes, PINs, and pretty much any other type of verification question you think up. Come on, seriously people -- the SSN is one of the main targets for identity theft precisely because you idiots (and your fellow idiots in the financial verticals) insist on misuing the SSN as identification. Have you ever even looked at a SSN card? It says right on there in big fat type that the SSN is not to be used for identification purposes.
No, I don't care if everybody else does it. No, I especially don't care if it's convenient. I'm the customer here, not you; your convenience is second to my security. By misusing the SSN this way, you and other banks (and the credit agencies, and insurance companies, and pretty much everyone else who feels obliged to collect my personal data) have guaranteed that bad people want to steal that number -- it's the key that makes comprehensive identity theft even possible. Congratulations, you scallawags -- you've made it more convenient for the bad guys to get to my financial data than you have for me.
Thanks for nothing, bank. Please be assured that we will be looking over our options. It's clearly time for us to part ways; this relationship is no longer working for us. And yes, it's totally you -- not us.
Sincerely,
Devin L. Ganger