Against my better judgement, I divulged that most of my accounts were at TD Canada Trust on twitter today. I didn’t say where my home branch was, but if you’re following me on Twitter, it’s pretty easy to figure out what city I live in, etc.
TD Canada Trust
The reason I divulged this information was because of a screw up from the bank. I’ve been a long time customer with TD, my entire immediate family deals with them, and my mother has a very strong relationship with this particular branch. Unfortunately, that relationship doesn’t extend to family members. I understand this, and since I do 99% of my banking online, it doesn’t bother me too much.
So why the rant on Twitter? Well, back in April, an Registered Retirement Savings Program account matured with a small amount of money it – $500ish. I received a call from TD’s call centre, asking me how I’d like to process the maturity. I opted to have it paid out, thinking I could use the cash to pay for tuition and books, or just to save it up in my rainy day fund. Thinking it was done and dealt with, I anticipated the smallish deposit. Come May, I hadn’t seen anything deposited into my account. I gave TD Easyline a call to find out what had happened. They said that they sent out a bank draft, but didn’t specify where – and I didn’t get the chance to ask. A few weeks later, and still not having seen anything – and also having gotten laid off – I started to panic. I called Easyline again, explained the situation, and they transferred me to my home branch. Someone from the home branch said they’d look into it and call me back within the hour, but I never heard anything from them.
Fast forward to today, when I FINALLY had time to physically go to the bank and demand to know where my money was. I waited 15 minutes for someone to help me, and when no one approached me, I approached the help desk myself. I finally got them to launch a formal investigation to find out where my money was and all was fine.
Now, I realize that I could’ve sped things up a bit by going to the branch a lot sooner and also by not relying on online banking alone. The problem with online banking is that I got too comfortable with being able to control almost every aspect of my accounts without having to go to a teller. Without the human connection, I wasn’t able to build rapport with the tellers and employees at the home branch, and without that rapport, I knew I wouldn’t be able to have them speed things up.
So what were the lessons I learned today?
- Build rapport and trust… IN PERSON
Not only will it help you out in the long run, but it’s always good to have a friendly face in a place you do business in, especially if it has to do with money. If they know you, they’re more likely to help you over the guy that does everything online. (ahem) - Don’t rely on online communities
Now, this one’s debatable because I’ve seen online communities pull through and do amazing things, but in this particular case, I would’ve sped things up a lot faster if I had just gotten off my lazy butt and gone down to the branch. - Be proactive
Being proactive is key to Getting Things Done. If I had just sat at the branch waiting for someone to approach me to help, I would never have seen anyone. If you don’t speak up, if you don’t ask for help, you won’t get things done.
Now I have to wait a week to see what the investigation turns up. That $500 may not seem like a lot, but it’ll certainly go a long way for this starving college girl.
