bringo me a pulse

July 16, 2008

this is a great attempt to cut down the phone trees. what is a phone tree you may ask? well when you call an 800 number you usually have to punch of bull shit in order to get someone on the phone. as you venture into different branches of the system you are successfully climbing the tree. which you wish you could cut down and burn.

bringo has taken the time to do all the work for you and apparently dredged up the direct numbers you need in order to get a pulse on the line. not bad at all. even though i think the name is a bit dorky.

washington mutual is a great example of the worst phone tree known to man.

the wamu challenge

pretend you have a washington mutual debit card and you just realized that it is missing. so you decide to go on their uber intuitive website to find out what to do. here is my challenge: if anyone can find the words lost and card next to each other anywhere on the site, i will paypal you $20.

trust me, you won’t succeed. you would figure if you just call the 800 number you could get in contact with someone to cancel it. wrong again. it not only isn’t an option as part of their tree but when you finally do get ahold of someone they throw you back into the system.

so then you figure, hell i will just call my branch. nope – it diverts you to the tree.

my only explanation is that it is by design. as a web developer i can’t imagine why they wouldn’t put [ lost your debit/credit card? click here! ] right on the effin’ home page?

my $20 is on the table. this situation recently happened to my father and he was so frustrated that he went into his local branch and asked the manager to try it out right in front of him. 20 mins later my dad told him that if he didn’t have a solution within the next week he would pull his account.

he was with wamu for at least 2 decades and he pulled everything.

i repeat, my $20 is on the table

great-site, hot-tip, the-man

← infomercials are the shit

the db clay studio in the beginning →

Solved it in 3 1/2 minutes by RubinRecommends.com

http://www.wamu.com/customer_service/questions_answers/faq/personal/debit_ma
stercard/general_questions/SC4T1Q13.htm

You should immediately report a lost or stolen debit card either at
your nearest Washington Mutual Financial Center or by calling customer
service at (800) 788-7000. You can order a replacement card at the
same time. (even found this 925-738-0264)

Rubin // July 16th, 2008 // 1:10 pm

I found a similar link while logged in to my business account.

Angie // July 16th, 2008 // 11:44 pm

A nice widget with this info or a link on the frontpage would do the trick. Designwise spoken, most financial institutes lack of communication when it comes to things lost/stolen/phished etc.

Most of the banners or quick deals are about:
“Get your deal right now, 2 cards for free!” etc. and that kind of crap. And the most hilarious thing is, a bank is making money out of a service-number (0900 ones) in europe.
So if the bank fails, you need to pay them to get it answered. You bring money to them and you need to pay them for knowledge back? What a system.

Joeri // July 17th, 2008 // 8:03 am

i paid rubin $10. half.

$10 for 2 beers.
-$10 for making me feel like a darsh-a-holic in 3.5 mins.

either way. fuck wamu.

mr.diggles // July 17th, 2008 // 8:12 pm

Hey!, Just call this number 1-210-489-7902 it’s WaMu’s direct line, just call and you don’t even have to press #1, great! isn’t?