It’s long overdue. Seems like a common sense thing but it’s different than the typical type of legislation so it seems unexpected.
My mom told me about her bank “it’s impossible to get anyone on the phone anymore” and I didn’t believe it. I tried myself and wow, she was right. The fraud department, sure . Just basic customer service, though, they’d take you in circles with their robot phone menu, make you repeatedly verify your information, then just hang up on you. Pretty wild that’s how a major bank can get away with treating their customers.
Major bank is probably the problem. I’ve never had issues contacting a live person at our credit union, nor with any customer service at all, from resolving card issues to working with us to make a loan doable.
Credit Unions are one of the easiest examples of how socialism works in the best interest of the general public. There is a reason that they provide great customer service, and it is because they are not run by malicious capitalists.
A credit union is a financial cooperative, owned and controlled by the people who use its services. Credit unions call their owners “members.” That means that all of the money they make goes back to you, the members. It’s your money to begin with, and it’s pooled with the resources of all other credit union members.
Credit unions don’t have any outside stockholders. As non-profit organizations, credit unions are exempt from certain tax requirements. All of the money that’s deposited in accounts, all of the interest collected on our loans, every dollar that comes into a credit union stays with the credit union. That money is used to keep loan rates low and savings rates of return high.
Crazy idea, but imagine if we took that idea and expanded it to other public services.
I know, madness. Never mind.
It is absolutely ridiculous that we have cooperatives in many sectors that have all shown to be effective and it is all overshadowed by shitty capitalists like Musk. Although I don’t exclusively shop at coops and employee owned businesses, the ones I do shop at have the best customer service and are not more expensive than comparable businesses.
Damn commies.
/s
Also typically more competition, there’s usually 2-3 I’ve been eligible for in most places I’ve lived (although as with most things, less the more rural the area is).
Same. I had terrible issues with BoA, Chase, and Capital One but since switching to a local credit union I’ve been really happy with my service.
I’d like to see the wording before forming an opinion. I think it’s an awesome idea on the face of it. However, I would hate for it to kill off the CLI button a lot of credit card companies have put out. That’s exactly the kind of thing a bad actor would put in to either kill it off or make it suck so that they could point and say “See, the Dems suck and hate you!”
CLI button?
Credit Limit Increase
It’s long overdue.
It’s not “business friendly” so it’ll be DOA in Congress.
-
Dems won’t fight for it, because there’s no donor money coming in as a reward for passage.
-
Republicans will fight it aggressively, because they’ve got an enormous financial incentive to be seen as on the side of these corrupt business interests.
-
State and municipal governments will claim they don’t have jurisdiction to set these rules locally, so we’ll never see a localized attempt to implement these rules and prove them out as useful.
-
Any compromise that does squeak through will die in the courts. Judges will throw up injunctions and gut the language, because they see a path forward in their careers by siding with big business.
-
Customers getting exploited by these laws will remain more fixated on immigration and foreign wars and abortion and national debts as hot-button issues, because the candidates in their districts simply won’t talk about this part of the platform.
-
YouTubers, AM Radio shock jocks, and other shill influencers will make up elaborate conspiracy theories about why the rule is bad, because that’s what they’re paid to tell people.
Its the same fucking game every time.
Pretty wild that’s how a major bank can get away with treating their customers.
None dare say the words “Break up the monopolies”
I was in the Investment Banking Industry during the 2008 Crash and its aftermath and paid a lot of attention to what was done in the places with the largest Financial Industry companies (which most definitely includes the US) and the Democrats (at a time Obama was POTUS) were almost as much to given large Financial Institutions whatever they wanted with no restructuring and no conditions, as the Republicans.
Further, remember how Hilary Clinton suffered when running against Trump because just before starting her campaign she was personally paid half a million dollars to go give a speech to a bunch of Goldman Sach’s types.
(Interestingly, after his unconditional rescue and support for the Finance Industry, Obama too made a lot of money giving speeches to these types).
Even more, remember that the 2008 Crash was the result of Bill Clinton repealing the Glass-Steagal that kept Investment Banking separate from Retail Banking (and the consolidation you can see in that chart would not have been possible without it, since all of those you see above joining are Investment Banks that merged or bough Retail Banks or are Retail Banks that opened Investment Banking divisions).
The Democrats might be less prone to Fascism (though Biden’s undying love and military support for Genocidal ethno-Fascists shows it’s hardly a line they won’t cross so long the Fascism happens abroad) and indulging in Ultra-Conservative Moral Proms, but very few of them are there representing “The People” rather than representing those who can afford to buy them with non-executive board memberships, gold-plated consulting positions and millionaire speech circuit gigs.
-
Having worked for a major bank before in one of their customer service departments, I would typically get the brunt of it from people who had to navigate that labyrinth, it was sometimes just as easy for workers to get lost on the inside as people on the outside. Sometimes I thought it was just all poorly planned out and not necessarily out of any ill intent, but other times it seems like the whole thing was just designed that way to get people to quit trying. Sometimes we would go through with the customers through the whole dumb system ourselves just to make sure they were getting to the right place, but still run into all sorts of road blocks or find out later from the account notes that wherever we got them to still couldn’t help them. And it doesn’t help when customer service reps are being graded by their time on the phone, staying on a call longer than whatever the designated cycle time counts against customer service reps, so the motivation is to get people off your phone as quickly as possible.
Here’s a tip: you can go to a branch and have someone there dial the number for you. They have a special line for some problems with lower wait times. Plus, if they have to dial the normal line they know that exact buttons to press to get a person.
Bonus tip: you can use that visit to withdraw all your money and close your accounts, then take it to a credit union.
Telecommunications industry reform plz
I feel like the list of which lawmakers vote for and against this should be headline news but I won’t hold my breath.
There would be nothing to print since many of these laws are squashed with the automatic filibuster threat and the general US system built on obstruction so they never make it to a vote.
The majority of laws that end up getting passed are either because horrible people are angry enough to stick with it or it sounds like a positive thing, but is bad enough to get the horrible votes (Patriot Act).
Gyms are ridiculous with their requirements to quit. When my Dad was alive, I needed to cancel his gym membership because he could barely walk and it just wasn’t necessary anymore. They required that he show up in person to cancel the membership. So I had to get my Dad out there in a wheelchair or walker or whatever we were using at the time just to cancel something that we should’ve been able to cancel over the phone.
Lucky you got to it while he was still alive. They probably would have still enforced this policy if he had died and not yet canceled.
I can’t think of anything that would get them to end the policy faster than the manager having to deal with someone dragging a corpse in there.
Stop muddling fucking unrelated laws together in the same bill!!! This is why good shit doesn’t get passed.
These aren’t actually bills. The press release in question is documenting Rules that the mentioned agencies are proposing adding to the CFR, which is controlled by the executive branch (although Congress does have some oversight/ability to veto that has grown recently due to Conservatives wanting to curtail the ability of a Democratic executive to improve people’s lives without negotiating through a Republican controlled filibuster) and separate from the US that is the set of laws controlled by the legislative branch. And these are separate rules within the CFR, probably not related to each other at all except for both being mentioned in the same press release.
Probably someone in the Whitehouse tried to cancel a gym membership and couldn’t.
Good. Ok with them getting pissed off at the bullshit us commeners deal with. Do cable company cancelations next.
They should standardize a system where your card issuer can send a simple API call to cancel a subscription.
Log into your bank/card’s website, see a list of your subscriptions, click cancel on one and it tells the company to stop charging you instantly.
I feel like with all the money our card issuers are making, they could very easily make better quality-of-life features, but they choose not to.
Of course, that feature would reduce their total fees, but even a feature like getting a digital copy of your receipt sent along with your payment would be amazing. Not by email, but just on your card statement.
One time I had to cancel my gym membership because I was moving. I called and called. It took days for the gym to pick up. Literally could not get a hold of anyone. Until finally I got someone a week later on the phone which I was told I would have to come into the gym to cancel. So I show up at the gym at some later date. And wait… And wait… Like, it was a scheduled appointment. It wasn’t a surprise. And I was on my lunch break from work so I’m rushing as well. Finally after waiting for my entire lunch break in front of the gym office. A guy comes in and is like “oh you hear to cancel?” No shit bro. I’m the guy who called you to talk to you about the cancellation. FINALLY I was able to cancel my membership. Turns out the person that managed the place died of COVID. So nobody was actually managing the gym.
Fuck gym memberships. I’m still a little mad about it. Why the hell do you have to jump through so many god damn hoops to cancel a service? It took me 3 weeks to cancel the service.
What I want to see them tackle is automatic renewals for subscriptions. It should be the law that when you sign up for a subscription service, you have to opt in if you want automatic renewal. What every service does is make you sign up for automatic renewal, and then you have to remember to cancel. And even though most sites will extend your subscription to the date you’ve paid thru so you can go cancel right away, that’s never stated clearly on their site.
I found out the hard way that Hulu ends your subscription immediately.
Is that even legal in the States? Or do you at least get a partial refund for the remainder of the month?
That’s not even true, it shows clearly on their website that is not the case
https://help.hulu.com/article/hulu-cancel-hulu-subscription
Nevermind all that, where do I get me Crews Card™?
There are stickers you can order
Once again, the United States catching up to the modern developed world.
Yes, I’m half giving shit but also I’m saying I’m proud of you lot! Keep voting well and keep speaking up.
That’s not true at all. Try getting a refund in Europe during the summer. Or Christmas. Or on the weekend. Or any random saint’s holiday. Or any time the person you need to talk to decides to take a 2 week vacation.
If you think there’s a country where refunds are easy, name it.
By law I am entitled to refund anything within 2 weeks. If they take longer it’s their problem, not yours.
Except you still don’t have the money
Also that dude didn’t even name the country. It doesn’t even make sense. How would businesses even make money if you could just get a refund on anything in 2 weeks.
He’s not refunding an apple in 2 weeks. What about a sandwich? Some used socks? Underwear? You could just never pay for anything, returning it twice a month if you wanted to.
What’s strange is that the abuse has been ongoing for more than a decade and the US this kind of measure is still in the “we’re proposing to do this” stage.
Now do the USPS
Sadly the White House has little control over the USPS.
I’m getting a glide failed up grab this image but wanna see the picture ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
