I made a phone call today to Bank of America customer service. As I’ve done every month, I mailed in two mortgage payments in the same envelope a little over a week ago. There were two different payment coupons with two different checks. I’ve never had a problem with this until now.

I checked my accounts online recently and noticed that one of the payments has posted, but the other has not. Usually both post on the same day since they are mailed together, so I was a little concerned.

Once I got someone on the phone, I was told that it’s really best to mail in the payments separately in two different envelopes due to their payment processing being “highly automated”. I wasn’t really aware (and don’t really believe) that the envelopes are opened by machines and completely processed automatically, but I could be wrong.

In order to resolve my concern, I was told that I should just put a stop payment on my check and send in another form of payment. I didn’t really like that idea since I’d have to pay a fee to stop payment on a check that I know they received. Why should I be penalized for their mistake?

After having this option repeated to me a number of times, I finally responded very clearly that I wasn’t happy with having to pay a fee to fix their error. I was finally put on hold for a minute so he could “see what he could do”.

After a while, he came back on the line and told me what he had done. Bank of America has a program called “Customer Wow” whereby they try to “wow” a customer who is unhappy with their experience. This is the insider verbiage that they use in the customer service department.

He submitted what’s called a “cus wow” for me, and upon approval they would send me out a $50 check. To tell you the truth I was actually quite surprised, if not “wowed”, by this resolution. Of course it is still pending approval, but I was told that it shouldn’t be a problem.

Hopefully everything will work out and I’ll receive this check after which I’ll have no problem issuing a stop payment and writing another check.

What’s important here is the fact that the customer service department is able to remedy a problem even when they say they can’t at first. Too often we give up when we here “No” the first time. Don’t be rude (no one will want to help you) but firmly express your concern and that you expect some sort of resolution that is equitable.

I’m not saying that you’ll always get your way, but if you’re not receiving the level of customer service that you’d expect, let them know. In the end, you’re the one who decides who you’d like to do business with.

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