Ya know…
What do you think would happen if I just decided that I didn’t want to take care of business? For instance, how about if I didn’t show up for a concert? Or if I blew off going to a gig to accompany a student and left him hanging with nothing? I’d never get away with it, that’s what. Yet, people apparently do just that on a regular basis.
I trusted one “professional” person to make sure the escrow account on my mortgage is overfunded (and of course, I pay extra to make it so), and for the second straight tax billing period, I look at my statement to see huge late fees because I didn’t have a sufficient balance to make my escrow payment. So I call them. AGAIN. I say, politely, “Um, remember the last two times we dealt with this? Could you check your records and see where I paid extra so this would be taken care of?”
Then I get the “Oh, yes. I see that here. Well, we have to charge the penalty this time, but we’ll be sure to adjust it for next time.” The double-talk, the end-runs around me, the quoting of rules and guidelines that make no sense: they love to lay it on in hopes that if they baffle you with enough BS, you’ll just say OK and go away. That’s about when I lost it last night. Dragging home at 9 p.m. after a decidedly less-than-stellar rehearsal which followed a day full of bad news on one front or another, only to find this familiar friend staring me in the face — it was about all I could take. Mama Fink went on the warpath. And I have the 3.5 hours of sleep to show for it.
The absolute bottom line is this: they don’t listen. You can explain your issue to them as if they were toddlers, after which they puke out hollow epithets like, “Yes, I’ll notate that in your account,” and “It’s all taken care of!” — then they forget they ever heard of you.
Someday, I am going to just let stuff like this go. Meh, it’s just inefficient people. No biggy…
Welp, today is not that day. BOOT to the head.
I have learned to deal with things like this this way:
I ask them for their name (spell that, please?) and employee I.D. number. Then I tell them “I’m writing this down in case I need to get in touch with you again about this issue later on.” Now I have ammo to blow someone’s backside out of the water if I need to. Then I start with ‘This is the *second, third etc* time I’ve called about this issue and I’m not a happy camper.’ Now they know you’re not happy and you have their name. Lots of incentive to get it right on their end.
Charge you ‘this time’??? Did you tell them ‘No, you said that LAST time when I spoke with you about this issue.’ ?
Customer service these days is a rarity, especially with so much work being contracted out overseas to countries where they just don’t care. Try being courteous at first, but keep that big stick handy…
PK, loaded for bear….
Definitely, g/f. I said, “But I don’t want to pay the fee THIS time,” after which the guy said it was all going to work out between this time and next, and the fee would be backed out. Pay this now, then we’ll credit it back, blah blah…by that point, for good or ill, I’d stopped listening.
I swear they are trained like magicians. The old adage goes, “a magician’s most valuable skills are diversion and timing.” These CS droids attempt to divert your attention away from the fact you were overcharged, making promises about future paybacks. Then, when you’re at your most angry, they reassure you, telling you that by the next billing period, it’ll all be taken care of.
IF that’s the case, that’s fine. I’m not expecting everyone to be perfect all the time. But two tax billings in a row? Someone’s got their feet up on the desk. Or their head up their…
I feel your ire!!
Have you ever thought about NOT doing escrow? I did that with my old house, starting after I got a bill at the end of the year for like $1800. Seems when we closed on the house, the escrow company who handled the closing did the calculations based on the tax rate that the senior citizen former owner was paying – and not what I’d be paying as a 40-something.
So a year or so later, I re-financed & chose to pay my own taxes. Found out what my total tax bil would be and what they WOULD have charged me for the escrow portion of my mortgage. Set up a separate savings account & then had 1/12th of the house taxes (plus a little extra just to be safe) automatically put into that savings account every payday. Then come Jan 20th, I’d just waltz down to my county govt. office with tax bill in one hand & cashier’s check in the other… BINGO.
The company that services your mortgage should not have a problem with you doing this. What they will do is use a company like First American Tax Service to monitor all of the various taxes/taxing jurisdictions to make sure that the taxes get paid on time. (The bank or mortgage holder is probably using FA to service your loan anyway – mortgage holder pays FA, then FA pays all your taxing authorities).
Just a thought!!
(one of my first big corporate training gigs was for Transamerica’s Real Estate Tax Service – same sort of thing like FA) 
In another life, I didn’t do escrow either, and it was fine, most of the time. LOL Being in my early 20s and a homeowner for the first time, and not understanding how things worked, I was flipped out when I got the first tax bill. HA! When we refinanced a couple of years later, we made sure that escrow was included. It’s just better for ding-dongs like me.
Truthfully though, you’re in the corporate world so you understand. Isn’t it all about getting and then retaining client business? For instinks: I went to Chase Bank (where I have my business checking) and opened a savings account the other day. As I sat in the guy’s office doing the paperwork, the Thriller mentioned the fact about how he wasn’t happy with Chase’s fees on his own checking as compared to his business checking with Bank of America.
Well, the guy immediately said, “We want ALL your business. I am going to fix it so you’ll have zero fees.”
Isn’t that the way businesses should run? I dunno…maybe mortgage companies are different. Just do your dang JOB!!!