Categories: Articles

Seth Godin Is Right – Bank Of Montreal Does Not Care

I recently read Seth Godin‘s Blog postings, We Don’t Have To Care, Part I and We Don’t Have To Care, Part II. Seth Godin is always right. I hate that about him 😉 He thankfully never had to deal with the Bank Of Montreal.
Here’s my Bank Of Montreal hell-story. Let me preface this with some history:
1. I have been with the Bank Of Montreal since I was a kid – well over fifteen years.
2. I have never, in my life, had insufficient funds or NSF as the Bank Of Montreal calls it.
3. I only recently got a CIBC credit card and I do not have a bank account with CIBC.
It’s Saturday morning (pre 8:00 am). I casually open up my CIBC credit card bill and see that my previous month had never been paid. This is strange. As soon as I get a bill, I hop online and pay it by assigning the same due date as indicated on the bill. Always.
I go to Bank Of Montreal’s online home. I check my balance and see that I had more than enough money in my account and that the day prior to my CIBC due date, I had deposited some cheques as well.
I call the Bank Of Montreal’s customer service line. After waiting over twenty minutes (again, it’s around 7:00 am on a Saturday) I speak to a rep who informs me that when I opened my account at the Bank Of Montreal I was told that any money deposited over $1000 into an ATM would be held for one business day. OK. I am supposed to remember that from when I was a kid? No one can notify me (how about an email) that one of my bill payments would not go through? The rep is useless and painfully uncaring.
I call CIBC and they reverse the interest charge, thank me for being a customer and explain to me how it will be corrected on my bill. The rep even goes on to explain that based on my history, etc… it would be their pleasure to make the adjustment.
I am happy. For about two seconds. As the CIBC rep is being so helpful, I go back online to the Bank Of Montreal to pay CIBC. Because I am still on tilt about my own bank’s inability to help me, I inadvertently click the wrong company – so I basically pay the phone company what I owe CIBC. No big deal, I’ll just change that. Wrong. You can’t do that online.
So, I get back on the phone with the Bank Of Montreal. The new rep also can’t do anything. The money is out of my Bank Of Montreal account. Even though he sees that I have more than enough money, that all I did was click on the wrong account… there is nothing he can do and that it may take 10-14 business days to correct.
Can the Bank Of Montreal’s service be THAT bad? I only have a credit card with CIBC and they are not even my bank but they can help. I have been with the Bank Of Montreal for my whole life – and in good standing – and there is nothing they can do. Please.
Seth Godin is right: They don’t care. They don’t have to.
I’m curious to see what my Bank Of Montreal Branch Manager does come Monday.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.