A Squeaking-Wheel Strategy You Can Take to the Bank

Curt Feese of Covina expresses a common complaint when he writes of “the inordinate amount of nearly everyone’s lives spent on the phone trying to get in touch with a ‘real human being.’

“The number of times I’ve been on hold while a recording keeps telling me that help is just moments away . . . are too numerous to mention,” Feese observed in an e-mail.

“All the time these businesses are showing their total lack of concern about their customers, their recorded messages are saying, ‘We’re sorry we can’t answer your call right now. Your call is important to us.’

“Of course, if my call was important to them, they would hire enough representatives to answer the phones without waits of half an hour or more.”

Most of us have experienced such waits. But this column is primarily about what can be accomplished when you do get a human being on the line.

In these cases, customer service reps at giant credit card companies come on right away, and when you complain about an increase in your interest rate, or a special finance charge, there is a quick agreement to lower your rate or reverse the charge, and sometimes, to send you a rebate.

It’s happened to me twice in the last year or so--once with my First Card now issued by Bank One, and once with the MasterCard issued by Wells Fargo. (I hasten to add that I didn’t tell either bank I was with The Times before getting this excellent treatment.)

And I’ve heard from a number of readers in recent weeks who relate similar experiences.

I ran into a man at a dinner party who mentioned he had not received a lower rate just once, but twice. First, he complained, and got a lower rate. Then he complained again and got a still lower one.

He said the customer rep told him both times that had he not made the precise demand, the credit card rep would not have told him that it was possible to ask for and receive a lower rate.

Last week, a fellow guest at a bed and breakfast where I was staying, Barry Noss of Oakland, told me of a related experience with First Card.

Noss said he had been two days late with a large payment on his card, and then got a special finance charge of $160.73.

Noss called customer service.

“At some point, I got frustrated,” he recalled. “After 10 minutes of bantering back and forth with the rep, I said I believed she should agree to reverse the charge, and she said immediately, ‘Yes, we’ll reverse it for you.’

“And I said, ‘Well, why didn’t you suggest this?’

“She said, ‘We’re not allowed to suggest it. The customer has to suggest it.’ ”

What exactly, I thought, is going on here?

Well, here, it seems, the polite credit card customers who accept new finance charges without complaint end up paying more, perhaps indefinitely, while those of us who do call and explicitly demand it, may get our charges reversed with ease.

I called Bank One to see if it would explain its policies.

Stan Lata, the first spokesman I reached, said that when such requests are made, First Card reps “examine the customer’s payment history, and if this is good, they give their assent.”

Noss only had that one late payment, and I had none.

Lata referred me to a company PR expert on such issues, George McCane.

“Each situation is different,” he stated, at first.

But just how many First Card holders are there, I asked.

“Fifty-eight million,” he said.

Well, then, the company must have some general policies that apply, I observed.

“Certainly, we have policies we follow, but they are proprietary [secret for competitive reasons],” McCane said.

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Could it be that First Card had increased my interest rate in the first place because I had only slowly diminished my balances over a five-year period?

“The answer to that is no,” McCane said. Later, he said my rate had been raised when First Chicago, my original card issuer, was merged into Bank One, in accord with Bank One rates.

Still, neither McCane, Wells Fargo nor Bank of America spokespersons were very explicit on when the banks say yes to a lower rate after levying a higher one.

The concessions can be sizable. In my case, First Card dropped a 19.8% interest rate, and reduced the overall rate to 12.7%, under the 14.7% I had been paying. And it rebated one entire month’s interest charge of $118.

But, McCane hinted, I might have done even better. The lowest First Card rate is presently 9.99%, he said. (Maybe I should have asked twice.)

“We try to be responsive to our customers,” he said. “We review accounts when they call us, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we make adjustments. Sometimes we do, but it’s not automatic.”

At Bank of America, spokesman Cary Walker said, “We listen to our customers and they can certainly exercise the option of discussing with us any repricing.

“But it would be a mistake to believe that we agree to every request. The fact is, we look at them all on a case-by-case basis.”

At Wells Fargo, spokeswoman Kathleen Shilkret said not only one’s payment history is considered, but the reps look at credit reports to gauge the cardmember’s “leverage” with all their cards.

Funny, it didn’t seem when I called that they would have had time to look at my credit report before saying with such alacrity that they would roll back my rates.

This seems, if I may say so, like something of a turkey shoot. But the lesson through all of this is: Don’t suffer higher rates in silence. You might as well call them and ask for a lower one.

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Ken Reich can be contacted with your accounts of true consumer adventures at (213) 237-7060 or by e-mail at: ken.reich@latimes.com