Against the odds: Why customers often lose in battles with banks

Just reading RFD threads in PF over the last few years has proven that this is the case.

The same could be said about almost any large industry: telecom, government, etc.

Inertia is one of the great tools of any large organization to appear to be doing something they don't want to do while actually not doing it. It works for government and private industry.

"Of course we offer full redress to customers with legitimate complaints! All you have to do is fill out this 27 page form in triplicate and mail it in by registered mail along with all your original paperwork in 3 copies, then contact our complaint department on this phone line that always says "we're experiencing heavier call volumes than usual", then show up for your hearing scheduled at an arbitrary time during the workday 4 months from now, and if you get by that stage then you've completed step one - only 8 more to go."

A couple of times I've needed to get an inter-bank error corrected, and the process was usually fill out this form and then wait 4-6 weeks for the investigation. Then call and remind them, and call and remind them, and call and remind them... only to get the response that "the other bank says they don't know anything about it". And then start escalating. I always got it fixed in the end, but it usually took 3-4 months, and it's clear that the bank just wants you to drop the matter so they don't have to do anything.