Credit Card Activation is Fun

A little off topic here, folks. I should be writing about running, or perhaps the trials of stay-at-home fatherdom, but I have a small pet peeve to air.

You know how your bank sends you a new credit card shortly before your old one expires? Well, assuming they still want you as a customer, they do. Anyway, I seem to recall activating new cards via an automated telephone system in the past. I was perfectly happy with this system. I’d call, enter the required information, and the friendly recorded voice (let’s call her Brenda) would tell me I was all finished. In more recent times, I’ve noticed that Brenda started trying to sell me things like super anti-criminal protection or just-in-case-you-die insurance. A little annoying, but I figured out I could just hang up on her because my card was already activated.

Then I got a Discover Card. I hung up on Brenda, and a little while later got a letter in the mail talking about some Discover Card protection plan I had signed up for. The rep I spoke to about it swore that they could not authorize such a service without my express approval. Remembering that Brenda always reminds me my phone call may be recorded for quality assurance, I said, “Hey, why don’t you just check the recording?” Well, apparently they don’t record EVERY call. Um, yeah.

So my new Bank of America card arrived today, and I dutifully called as instructed on the little peel-off strip. I enter the numbers, wait patiently for my confirmation, and what’s this? “Please hold,” says Brenda, “while we transfer you to a customer service representative.” I must have entered something incorrectly. Wrong. Banks must have figured out I was hanging up on poor Brenda, so they sicced a live person on me! Whatever happened to good old automation? Too many comedians picking on complicated phone systems? Sure, if I want to discuss a problem with a live person, spending five minutes wading through a series of button-oriented questions is not my idea of a good time. But come on! Now I have to sit on hold just so my bank has the opportunity to convince me I’m about to die?

I really miss Brenda.