call centre staff have no brains

Having just moved (again) to another (nicer!) apartment unit, I had to go through the update-new-address-with-all-the-various-banks-and-other-organisations routine all over again.

As I called up each bank (OCBC, UOB, Standard Chartered & Citibank), I thought I'd request to view my statements online and do away with receiving paper statements altogether since I use internet banking all the time anyway. And with the one or two transactions I do a year for each account, there is no need for me to keep receiving statements every month that show the same balance.

OCBC was the first bank I called and the call centre staff irritated the hell out of me. Firstly, I couldn't understand what he was saying half the time. He was muttering to himself at rocket speeds. Secondly, I find it totally retarded that I have to be transferred to another staff from another department and repeat the whole process just so that I can update a change in address for the different accounts held with the same bank. And finally, I was told, even if I can view statements online, I still MUST receive the paper statements. He emphasized the word MUST. He wasn't able to answer me when I asked the reason for this idiotic requirement but simply repeated that "You MUST....." sentence.

UOB was much better. They do offer the option of not receiving paper statements although I had to go through a long verification process and I had to send in an official written request. I accepted that all these were for security reasons. At least the staff took the trouble to explain the reasons behind. And the staff was way way way more polite than that OCBC guy.

Both Standard Chartered and Citibank allow internet banking customers to deselect the paper statements option with just a click on the mouse when customers log in to their internet banking accounts. There is also the added option of receiving your statements via email and/or receiving email alerts to access statements through the online banking account. This makes more sense right? I still cannot believe that I was told I MUST receive paper statements no matter what.

The lady I spoke to at Citibank was professional, spoke well, extremely polite and knew her stuff. And I felt I was finally speaking to a human being. And one with brains too, which seems to be quite a rare thing these days.