I’m an independent contractor. This means that I have my own retirement program. I only make contributions when my accountant tells me to do so, and this means that I’m always opening new CD’s every April right around tax time. Because the bank is always offering different rates for different lengths of time, this means that by now all of my retirement CD’s are out of sync and none of them come up for renewal at the same time.

Two months ago my bank statement showed that I had a CD coming up for renewal and I went into my bank to handle this personally, face to face, with a real human on the mistaken belief that this would somehow make the task easier. So the branch vice president sent me over to one of the new business professional banking employees who would handle my CD roll over. This young banking professional explained at great length the superiority of his education to that of the ordinary tellers, and then tried to look up my accounts on his computer. Now I could go on at some length here explaining what he did wrong, but suffice it to say that his advanced education clearly had nothing to do with driving a computer terminal, as he managed to lose one of my accounts. I knew that I had three retirement CD’s at the bank, but he could only find two. I had wanted to merge two of the accounts, but we couldn’t do this because he couldn’t find them all in the computer. So we rolled over the one account that he could find, I wrote everything down to figure out the problem later, and went home. There in the mailbox was a statement from the bank listing the missing account. What I learned from this exchange was not to trust this guy.

Then, last month my manual records told me that I had another CD to renew. This was the one that the guy at the bank had previously lost in his computer. Again the branch vice president took me over the new business professional banking department, which handles CD renewals. I specifically asked for anyone other than the guy from last time and I was ushered over to the desk of a different associate. This woman was very polite, very personable, and very self-confident. She went to great pains to explain, several times, that she was not a mere clerk, but rather a consummate banking professional with an MBA. When I asked what she’d studied for her MBA she mumbled something about advanced marketing theory, and then tried to sell me a combination of long term life insurance coupled with stock options. Or maybe she was trying to pitch pork belly futures, I don’t quite remember. She then explained that what she really loved was large scale international business loans and that after she’d finished doing her time at this branch she would try and get a transfer to Paris, because that’s the center of European multinational lending and besides Paris is the city of lights. Anyway, she didn’t really know how to work her computer either, and she could only find two of the three accounts. Although just to make it more interesting she found two different accounts from the ones located by the first professional. What I learned from this exchange was not to trust anyone in the new business professional banking department.

Last week the third CD came up for renewal and I again went to visit my bank. This time when the branch vice president attempted to escort me over to the new business professional banking department I refused to go. She was a bit surprised by this, and informed me that the regular clerks were not trained to perform a task as complex as renewing a CD. When I asked her if the clerks were capable of closing the account because I wouldn’t return to the new business professional banking department, which I felt was staffed with incompetents, she offered to handle the task herself. Now the vice president had a radically different technique for CD renewal than that utilized by other employees. She picked up the phone and verbally instructed someone in Texas what to do with the account. Then instead of giving me any official paperwork, she produced a hand written document on a Post-It note. When I looked at her with what I’m sure was a certain amount of trepidation she explained that she didn’t know how to roll over a CD, but she had called Retirement Administration down in Austin and they had handled the whole thing for her. I began to suspect that no one in my branch could be trusted to handle my CD’s.

Yesterday, a piece of official paperwork arrived, from Texas, confirming the renewal of my third CD. It also listed all of CD’s in my retirement program. Unfortunately, it only listed the first and third CD. The second CD wasn’t there. So, having learned my lesson from the branch vice president, I phoned up the folks in Austin Texas. Eventually I managed to muscle my way past the multilingual, elevator music, computerized customer service phone management system to talk with a real human. After I had provided my name, address, and several extra secret passwords we were then able to discuss my retirement plan.

First of all, let it be said that I am old enough to refer to bank accounts as bank accounts. This is apparently no longer the common parlance. True banking professionals refer to bank accounts as products, or as plans. Except they really don’t. They seem to be talking about your account, but they’re really talking about something else entirely, and don’t think that it’s necessary to explain the difference to their customers. Consequently I argued with the Texan professional for approximately 20 minutes about how many accounts I actually had before realizing that she was really using an umbrella grouping for the accounts. So if you have a checking account and a savings account, that’s two different accounts. It’s also two different plans. However, if you have two checking accounts and a savings account, that’s three accounts, but it’s still only two plans, because although there are two different checking accounts they are still both checking accounts. I’m not sure why bankers now want to count by plans/products instead of accounts. To me it seems as if a two-car family now would have only one car, because both vehicles were Japanese, four door imports. Just don’t get it.

Anyway, it turns out that my three accounts were spread out over two different plans. Consequently, when I received a statement for one plan it wouldn’t include any information on accounts from the other plan. When I asked Suzie in Texas what possible reason could I have to set up my accounts that way she replied, “I dunno. You checked the box on the form for two separate plans. So we did what you asked.??? When I pointed out that I hadn’t filled out the paperwork, that each time the process had been handled by one of the ‘new business professional banking’ employees at my branch she replied, “Well of course! They’re all MBA’s in sales and marketing. They don’t know anything about the retirement plans. They’re only allowed to submit work orders to us here in Texas, and then we do the real work of administering the accounts. And if you have them check the box for setting up multiple plans then what can we do except exactly what you asked for???? When I asked why she would follow without question the instructions of a customer who would be expected to have no banking experience what so ever, and yet have no faith in the instructions of banking professionals at one of her branch organizations she replied that this was a matter about branch operations, and since she was an employee of the Retirement Administration Division she wouldn’t be allowed to comment. She then asked if I wanted all of my accounts merged into one plan. I said yes and then heard half a dozen key clicks from her keyboard, after which she announced that I would receive official confirmation of the change through the mail in the next two to three business days.

I wonder if privatization of Social Security Insurance is going to be this easy?

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