Sunday, May 24, 2009

National Bank: where 'pick up' is a valid address

The last time I queued in the National Bank of Dominica to get a bank draft, I asked: can I do this online? Order a bank draft, I meant, not queue. The cashier said 'Of course!' so that's what I did earlier this week. Went online and ordered the draft, being sure of course to check the 'pick up' option for the delivery method.

So I go into the bank to pick up my draft. It can't be found. Did I specify to pick up the draft when I ordered it? 'Of course!', I replied, 'I don't even have the address of the recipient!' They'll call me, they said, when they found it. 'And what about the cash I also ordered online', I asked? More internal phone calls. Seemed it was available to pick up, but the person whom one picked it up from wasn't available. I left the bank empty-handed.

But I did get a phone call from the bank. The draft had been mailed. After telling them to cancel it, I checked my copy of the order for the draft. Not only was 'Pick Up' specified as the delivery method, but the mailing address was filled with 4 rows of 'Pick Up'...

So now I'm going to have to queue a second time for the draft (and cash). National Bank of Dominica, you get 5 out of 10 for your online banking system (changing the error messages from Spanish would help improve that score), and a big fat zero out of 10 for your human 'interface' with the online system.