CHASE: Considerably Hosed At Service End?

I bank with Chase.  Not by choice, but because they bought out Washington Mutual when it collapsed and thus they are both more convenient (in Seattle) than other banks and they still honor the minimal account fee agreements that WAMU had in place.  (But when they decide to starting adding fees back in, I might jump.)

Recently, they have been upgrading their ATMs to make them “deposit friendly”, which means that they can take checks in without an envelope, scan them, figure out the amount (if they can read the writing; they make you enter it if they can’t), present them for confirmation, and deposit right on the spot.  They can even take as many as 30 checks in a stack.  Pretty cool stuff.

So today, I had a check to deposit, but I needed to endorse it, so I went into the bank lobby.  (The pen at the desk by the ATM was busted.  Someone had pounded it point down and jammed the tip in.  Sigh.)  Since I was in the lobby, I took it to the teller.  (The one who sits behind four inches of bullet-proof plastic, in the downtown branch.)

You would think that if the ATM could process deposit checks this way, so could the teller.  Heck,you would think they would use the same technology: swipe my card, feed the check in, scan, display, confirm.  But nooooo!  The teller had to hand me a slip of paper and a pen, for me to fill out a deposit slip with my name, date, check info and amount, and account number (which I don’t have memorized, sorry, so I would then have to swipe my card and have the teller write the number for me).

Let’s review:

• Use ATM: takes about 30 seconds, no paper, no writing
• Use Teller: takes about 4 minutes, two people fill out 4-5 items on a piece of paper

Remember in the 1990s when the banks imposed teller fees, charging you to talk to a person so you would use the ATMs instead (and they could then lay off staff as no longer needed and thus cut a cost)?  They should have done it like this years ago!  Sure makes me want to avoid talking to a person.