BPI: Third World Banking in All Its Glory

Let me know if this happens in other banks.

Yesterday at the Shell gas station along SLEX, my mom took out some money from a Bank of the Philippine Islands Express Teller (a BPI ATM). With no warning, as she was transacting, the machine decided to just shut down.

I’m surprised the screen didn’t flash: “Welcome back to the stone age.”

She immediately called the customer hotline and confirmed it: BPI debited that account the same amount of money she was in the process of withdrawing but never received (which is not a small amount). Dad dialled the 89100 hotline and based on the answers he was offered and the way they were delivered, he was only talking to a call center parrot who, paradoxically, can do nothing for a very long time. The bottom line: Since it’s a holiday (bank closed during Saturdays and Sundays), there is nobody to troubleshoot the problem. The best they can do is return the money probably on Tuesday. Dad called his banker and heard the same thing: No one is there to fix the problem. Saturday, Sunday, Monday & Tuesday.. that’s 4 days. BPI is saying that they will hold a preferred client’s money for 4 days due to an error with one of their machines that are clearly only as smart and reliable as their operators.

In the first place, this should never happen. EVER. Machines that dispense money shouldn’t just die in the middle of a transaction! BPI’s sole purpose in existing is to provide service they are being paid for. The least they could do is operate functioning machines or not at all. This has never happened to us when we were in the Netherlands (ABN AMRO) but it has happened twice here (BPI).

The whole system oozes of ineptitude or evil intent (depends on how you look at it).

The facts:
• BPI has machine tellers.
• BPI knows the machines do malfunction.
• So, they’re either stupid or they are doing this on purpose to be able to keep people’s money longer.

• BPI operates the machine tellers during weekends.
• BPI cannot fix the problems they know can happen during weekends.
• So they’re either stupid or again, they’re doing it on purpose to save on costs or something else.

• BPI employs a call center to receive client reports during weekends.
• BPI does not employ troubleshooters who can actually do something about the problems during weekends.
• Again they’re either stupid or they really mean to scrimp on the service they should be providing their paying clients.

BPI (as all banks) are unforgiving when it comes to paying debts. If a client pays even just a second later than the cut-off, they are charged with interest. So what right does BPI have to keep clients from withdrawing their money? It’s BPI’s fault that the machine decided to die on the client. Clients should be able to charge BPI interest, too.

What my mother did last Saturday was to just withdraw from another bank account. But what about the other people who don’t have another bank account? What if they were withdrawing their last money? BPI will have a family go hungry for 4 days? What if it was an emergency or a life-and-death situation and money is needed to buy medicine or pay off a ransom? BPI will let those people die?

What I recommend BPI to do is update their low tech teller machines and make them safer and more reliable for clients. Next, provide troubleshooters who can fix the problem during ALL days they operate the BPI Express Tellers. And this call center fad doesn’t make BPI cool, it’s ridiculous and insulting, even. They have parrots to take client’s calls and read out standard answers to but can’t do anything to fix the problem. Clients do not call to talk to some parrot who doesn’t care, they call to have their problems fixed: that is the whole point. If they have a call center to entertain calls, they must have people to do something about the call. Also, BPI has different classes for different types of clients, so, BPI should make sure there is a significant difference in the kind of service between a normal client and a preferred client. There should be at least that on top of getting a gold card instead of a blue card otherwise, it’s all just useless.

Seriously, shut down the entire sector they have in charge of the machine design and operation. The machine does not work fine. They should hire people who can see the problems that the current people they employ do not see.. ..they might as well hire me.

Really makes you shake your head and admit: “Only in the third world..” It’s mental.