Don't Let Wachovia Walk All Ovah Yah

It's not me, Wachovia. It's you. We're done. As the great philosopher Popeye once said, "That's all I can stanz, an' I can't stanz no more."

If we're being completely honest, I haven't been happy ever since you replaced my beloved SouthTrust. However, I was too lazy to go through the hassle of bailing on this relationship.

Our troubles began a few months ago when I re-ordered checks. After a week and a half, they still hadn't arrived in my mailbox. Calling to check on the status, I was told that they had, in fact, been delivered to my address. My college address. My address eight years ago. My address four addresses ago. You did not really seem to share my concern that you had just mailed an entire box of blank checks with my name on them to God only knows who, now living in that apartment. As a result, I had to cancel my account and start a new one from scratch.

Then, you backed out of your initial promise of FREE overdraft protection of transferring money from my savings account to my checking account on the very frequent, errrrr.....very rare occasion that I ran my checking account dry. You now charge $35 a pop.

And now we come to today. While balancing my checkbook, I noticed I had misplaced a couple debit card receipts. No big deal. I would just call your 1-800-automated system and get my correct balance. And that's where my misadventures began.

First of all, you answered in Spanish, not English. I know I live in Hoover, but still.

The, you don't want me to punch in my account number into the telephone; instead, you prompt me to say it out loud. Even though I am alone in my house, I feel like an absolute idiot. Upon saying my account number aloud to no one in particular and getting logged in, our conversation went something like this:

Me: Checking Account

You: Would You Like To Check On An Existing Account?

Me: Yes, Current Account

You: Would You Like The Current Interest Rates?

Me: No, Recent Checking Account Transactions, Please (I actually said please. To a computer!)

You: Would You Like To Transfer Accounts?

Me: $%@#$^#%^#

Wachovia, you are the telephone equivalent of a Choose Your Own Adventure Book. One where there's no possible happy ending. You then made me do the International Sign of Really Pissed Off and press "0" over and over again in hopes of reaching an actual human being. Instead, I got a gentle guitar melody with a voiceover:

"Thank you for calling Wachovia, ranked #1 six years running in overall customer satisfaction. Your call is very important to us. Please stay on the line and a customer service representative will be with you shortly "

That made me feel somewhat better. Until you repeated yourself 23 times over 15 minutes. I think you really should switch things up to something like this:

Voiceover #5: Still with us? FANTASTIC! A customer service rep will be with you soon.

Voiceover #11: Customer Service Rep #389 just went to the bathroom. As soon as he gets back, you're next!

Voiceover #17: Okay look, here's the deal. That Voted #1 In Customer Satisfaction is Complete Bull. You know we suck. And we know we suck. Let's just agree on that and go from there. Goodbye.

And so that's it, Wachovia, we're done. I'm not sure where I'm going next. I would say your arch enemy Regions, but I've yet to figure our what green bicycles have to do with banking.