I am very angry, and I believe justifiably so. I wish to make a n effective presentation of Schwab’s problem which turned into my damnation for over two weeks. Yet even by writing and mailing a letter, I have no confidence a human being will ever read it. Robotics and computer algorithms may have more to do to with understanding what Schwab has put us through.
I will briefly explain the heart of the problem:
First, I am an elderly medically handicapped Schwab Bank customer and While Schwab staff at times seem helpful, they too may be ham strung by the same computer or robotic (AI?) limitations that have been defeating me and my wife for over two weeks.
Here goes. I have good reason to think I had correct user ID and freshly minted new password for access to my Schwab Bank Account records. This is because a week and a half earlier I lost my Schwab ATM card. It wasn’t stolen. When the
Schwab staffer asked where I used it last. I was able to clearly explain where and when I used it last, how much I took out with it. And What I said matched her records. It took longer than expected to arrive by so called overnight mail but by that time I had only about $1 in Thai baht in my pocket. I use the ATM card for where cash works best. cash for such as taxies, subway, restaurants. Like a credit card, if you lose an ATM card you do about the same to replace it. you must use internet to tell your bank that you got it, and go through an easy-enough process to give yourself a new password with the ATM card. We did this. My wife and I tried our new password for the AEW received ATM card, and put the computer away. My wife and I store user IDs and passwords as bookmarks. This seems to work well.
This is where the excitement began for me. The first time I tried to see my bank account with the new password, instead I saw on my screen is what I have started (to call only jokingly Schwab’s screen of death.)
I believe that is also where it mentions getting a six-digit code for the first time. But my wife and I have seen this screen at least a dozen times. This is a screen which tells me
I MUST confirm my identity, just as I did the day before. There were three boxes for me to pick from.
Box 1) ask Schwab to send something to me, presumably the six digit code
Box 2) for Schwab to call me at my phone number which was correct for me based on their records and Box 3) which is for me to call Schwab just as we did the previous day to sign in to activate the ATM card
So, We used step one & two and sat watching the phone
And what happened?
Nothing. No message, no call – and no six digit code.
This is when we moved on to step three. calling Schwab again like we did successfully the previous day. There was always an answer but there was often a wait on hold – and remember, I was calling long distance at my expense from Thailand. Ultimately there was comfort in getting help from a human – or maybe not.
Every time every we entered what we knew to be the correct password which we received the day before (as described) we always – always – received the same Schwab screen telling me that I must confirm my identify by using the three choices in the boxes. The best we could consider was that we were stuck in a dead end computer loop.
This was the beginning of many calls in this way over several days. I guessed there were at least 6, or 7 times we made in this way but, I asked my wife’s memory of how many calls like that we had made over several days. She is the one with the PhD and two master’s degrees, so when I ask her that kind of question, I include her answer here. Her guess was that we went through that vicious cycle at least 10 and maybe 12 times. Wow
With most of these calls we were teased with success. At least once we were given a six-digit code, at least twice we were given a temporary password which allowed us to get ourselves our own new password, and we did. Success was staring us in the face.
No matter what we did, what progress we seemed to have made, how many personal questions I had answered to prove I was me, I was always – always returned to the screen demanding that I confirm my identity again and again. I never did see my bank account.
I asked a couple of times if these calls were being recorded and was told they were. Well damn it I want someone with real authority to listen to what I went through.
The Schwab person I would get on the phone asked questions. For example, I answered “what is my mother’s maiden name”? numerous times, but the questions became more difficult, for example, what is the “approximate amount of my bank account or what is the last deposit”? Wow! Knowing that kind of thing is exactly why I wanted access to my bank account using my new password I received by this same process a couple of days earlier. You can imagine how exasperating this could be. I And I did raise my voice, but I did not yell.
But Once I was so angry when trying to learn my bank balance via the phone that I yelled a famous swear word and slammed the phone down. There were other times, out of frustration. that I did raise my voice. In my last attempt to call Schwab the man accused me of yelling at him and I was very clear in reply that I was raising my voice because he was forcing me to follow only his script I was unable to get a word in edgewise.
So, back to the computer problem:
Those repeated dead-end calls took place over several days. I know we thought we finally had a password that would surely work. Considering the time zone difference, we wanted to see if my pension check was in the bank before stepping up to the ATM machine to get some cash. And you probably guessed it yourself, our computer screen went straight to the screen requiring me to identify myself – again and again and again. Even after doing all this, I never was able to see my bank account.
Remember, my only goal was to find out my current bank balance before I get to my next hospital visit , in Bangkok, where I will be paying for what might be an unexpectedly big bill.
If after several days of trying you would think I could at least know my Schwab Bank account, I might choose to pay cash at the hospital, – but that is denied me – by Schwab’s oppressive identification procedure.
————————————————————————————————————Maybe it was Schwab’s process that was failing me?
Yet I am wondering if the problem is about AI Robots?
Frankly I am suspicious if I had ever spoke to a human. I spoke to at least 8 and maybe even 12 people – or did I?
What about AI Robots?
Every one of the people came to the phone by saying exactly the same things, first a normal -kind of first name, and second, followed by a city name, almost always a mid-size city in main land America. But with each call I always seemed get a different person, and always claiming to be in a different city but all with very good speaking quality. Of course, Schwab can be selective on hiring good speakers. The phone is answered 24 hours a day and so I asked one of those who answered if she worked at one of Schwab’s many brokage offices. She said, “no it was a phone bank.” If so that implies there are a lot phone-banks.
Okay, but I had just gone through a vicious cycle of at least 8 and maybe over a dozen calls and it seemed like every time the person? who answered identified with a standard kind of first name and as being in a different city (why?). Were “they” Robots each programmed to say a different city. Maybe that is how maintenance staff know which circuit board to replace. Example, Dallas needs to be replaced. – I remember some of the cities: the biggest was Dalles, but also Denver, Indianapolis, Phoenix, Columbus, Milwaukee, and several more but never the same.
Let me add some more here for your consideration if you have never wondered if someone you talk to on the phone might really be a Robat.
First, a simple example. I ordered a Pizza last night. We live in Surin, Thailand. We are on a modest vacation in Pattaya Thailand, a seven-hour bus ride away from home. I have a four-digit phone code to use when I order Pizza in Surin and the same code works the same way in Pattaya and in Bangkok and Surin. Do you think you are always are talking to the same person who takes your order and may even seem to know your address where you live? Wrong. Somewhere there is a very big and smart digital PBX which sends your Pizza order close to where you plan to eat it automatically based on your previous orders. They “know” you better than you realize!
To have and AI robots to routinely pass as people with a wide range of voices, and gender only require APS which are now available. A large Pizza chain may only have one central phone system answering their same three-digit code for the entire county. But surely you are familiar with APs available for your own computer. I assure you large EPBX venders, for a price, can make “everyone” who answers your phones can sound like Juili Andrews singing a few words from Sound of Music, if that that is what you want. If she agrees, again for a price, Julie can hold a short conversation with you if there is reason for that, and you may never realize it isn’t really her. a company like a very large bank/stock broker has the resources/ connections to develop a very professionally script for an AI Robat To do almost anything it is expected to do to identify a bank account owner. over the telephone.
May the Robot’s instruction (let’s algorithm tells that if a telephone calls is initiated in Thailand, just as an example) maybe extra effort is required deny access ti that kind of caller.
But who am I? I am that elderly 76 year old man newly invalid who cannot get access to my Schwab Bank Acct. And I am angry about it.
But I am also retired from the U.S. Government, first at GSA’s FTS (Federal Telecommunication System, then as reginal manager of a four-state area in what was then known as the fourth largest long-distance telephone network in the world.
Next, I moved over to The Department of State which needed phone guys during transition from Analog AT&T to Digital PBXs. I served twice as IMO (Information Manage Officer at a smallish embassy. I was the guy who got up on the roof to move our satellite dishes to new satellites. I was the only one there qualified to install classified telephones. My office held the skiff for transmission of all classified documents. Excuse me for saying this, but although now retired, I have some qualification to smell out a Robat. I was one of a group who meet with Secretary of of State Collen Powell once a week over telecom issues.
DAMM IT I AM STILL ME. AT LEAST CUT THIS CRAP And LET ME KNOW HOW MUCH I MONEY HAVE IN MY BANK ACCT. !!!!!!!!!
Remember Another clue that you might be talking to a Robat is that they will likely want to stick to their tight script based on what you tell a Robat that what you want to know.
I only mention this so we can all anticipate our futures. In Thailand where, I live, my favorite TV station is MONO 29 and they just “hired” a new announcer. She is quite beautiful in a normal announcer short of way. You may wonder why I am saying this here. Franky, I did not at first notice signs along the side of the side of the TV screen. and I bet a lot of people did not notice the signs that tell us that she is an AI announcer, a full size Robot to tell us some aspect of Thai daily news. I would love to have some stats about how many people never even noticed that the attractive woman speaking was a Robot. I didn’t notice, until my wife pointed this out to me.
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SPECIAL NOTE. At a time when this frustration was at its strongest, I sat down to write this letter (in my Pattaya hotel) I was only a few paragraphs in when I suddenly got dizzy and fell back on the bed. My rest was short and my wife came back with a taxi to go the bus station to go to Bangkok. I had an appointment with a stint expert at 9:30 am the next morning in The main BGH headquarters in Bangkok.But instead I threw up in the Pattaya bus parking lot and passed out. People carefully laid me on the ground. My wife called the BGH Ambulance. And I spent two days in the Pattaya branch of the very special Bangkok General Hospital (BGH) for observation.
More than once during period when I was repeatly denied access to my bank account, I asked more than once if my phone calls were being recorded and they said Yes. So, GOOD! If Schwab pays attention to this letter, and takes the effort to gather those tapes to hear what I have been going through. – Again GOOD.
Maybe I will be satisfied with a good, believable, even teckie oriented explanation of why for several days I was denied access to even know my Schwab bank balance? And this was especially stressful because there was a continual understanding that it was up to me to prove who I am. I seemed to being doing the doing the best I could under the process provided. Except that whatever my wife and I did our part, the same screen of death came up offering the three choices in boxes for me to prove who I am, and that happened over and over.
If you found this interesting and have any concern for the elderly or physically handicap
or frankly you are just a prankster and enjoy a good prank
HERE IS WHAT I SUGGEST.
First, write / share where very you can to pass. this long article to others wherever you can. And to anyone you suspect will be interested.
Always stand up tall up for those of us who are likely on our last trips.
If you just want to have some reasonably innocent fun call Charles Schwab Bank (only the bank) and maybe say you are interested in a new account. What do they say? How do they say it? Do you suspect they are Robots? Ask if he/ she is a Robot. Take notes. Report back on line to us all. And Have fun. Do not get carried away with this but I suggest about 100,000 calls may make a point in my behalf in exchange for my anguish over this period of my life. But don’t worry. If all those people I met in line are AI Robots. They won’t feel a thing.
