Thursday 8 September 2016

What is the point of writing a letter

if you don't get an answer?
I don't mean sending an e-mail sort of letter. I mean an old fashioned snail mail type letter. I know the letters I sent arrived because I delivered them myself.
Of course this is the bank I am talking about. Should I be surprised? Probably not.
I thought the lack of response was bad enough but a friend of mine lost her husband a little over six weeks ago. She had to go and deal with some of his business at a bank. Now she doesn't bank there. 
Oh, she doesn't bank there? The officer dealing with the closure of the account was immediately on to that. They could offer her this...and that....and something else... and why didn't she...they would make an appointment for her to come in and talk to them about her finances. 
She let it all flow over her, even agreed to making the appointment. Then she went home and wrote a letter to the manager and said she thought that what they had done was "highly inappropriate". It is.
I suspect that the reason I haven't had a response from the bank the Senior Cat deals with is much the same. They know that they were about to do something inappropriate. 
What they don't know is that they are dealing with me. I do not take kindly to being told I "must" do things I know there is no compulsion to do. 
But there is something else that bothers me about what happened to my friend and the failure to respond to me. We wrote letters - and we didn't get a reply. That is simply rude.
I know people sometimes ignore e-mails. I don't blame them, especially when people keep sending silly things, or someone hasn't read the instructions properly, or it is inappropriate for other reasons. Occasionally, very occasionally, I will request a "read" response. If I do that it is  usually because I know the person at the other end will take it as meaning, "Just let me know you have seen this. There is no need to say anything." Once, in a long while, I want to make sure someone who might not want to respond at all has actually seen something. It will be a receipt of sorts. If they still don't read it then that is their problem, not mine. 
But snail mail letters usually attract attention. They usually receive a response.
I know damn well why the bank has not responded to me. When they do eventually do what I have asked them not to do then there will be rather more than a snail mail letter. There will be an irate Cat to deal with instead. 

I really don't recommend that.
 

3 comments:

Momkatz said...

I would not want to deal with an irate Cat who has flattened her whiskers and is showing her claws. It's sad that we all seem to spend so much time struggling with people who want us to do something we don't want to do!
Love from Sister Cat

Jodiebodie said...

Does the banking ombudsperson's office respond to physical letters?

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't want an angry cat anywhere near me!

Service now means you have to know what you want, and how to get it. I met a dumb blonde in a store a few days ago, you know the one in all the jokes. She had no idea of how to find out what I wanted to know. I walked out with my money in my bag, but wondering why she didn't get on the internet on the computer two steps away and get the answers for me. One of the products they sell is very closely related to computers, and that is what I wanted.