Dollar Bank and MasterCard Drop the ball big time

First … to consumers, this is a credit/debit card alert (and most likely you’ll hear it from us WAY before hearing it from Dollar Bank or Master Card): MasterCard caught a processor possibly fraudulently charging to customer accounts, so cards were shut off and/or canceled.

Now on to the rant.  After standing in a store having my card twice declined as a debit, and then declined as a credit, I called the number on the card to see what was going on.  They informed me there was a card security issues and my card was shut off and canceled. When I asked who was the “offender” I was told that MasterCard does not inform Dollar Bank.

Now, I have online banking with alerts set to go to email ….. never received anything and was told by customer service that only if I had happened to log on to http://www.dollarbank.com would I have seen an alert.   Now keep in mind we left PNC for multiple reasons, one being that we felt they used bailout money to drive National City down to acquire them – which in our eyes was illegal.

…but…

When something happens on your account with PNC and previously with National City, you knew via email immediately (or within minutes) what was going on.  Not specifics, mind you, but general info … ie. “your card was shut off due to security issues, call customer service for more info.”.  Neither National City dropped the ball on their customers by not informing them especially if they had elected to be informed with their account alerts via email.

So … basically still being clueless because I don’t know what vendor I am dealing with that was trying to post fraudulent charges to accounts associated with my bank, by no fault of my own after I get my new card I will be forced to link that card or use that card with a vendor that was known to process fraudulent charges.  The best security is to immediately inform and keep your customers informed.  Dollar Bank and MasterCard both dropped the ball on that by keeping their customers in the dark.

So, we elect to give a clueless trophy to Dollar Bank for being back around the early 90s in technology that keeps their customers in the dark, and to instantly going from what we thought was the better bank in Pittsburgh to what in our opinion is now close to being a joke.

We also give MasterCard a trophy for making sure their customers are in the dark so as the thieves of the world can take their pickings.

-SWB

PS – When we had National City / Visa combo as our banking … no issues.  Dollar Bank / MasterCard … issues.  BE AWARE.

Hearing Voices

In A quote (we cropped the it for our use) from WPXI onTwitter, the following was said:

“Monaca To Test Voice Warning System: Monaca residents will be hearing voices around noon…”

OK, ummmm ……..

Maybe Dr Phil can help?

…. oops, sorry – wrong network.

-SWB

The Weiner Effect – and the lacking of spines in the world

Well, this was a hard one (no pun intended ….. and if you thought it was, get your head out of the gutter!).  We had a difficult (better choice of word here) time figuring where to put this.  Should it be under Rants?  Should it be under Clueless Awards? Not sure …. hmmmm.  Finally we decided on “So Stupid it could happen”.

Are we going to get on Mr. Weiner (click here to read the related USA Today article if you are clueless on Mr. W) on his apparent bad choices in lack of appropriate coverage?  Nope …… got enough tabloids doing that (and they’re all thanking Anthony for providing the photos they don’t have to take hours photo-shopping).  So what are we going to do, you ask with a confused smirk on your face?

Get to the root cause, as SWB loves to do (we said we were going to clean up the blog a bit when Sophisticated Pittsburgh took it over, but we didn’t agree to look the other way when someone places a six-foot diameter lit up neon bulls eye on their own head).

The polititio’s (new word created by SWB this second … we’ll trade you for a BMW for the rights to the word once it gets popular), have been quiet around the world except for standard stuff … so we’ve been quiet. But …………. courtesy of Mr. Weiner (my wife giggles every time she’s hears his name …), we now have a reason to write.

Well, Mr. W (or whatever you are calling him now) made a mistake many are making.  That’s right, he’s human and made a mistake.  Unfortunately he didn’t have the common sense to realize that he’s under the view of a 3000 watt spot light at all times.  See …. we’re getting to a root cause of the problem, or at least a secondary root cause at this point … common sense.

Why is common sense only the secondary root cause to the problem of Mr. W having none of it to use while texting semi birthday suit pics on himself to someone other than his wife? Weight … lots of it.  The problem with weight is its controlled by gravity.  The only thing that keeps the weight of common sense from crashing to the ground and turning into a pool of single-celled useless sludge is a spine (of as us Americans like to call it … backbone).

A spine …. it’s that thing that keeps your body from collapsing to the ground.  Backbone … it’s that thing that keeps you life from crashing to the ground due to mistakes you make in life because they are corrected or contained by the common sense that the backbone holds up.

Where is one place we get that backbone?  School.  Yup. Early on in life many things started to build up our backbone, and one of then was our experiences in school. You made mistakes in school, whether it be to slander another and have to pay for it later.  You may have been made fun of and reacted in a bad way.  You may have done something inappropriate (which is the PC word for “you did something some parent of some kid didn’t like and complained about).  But …… you handled it, you learned from it, you build up a backbone from it, because those adults in charge around you guided you – but didn’t handle it for you.  You learned how to treat those around you with respect and courtesy and began to learn what was right to do and what was wrong to do by trial and error. That’s how a backbone gets built.  Nobody can build it for you … it has to be left to form by itself with guidance.  Forming a good solid backbone is not always meant to feel good.

So where is this going?

We may be wrong, but we’re going to say that Mr W is the product of one of those schools where students are meant to “feel good about themselves all the time” and every issue is handled by the adults in charge to make sure that the students know how to act appropriately and not make and other student not feel bad.  Yep … the “if Johnny goes home crying for one day, he’s going to be scared for life” attitude.

Great idea, but when a backbone is not allowed to develop because any learning via the normal “pain, hurt, and general unpleasentries of the world” is removed, a backbone will not be built, and if by chance it does get built, it will have so many holes in it the result will be eventual collapse. The collapse of a backbone leads to the definite collapse of a spine.

Where is this going? Well, if Mr. W had built up a better backbone early on in life, maybe he wouldn’t be bringing such shame to his family, spouse, political party, and adding to the shame of the country he is representing.

Our country a great one, not just because of the freedom, but because of the unique peoples it creates via the being the melting pot of the world. You get the development of top-notch technology, top-notch health care and more because of this.  Unfortunately many are beginning to see low-life politicians leading to the view of this country by others are a land now void of backbone … what people know and recognize as what built America, and one of the few things that can sustain it.

“So Stupid It Could Happen” is not the fact that Mr Weiner was dumb enough to do what he did, but the fact that people like him with a lacking of common sense to correct or contain the mistakes they make (in his case, the lack of ability to “Man Up” and deal with your mistakes before getting pushed into the corner and forced to do it).

Do we thinks that Mr. W is correct is apologizing and staying in his position so he can now try to build up a backbone?  Yes … second chances are necessary to build up character and even a backbone.  We’ll see where it goes.

Take a look at Mr. Weiner and you get an in your face welcome to the what is most likely the product of the now in fruition product of America’s new “feel good” education.

‘Nuff Said

-SWB