popplers

Today's public service announcement

Three things that I hate about Juniper Bank and my TiVo MasterCard:

• Phone tree rigamarole. I realize that this is pretty much par for the course when dealing with a faceless corporation, but why do I have to enter in my personal info, then provide that same info again when I actually talk to a customer rep?

  Side note: Find-A-Human has a great cheat sheet for cutting through the annoying bramble of IVR (interactive voice response) choices for banks, cell phone companies, computer tech support lines, etc. (Alas, no entry for Juniper Bank.)

• I am used to dealing with customer support. There is nothing wrong with calling it that. When I dial a toll-free number and am told to "please hold" because a relationship manager will be right with me, I want to throw up. I want the person to solve my problem, not offer me marital counseling or dating advice.

• Evil and exorbitant $39 late fee: I missed the payment deadline by 90 minutes, but my relationship manager (and her equally helpful supervisor) refused to waive the fee. Apparently Juniper had waived the fee once already (when I missed it by less than a day), so they won't ever do it again. The reps don't have a vested interest in keeping me as a customer, so it's no surprise that I didn't having any luck convincing them to set things right.

In a nutshell: if you're thinking about getting a credit card from Juniper Bank, don't. Go to your local credit union instead; you'll be glad you did.