Memo from the front

Brandweek, Nov 6, 2000 by Karen Benezra

It's become painfully clear that marketers today are not thinking about their customers when they pretend to add value. OK, maybe that's an exaggeration that does not apply to the entire brandscape, but a recent week of personal misfortune opened my eyes. Consider the following a cautionary tale for those of you pondering the next service tweak.

Despite reports of widespread outbreaks, of general civility New York in 2000 is still rife with nefarious folks who will pick your pocket on the No. 6 downtown train headed to Grand Central Station.

It happened to me, a longtime West Sider, who admittedly was traveling outside my familiar territory (Lesson No. 1: Don't for a moment be fooled by a woman with a baby carriage acting as a decoy to thieves on an afternoon subway.) Twenty minutes later, I discovered my wallet was missing when I attempted to buy some birthday cards at a shop in the station. Sorry Sis, this year's wishes will now be "belated." Gripped by fear and praying I'd left it at my last appointment, I ran to a phone and punched in the number. No sign of a lost wallet there came the deflating reply.

Sprinting to the midtown office of a friend, I knew the race was on. Every minute it took me to cancel my credit cards meant more time for the thieves to do their damage. A call to American Express foiled any fraudulent activity on two cards, but I was too late on the Citibank Visa. According to a customer service rep, the thief had already purchased what I later discovered was roughly $100 worth of transit MetroCards--no doubt, stocking up before the Subway Series. (Lesson No. 2: If you sign up for extra credit-card protection, make sure to follow through and update all your card numbers so the bank can actually help in an emergency.)

That done, I let a wave of sadness rush in and settled for a few days of anguished wonder: Would the wallet (a black-leather Coach model) ever turn up? ("Get real. This is New York," sniffed the store clerk when I asked whether a wallet had been found.)

Four days later, my new Citibank ATM card arrived in the mail, which I immediately took to my home branch to activate. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that withdrawals from my bank account had been posted after the card had been canceled! Citibank, wanting to become more competitive with its goliath banking rivals, had replaced my "dumb" plastic ATM card with a MasterCard debit card a few weeks earlier. I hadn't requested the switch, nor had I signed up for the card via those endless pitches flooding my mailbox.

With my blood now boiling, I stopped a banking attendant in a bid for assistance, but was informed that "only the fraud department" could check on the problem. Sitting at a desk in an empty cubicle, I dialed the toll-free number, then waited on hold for 10 minutes to plead my case.

Citibank had initiated the ATM card switch for all its customers because it wanted to "account for a bigger share of our customer's spending" came the chirpy explanation. Of course, that meant the ATM plastic that was previously worthless to anyone who didn't know my secret PIN code had been converted to a "smart" debit card easily used to defraud me once it landed in the hands of an unauthorized user. In essence, the Citi that never sleeps made it easier for someone else to part with my money Outrageous, no?

With credit-card fraud costing $15 billion a year now--and projected to go higher via online transactions--couldn't Citi have weighed the meager gains of paying instantly for a few more groceries against the potential losses and come up with a smarter idea that still protects customers?

Surprisingly the wallet, sans cash, did show up. I've chalked up the loss, the feeling of personal invasion and the many hours spent replacing my ID cards to gritty life lessons. But the Citi has failed to safeguard its customers in this case--and I just don't see the value for them or for me.