A series of unfortunate events

Alternate title: How to lose a customer in three easy steps.

First, I must state that my husband and I have been using the same bank, quite contentedly, for about eleven years now. Money went into our accounts and money came out of our accounts; it was all managed without incident and all was right with the world. Until this past weekend. We went out to lunch at the local Greek place near work on Friday afternoon. After we ate, my husband tried to pay for lunch and was told his debit card had been declined. We thought it was odd - especially since I was able to use my card from the same checking account with no problem - but figured maybe the strip on his card was going bad. He thought he just needed to request a replacement card at some point. So we went about our business. Sunday rolls around, and while my son was at church we used the time to run errands. At the grocery store, my husband's debit card was once again declined. That's when we knew something was not right. As soon as we got home my husband called the bank's customer service. The rep he got said that his card had been "frozen". Not the account itself - just his card. And she couldn't tell him how it had been authorized, why it had been done, or why no representative of the bank had contacted him about this action. She then proceeded to tell him that there was absolutely nothing she could do to help, and he would have to go into the nearest branch on Monday to try and resolve the problem. My husband was beyond frustrated at that point, and insisted on speaking to a supervisor. He was then put on hold. For thirty minutes. When the "supervisor" came on the line and asked "What seems to be the problem?", my *slightly* irate husband asked as calmly as possible "You tell me. I was on hold for half an hour, so was that not enough time for the rep I was speaking to before to relay the problem with my account to you?". He was promptly hung up on. So he called back. This time he got a much more helpful customer service rep, who transferred him to someone else. My husband happened to ask where this service rep was located (apparently he had a strong accent). It turns out that part of the customer service for our bank had been outsourced to Mexico. The issue with the card was resolved, and it was reactivated, although we never did get an answer about why it had been deactivated in the first place. By this point my husband had already made up his mind to change banks. So he made some calls and found a bank with some services he liked (and it is against their policies to outsource customer account services - they are all local), so we took a long lunch to take the steps to establish accounts with the new bank. The first thing we did was withdraw some money from one of the old accounts. And that is when the old bank put the final nail in the coffin. When we went into the old bank, my husband grabbed a bank withdrawl slip and requested enough money to set up the new accounts. First, there was only one teller on duty. During the lunch hour. After a few minutes a second teller comes on duty. The teller who helped us did not at any point ask to see id. Sooo...we could've been anyone, with some stranger's account number, making a withdrawl from an account that was not our own.

Later, my husband called the branch office manager to relay this. The branch manager seemed to think this wasn't as big of a deal than we did. So I expect he'll be equally nonchalant when we withdraw all of our money very shortly and give our business to a competitor. Right?

Our new bank seems to be the bees knees - good customer service, strict security measures.

And I'm watching Lost now, so do not disturb. Kthxbye.