Subpar Online Presence and Customer Service; Everything Else Is Ordinary: That's Amalgamated Bank
Written: Nov 11 '06 (Updated Nov 14 '06)
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Pros: a few no-fee cards
Cons: brief customer service hours and sub-par online presence
The Bottom Line: Not a card for people who want customer service and a modern on-line presence. Fees and other offerings are quite ordinary.
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| scmrak's Full Review: Amalgamated Bank |
When I was a kid, my family had credit at the little general store up the road. To suggest how long ago that was, my most likely charges were a nickel for a packet of baseball cards and (when I got old enough) three bucks worth of gas - about twelve gallons. Things have certainly changed... For several years, whenever I opened my mailbox, the credit card offers would spill out on the ground in a tidal wave of window envelopes. Know what? I shredded 'em all. I carry the same three credit cards I've carried for at least fifteen years (plus my current bank's Visa debit card), cards that are paid off in full every month.
Recently, though, I made a change: I asked the carrier to cancel my Amalgamated Bank¹ MasterCard. There are a couple of reasons why:
• We pay almost all of our bills from the on-line service of the bank where we carry our checking account. For some unknown reason, Amalgamated Bank often posts the payment late. Perhaps this is to generate income from people who wouldn't normally pay interest.
• Even though we have held this Gold MasterCard since the 1980s and have rarely made a late payment, Amalgamated Bank recently found it necessary to turn our account over to their collection department; allegedly for paying only forty dollars of a seventy-dollar total bill - not forty of a seventy-dollar minimum, forty of a seventy-dollar total. With friends like that, who needs enemas?
Now I know that my individual experiences are no predictor of what treatment another customer might receive. Here, however, are some other features of the Amalgamated Bank MasterCard that might give a potential customer pause:
• Late Fees: twenty-five dollars - this borders on ridiculous.
• Fee to accrue miles: the "Amalgamiles" program costs $29 per year; a feature that is free on many, many cards
• Cash Advance Fees: 2.5% of the advance ($2.50 minimum), and no grace period - pretty standard stuff, actually
• Annual Fees: Free for Gold and Standard cards, everything else has a fee of $50 for a secured card or $37-$45 for a "Plus" card - whatever that means
As one who never uses credit cards for cash advances and who flat-out refuses to pay annual fees, most of those fees are mere irritants to me (except perhaps the late fee). Where Amalgamated Bank truly comes up short is in customer service. Even before getting a dunning letter from the bank, I'd been planning to drop this card for two solid reasons:
• There is no human contact on the toll-free number during non-banking hours - evenings, weekends, and holidays there's nothing but an automated telephone system.
• "Online banking" for their credit card is well below industry standard. The only information available to cardholders is for the current billing period. One cannot perform historical research; one cannot even obtain the closing balance of the previous statement. Downloading the information to Quicken or MSMoney is completely out of the question. One cannot make an on-line payment, either.
In an era in which my other financial service providers offer all manner of historical and analytical tools in their web presence, Amalgamated Bank's on-line presence falls woefully short of the mark. Their customer service appears to be substandard as well, if only for its unavailability outside of nine-to-five hours. When I have reached them in the past, customer service has been professional and helpful - it's just that there's no one there outside of business hours.
For those reasons - and because there are many, many better alternatives, I do not recommend the Amalgamated Bank MasterCard.
¹ "Amalgamated Bank" Herein refers to Amalgamated Bank of Chicago, the company that issued my credit card. The bank's logo is the same as that shown above.
At 629 Words this review is certified as a lean-n-mean 5 review
Recommended:
No
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