Bank must meet customers’ special needs
Kathryn Woodcock likes to reserve her own airline flights on the Internet. While booking a complex itinerary this week, she learned that her credit card had been declined.
“I knew I had bags of credit left, since I never carry a balance,” says Woodcock, an associate professor of ergonomics at Ryerson University’s school of occupational and public health.
She uses a TD Travel Infinite Visa as her sole credit card. She went online to pay her next credit card bill early and in full, but had the same result.
Credit card issuers can decline a purchase if they detect an unusual pattern of spending. Their next step is to call the cardholder to see if the transactions were authorized.
But Woodcock can’t be reached by phone. She is deaf and prefers to use email, text messages and social media to communicate.
“My phone number only has text messaging,” she says.
“Voice is blocked because it’s always a wrong number.
“The bank knows I am deaf and has the capability to email me. I also have secure messaging at TD (through online banking), but I didn’t find any secure message for me.”
The result: She had tickets to Tokyo, on to Singapore and home from Milan. But she had no way to get from Singapore to Milan — and the airline fare she wanted to buy was sold out.
Woodcock emailed me with questions:
Did credit card issuers have to ensure equal access for deaf customers when a suspected fraud occurred?
Should she file a human rights complaint?
Would she be reimbursed for costs arising from her failed airline booking? And what about the hotel rooms she wasn’t able to book, as well? Crystal Jongeward, a TD spokeswoman, sprang into action after receiving my email at 8 a.m., May 2. She answered before 8.30, saying her care team would reach out to the customer by email. By 10 a.m., Woodcock hadn’t received a response and felt she couldn’t wait any longer. “I went to a branch and spent 90 minutes at a branch with a financial adviser who handled the phone calls,” she told me. She found out that her TD customer profile showed a fake phone number (555-0000), which was used because a phone number was a mandatory field in the information system. It also showed her email address. “I understand they don’t want to discuss secure information by email,” she said. “But an email saying, ‘Regarding your Visa, please see a branch,’ wouldn’t reveal my account number or my location.” Woodcock has no use for an older method that allowed deaf people to make phone calls using a teletypewriter (or TTY), in which a conversation is typed rather than spoken. She hasn’t owned one for 10 years.
Bank fell short in alerting customer with accessibility needs of potential fraud
“In my experience, no one uses TTY phones any more. Deaf people use email, text and social media. Even the organization established to promote adoption of TTYs no longer does this,” she says. “If businesses listened to deaf customers and employees instead of obsolete service agency websites, they would know this.” She was still negotiating with the bank about compensation Friday, but had been promised coverage for her losses.
She also wanted to see better ways of emergency communication with deaf customers, such as secure text.
Making banking accessible to customers’ diverse needs is a priority, Jongeward responded.
“This was an unusual situation where our procedure for notifying this customer of suspected fraud on her credit card fell short of her accessibility needs.”
The bank was already exploring new options for alerting customers to potential debt and credit card fraud, she said, and would use what it learned from Woodcock’s experience.
Do you have concerns about the way businesses respond to customers with special needs? I’ll explore these issues in a future column. Ellen Roseman writes about personal finance and consumer issues. You can reach her at eroseman@thestar.ca. Her new book, Fight Back, is available at bookstores, online and at StarStore.ca.