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In the spirit of financial planning week, I’ve made some moves to increase automatic savings efforts into my son’s savings account.

To do so, I had to link my bank account to his which resulted in two small deposits for verification.  I received a WHOPPING $0.18.

I received the two small deposits, so clearly I did what was required to provide the necessary information to link my account including routing number and account number.  For some reason, when I went to verify the amounts, it showed my routing number as a single digit of “1″.  Routing numbers are ALWAYS 9 digits.  Clearly, the bank had a system error as I had already received the deposits.

So, I called in to Customer Service.  Instead of addressing the issue, the representative offered to “reset” my account.  Basically, he offered to send me more FREE money.  Now granted, it was less than $1.00, this was nearly at 5 p.m. Eastern Time.  Imagine how many people had called in before that with the same problem only for the representative to offer a band-aid solution.

This really pisses me off.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the world’s most wealthy person, so an extra $0.18 in the first place in an extra $0.18 to me, but if you FAIL to fix the problem and continue small deposits such as these, it can add up.  So, instead of accepting the offer to reset my account, I told the bank to fix the problem.

The rep stated that he hadn’t heard of any other incidents today.  Well, buddy, that’s because instead of FIXING THE PROBLEM, likely your colleagues have done the same thing as you!

As much as I would LOVE free money, it’s just not in my character.  My parents taught me to work to EARN it.  In addition, the company I currently work for taught me how to value our products and services much more than writing off seemingly small inconveniences such as these.  They do add up.

With that, it seems like that is what is wrong with businesses today and banks especially.  On the opposite end, Bank of America is QUICK to charge you a fee for anything, so while I appreciate my (other) bank’s effort to quickly resolve my problem, a quick resolution may not always be a permanent resolution.  There is a happy medium.  I consider what I’ve done a FAVOR to my (other) bank and the economy, especially in light of all of the banks that have failed to survive during these tumultuous times.

The moral of the story is, the next time you contact any company about an “issue” or fail to contact a company about an issue, consider who you’re really doing a favor.  If you do contact them, don’t just seek out a quick fix to your problem, but help yourself and others by helping them.  Be prepared to provide thorough details. If you fail to contact a company about an issue, assuming that it’s likely someone else has reported it, you could be wrong and cause yourself suffering in the process.

Feedback does not have to be negative.  Although, even negative feedback has helped companies grow.  If you don’t know, how will you fix it?

Your thoughts?